I’ve been thinking about what game sound design should actually look like if I were to work on it.

Up to now, my personal work has been mainly focused on Foley and sound design for film and video. But game audio feels fundamentally different from film audio. If you simply drag sound files into the engine, the result often feels like the audio was added in post—detached from gameplay, not interacting with mechanics, not participating in the narrative, not affecting game feel. It just tells you “there is a sound here,” much like early beta versions of Minecraft.

In film sound design, the progression of sound is relatively linear: everything follows a timeline.

I think I’m currently stuck on the question of what kind of sound design can be considered truly integrated into the game experience.

That said, considering the use of a bitcrusher, perhaps what Erik wants isn’t a fully realistic soundscape. However, if the art direction ultimately moves away from a pixel-art style (since Yansong is considering 3D models with a 2.5D fixed camera, and it’s hard to predict the final visual outcome), a bitcrusher could end up feeling very out of place. This is something I’ll need to discuss with the TA.

I’ve also been thinking that if this is a third-person game with a fixed top-down camera, adding a large amount of close-range character detail sounds (such as cloth movement or small bodily motions) would pull the listener’s focus back toward the character’s body. This would reduce environmental depth and make the space sound “flat”and overly intimate, potentially causing confusion in spatial perception.

For this reason, I personally think that in this scenario, environmental audio should take priority over character-generated sounds.

Although this issue isn’t critical at the moment, I’ve briefly thought about some potential problems that might arise in sound design. This is more of a quick brainstorm than a finalized conclusion.

Overly loud or overly bright sound effects

Pushing every sound effect to maximum volume, with excessive high frequencies, can make the mix feel harsh and disconnected. It’s important to leave proper headroom for each sound effect and apply appropriate high-frequency attenuation.

Using only primary sound effects without supporting layers

For example, when a character lands after a jump, using only the “impact” sound without a subtle “falling air” or motion sound can make the action feel thin and overly “skin-tight” to the animation.

Lack of differentiation between environments

Using the same reverb or ambient noise for forests, deserts, and indoor spaces removes environmental identity from the sound. Without scene-specific acoustic characteristics, sound effects tend to feel pasted onto the visuals rather than integrated.

After implementation, try turning off the visuals and listening to the audio alone.

If the player can clearly tell what the character is doing, what environment they are in, and what the emotional tone is, then the sound design is successfully integrated, and that artificial, “stuck-on” feeling naturally disappears.