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[Canned Turkey]

I'm currently working on a game (link in sig), and I can't decide when to start making/implementing sounds and music into my game. I'm currently in alpha stage, but i'm polishing as I go along, and I think audio is a part of that. In the long run, is it easier to start that now, or should I just wait till the game is finished first?

[rj]

whenever you feel like it

you're going to be refining the audio anyway

[Uykered]

Uptwo you, most of the time I add it in near the end since audio is not usually design related.

[s0]

yeah, pretty much just add sound whenever. you should implement the code for it as early as you can tho.

[ThemsAllTook]

In my most recent game project, I made the decision that placeholder audio was every bit as important as placeholder graphics. sfxr is great for making beeps and bloops without much effort. Audio is a massive and sometimes underestimated part of game feel, so I think it deserves attention as early as possible in the development process. Unique sound effects for as many actions in the game as possible helps bring your world to life, and leaving it for later risks not giving it the attention it deserves.

[Ammypendent]

For most conventional games, audio is more or less 1/3 of the player's experience. It can set the atmosphere baseline of your game which you can build many of the juicy details on. By ignoring audio you might find yourself in a position where you trying to find something to "fit" in your game instead of being an integral part.

In other words, go forth doing audio while you are figuring other things out.

[Canned Turkey]

Thanks for the replies, I think I'll wait a tad longer, so I can focus on sound by itself.

[Sik]

For most conventional games, audio is more or less 1/3 of the player's experience. It can set the atmosphere baseline of your game which you can build many of the juicy details on. By ignoring audio you might find yourself in a position where you trying to find something to "fit" in your game instead of being an integral part.

In other words, go forth doing audio while you are figuring other things out.

Music can be nearly all of the experience actually. A few days ago I got music for one of the levels in my game and when I tried it suddenly it felt like I was playing a whole new level, despite the fact the layout hadn't changed in months (possibly a year - yeah I've been slow...). That's how much sound can affect the game.

Although to be fair there's a serious catch-22 with the music. Generally designing levels with the music is a good idea because it gives you a better idea of how it'll feel and you'll design the level accordingly. But the musician needs to know how the level will be before making any music. In other words, you're in a chicken and egg situation until either the designer or the musician comes up with an idea separately and that's used as a baseline to move forward.

[Conker534]

in witch princess i regretted not including audio right away

i really recommend making audio just as important as everything else

[Labbed]

In my opinion, sound should be added as soon as possible. If you for instance implement an enemy type that shoots bullets, and you test the gameplay without sound you might find the bullets hard to detect and think you made it too hard and thus you might decide to make them easier to dodge or something dumb like that.
You wont get the true experience of gameplay without sound.

[Sik]

Well, playing without sound is a good way to test if the game is playable to deaf players, so it's still nice to account for that.

[Uykered]

If you spend too much time on audio and graphics then you're not going to be iterating/prototyping as efficiently as possible.

[rj]

audio, graphics, and prototyping are all crucial parts of the experience (hell, audio and graphics might be more crucial overall) so i think saying that is a little silly

iterate as much as need be, but if you've got something good and you know it (and you're working on a large project) there's absolutely no harm in working on polish; even the smallest feedback things can improve how a game feels 150%.

[ThemsAllTook]

If you spend too much time on audio and graphics then you're not going to be iterating/prototyping as efficiently as possible.

That's why I suggested sfxr for placeholder sound effects. If you can put a quad on the screen as a placeholder sprite, you can put a sine wave as a placeholder sound. Just make sure there's something there.

[baconman]

Sound effects is a good thing, but BGMs are pretty big, and up your compile/reload time drastically. I'd hold off on BGM as long as possible, maybe play something external while you're testing. But yeah, knowing what the game plays like with the audiable cues is pretty important, too. I'd say just after getting to a playable state, start popping in the SFX.

[s0]

huh? you don't usually compile music files and theyre not that big either. we're talking about a handful of megabytes max unless your soundtrack is in an uncompressed audio format and is like 40+ minutes long and you're loading all of it into RAM at startup (which you shouldn't do anyway).

[DavidCaruso]

I try to add audio as soon as it's required. If I don't already have a sound effect prepared then I either make one immediately or put in a placeholder (but not a shitty placeholder, maybe just a sound ripped from another game). Same with graphics. Also my game has like two full soundtracks' worth of music composed for it over time, compared with one and a half working levels, so that might indicate some of my biases here lol.

If you spend too much time on audio and graphics then you're not going to be iterating/prototyping as efficiently as possible.

This is entirely true, but designing levels feels so much more motivating when you already have some musical/GFX stuff in place. Personally I hate the whole "silent prototype with rectangles" thing, it just feels depressing and empty. So I try to get any necessary GFX/sound in to some degree as soon as I can before proceeding further, even though it slows development down.

[bitserum]

...but designing levels feels so much more motivating when you already have some musical/GFX stuff in place. Personally I hate the whole "silent prototype with rectangles" thing, it just feels depressing and empty. So I try to get any necessary GFX/sound in to some degree as soon as I can before proceeding further, even though it slows development down.

I'm with this more or less.
I focus only on important audio cues early on. Everything else, that's just for polish/atmosphere can wait for a later stage... Unless I'm tired of working on other areas.

It really depends on what sort of game you're making. I find that audio and graphics are integral parts of design with games that are more focused on story weaving and atmosphere.

[godzekesatan]

depends:

I have a background in music/sound, so I use audio from the very start to tune the game feel (movement/pace/flow). The longest I've waited to introduce sound to game was about 2 or 3 weeks. I had a pretty cool looking prototype with great feeling movement but essentially not goals/challenge. As soon as I put sound into the game, all of that stuff kind of fell into place.

[Netsu]

Definitely add audio placeholders as early as possible. Prototyping without any sound is almost like prototyping without any graphics. Just as you need graphic placeholders (even rectangles or whatever) you need sound to have a general idea of what the game will play like. Being able to hear attacks, abilities, damage etc. is very important to gameplay.

On the other hand I very often got cought up in searching for the 'perfect placeholder', which is slowing me down greatly. You just need to take the first sound you can find that is roughly what you need. After a few games you should have a healthy repository of placeholder sounds for every occasion.