Sound Effects

tim-cain ux-design sound-design audio game-design event-systems

Abstract

Problem: Sound effects in games are often treated as an afterthought, added late in development — but how important are they really, and when should they be used?

Approach: Tim Cain draws on decades of RPG development experience and memorable moments from games like EverQuest to explain why sound effects matter and where they have the most impact.

Findings: Sound effects bypass higher-level thinking and go directly to the brain's limbic system, making them uniquely powerful for grabbing attention and creating emotional responses. They should be planned early, integrated via event systems, and applied strategically to UI interactions, passive skills, unique items, and weapons.

Key insight: Don't wait until the last minute to add sound effects — bring your audio team in early and have programmers build event systems ahead of time, or your game's audio will feel generic and forgettable.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sy6sKoccVBg

Why Sound Effects Matter

Sound effects are incredibly attention-grabbing because they go directly into the brain's limbic system, bypassing higher-level thinking. This means sounds can draw the player's attention even when they're focused on something else entirely. Like music, sound effects create emotional responses — they make the player feel something.

Tim draws a humorous parallel with smell, which also bypasses higher cognition, but firmly argues against smell in games: "I don't want to smell the apocalypse. I don't want to smell sewers and dungeons. I certainly don't want to smell dead things."

The EverQuest Level-Up Sound

Tim vividly remembers the EverQuest level-up sound — a loud, unmistakable "dong." Leveling up restored all your health, which was significant because you were usually gaining XP from combat. On multiple occasions, Tim was about to die, killed something, leveled up, heard the dong, and watched his health bar refill — saving his character. At least once, it didn't matter: he took two health bars' worth of damage and died anyway. The sound was deliberately loud and triumphant because leveling up in EverQuest was a huge event.

When to Use Sound Effects

Tim recommends picking a few key moments in your game that you want the player to notice and giving them a special, punchy sound effect. He identifies several high-impact categories:

UI Interactions

The most frequent use case. When a player presses a button, opens a menu, or interacts with any interface element, sound feedback is essential. Tim notes that once button-click sounds are added during development, the UI suddenly "feels better" even though nothing else changed. Games without UI sounds feel hollow compared to those that have them.

Active and Passive Skills

Active skills (shooting, stabbing) are obvious candidates for sound effects. But passive skills are where sound really pays off. When a character automatically spots a trap, for example, a distinctive sound effect serves as the player's reward — their skill fired without them choosing to use it, so the sound is how they know it happened. It grabs attention, tells them to stop moving, and makes the passive ability feel satisfying.

Items and Weapons

Item use should have sound effects, especially for unique, powerful, or rare items. Good animations and models are important, but adding a great sound effect "takes it to the next level."

Weapons in particular need an enormous number of sound effects. Tim lists just some from the top of his head:

  • Wielding and unwielding
  • Swinging or firing
  • Hitting a target
  • Critically hitting
  • Missing
  • Running out of ammo or charges
  • Reloading
  • Dropping below a damage/durability threshold

That last one is particularly important — if the player misses a small icon indicating their weapon is damaged, they'll enter the next combat at a disadvantage and potentially die. A sound effect ensures they notice.

Sound Effects and Event Systems

Tim emphasizes that most audio happens in response to events. Combat systems already generate events for hits, misses, reactions, and blood splatters — the audio system should be listening to those same events. Some events will be audio-specific (like footsteps), but many will overlap with existing gameplay events.

He recommends that programmers build out the event system early and create events for everything audio will need — potentially 50, 100, or even 200+ events. If this work is left until audio joins the team, programmers will be massively overwhelmed with requests.

Style Depends on Your Game

Tim declines to prescribe a specific style for sound effects, noting it depends entirely on the game's art style and tone. Questions to consider:

  • Realistic or stylized?
  • Cartoony or grounded?
  • Funny or serious?
  • Reserved or over-the-top?

The EverQuest level-up sound was deliberately over-the-top because the event it represented was monumental. Your sound design choices should reflect what matters in your game.

Don't Wait Until the Last Minute

Tim's biggest recommendation: bring your audio team in as early as possible. On games where sound effects were added late, nobody ever comments on the audio — it's just "there." Early integration produces noticeably better results.

This means two things need to happen early:

  1. Audio team members should join the team as soon as scheduling and budget allow
  2. Programmers should build the event system and create audio-relevant events well before the audio team needs them

Waiting until the end creates a bottleneck where the audio department suddenly needs hundreds of events that don't exist yet, overwhelming the programming team.

References