Hunkered down and sorted through all the rest of the sound files I hadn’t listened to. These were three different years and there were more years in the resources but I decided not to get them all. There is an advantage with keeping the sound files and any files for that matter at a low quantity. It will save memory space. So I need to also learn how to take advantage of all the sounds I have. Reusing them without making it obvious.
While sorting the sounds I went and fixed, replaced, improved, etc. the sounds in the game. From the dashes, to the hits, the steps, you name it. I wanted the inspectable items to have different sounds depending on the type of object they are. I won’t have too many sounds to select from but it was important for me to have a sound that was the sound of pages being flipped through. I found one of a nice ceramic object being picked up as well. Lots of random sounds inside which was why I had to listen to them all because I didn’t know what I would need until I heard it.
About two thousand sound files later I had them all listened to. I will definitely go back often if there is something specific I am looking for. Searching is easy enough.
I replaced the sound of one of the abilities with this really eerie noise, and that’s when I really started to notice that a lot of the physic objects made tons of noise when you first load it. Some of them would drop or roll slightly and you could hear it from far away. I first tried to fix this by placing them flat, I even made it so that I knew which specific objects were making the sound. It didn’t help. I found that their sounds had no attenuation or at least it was too large. So I put a proper one on it so you would have to be a bit close so you can hear it knock into things.
I greatly improved the sounds and visual effects of the physics objects. I put logic that made it spawn a particle effect such as dirt to really show that it has impact. It looks really good because it really adds to the weight of the object. Previously it would only make sound with no visible effect on the world. But random dirt does so much to convince the eyes that something is happening.
Also for the menus the sound for the pressing and the hovering were the same, so they would overlap a lot or play twice. So I wanted to fix this somehow. What worked was adding a new sound for hovering. So it would play a different sound and the menu navigation is more pleasing thanks to this.
Updated all sounds of the item inspects to match the type of object they are, books, paper, metal, pots, etc. And added new sounds such as to the bell when it is not usable. The sound when the player died was too busy. I had too many sounds overlapping in an attempt to make it sound interesting. Instead I simplified as I should always do and made it two sounds that overlapped each other with nice synchronization.
Lastly I added a heartbeat sound for when the health of the player is low. This will help add pressure to the player when they are about to die. I have taken inspiration from a lot of games that add heartbeat sounds on low health or tense situations. It does change the mood quite a bit. I tested it against the boss and I did feel more tense as I was about to die.
Tomorrow I will finally be adding the power selection as I have been talking about for awhile. This will be a lengthy process and will be difficult because I’m going to have to fix a lot of the current logic that I have. And I will have to make sure I am thinking ahead so I can make sure everything I put is prepared for anything else I add.
GoldenGratus Games 