Player Sound Effects
The player in Fowl Play is a slightly mutated chicken. His sound effects are based on our own vocal performances and original recordings of chickens and lovebirds.
Technical Specifications
Section titled “Technical Specifications”| Specification | Details |
|---|---|
| Software | Audacity |
| File Format | OGG Vorbis |
| Purpose | Telegraphing, immersion |
| Diegetic | Yes |
The audio was first cleaned up in Audacity, with noise reduction to remove background sounds. EQ, amplification, and compression were applied to enhance quality. The player movement sound effects make heavy use of pitch shifting and speed changes to the audio clips. The final sound effects are exported in OGG Vorbis format, suitable for the game engine.
Sound Design Principles
Section titled “Sound Design Principles”In order to make the player sounds feel more real, bird sounds were mainly used as a base. Lovebirds were chosen for additional sound effects due to ease of access.
Player walking and running sounds are intentionally softer and less impactful, to not take away from important sound cues.
Created Sound Effects
Section titled “Created Sound Effects”The player sound effects fall into four main categories: idle sounds, movement sounds, death and hit sound.
Idle Sounds
Section titled “Idle Sounds”This sound effects plays at the end of the Idle animation.
Movement Sounds
Section titled “Movement Sounds”These play when the player is moving, providing feedback on the specific type of movement being performed.
Slowed down sound of a chicken moving around. A reversed section is played in the middle, to artificially lengthen the loop.
Sped up version of the walking sound, with a wind effect in the background. Wind effect was created by blowing into a mic, and adding a phaser effect on top of it. Together, these create the illusion of the wind blowing past the chickens wings.
Sound of a lovebird jumping and flapping its wings. This sound has minimal effects, in order for it to be clear.
Heavily slowed down version of the jumping sound. In real life, when a chicken 'glides', it flaps its wings slightly. We wanted to incorporate this into the sound effect.
Wind effect with a reversed sound playing on top. More ominous than the other movement sounds, to indicate that the player is falling down.
Created by mouth, with some slight reverb and pitch shifting applied. Used when the player dashes in any direction.
Death Sound
Section titled “Death Sound”This sound effect plays when the player dies, and is triggered by the death animation.
Chicken scream sound, with a delay and phaser effect. Each echo is slightly pitch shifted down and has a lower volume.
Hit Sound
Section titled “Hit Sound”This sound effect plays when the player takes damage, providing feedback on being hit.