The Sound of Games

I spent a good chunk of time listening to various interpretations of death screams and sword clashes in my hunt for sound effects. As with anything “free,” the quality varies. Samples range from fairly professional to obvious recordings of other sound effects.

Sound is a highly subjective medium. It often requires a visual context in order for a group of people to associate the sound with the same source. Even when accompanied by descriptive text, there were some sounds that didn’t reflect what I expected to hear.

This led me to a minor epiphany. As I browsed through the file libraries at Flashkit.com and Soundsnap.com, I used the titles and descriptions of the files to screen for likely candidates and set an expectation for what I was going to hear. However, not only did some of the sounds fail to meet the expectation, but I failed to find any files labeled “sword hits energy shield” or “giant vines writhing.” It’s more likely that I’ll have to “listen outside the box” and find something that, when coupled with the visual context, will create an authentic sensory experience.

Unfortunately, this also means I need to widen my search. I have no doubt I could burn several days scouring the web for sound fx. Google produces no shortage of possible sources.