Letters Sounds - Yay or Nay?

[Neo Soul Gamer]

Hey guys,


So after playing through one of my favorite games recently (Lufia 2), I was thinking about putting letter sounds in my game. That is, sounds that play as text is displayed in a message window. 


My game will have a retro aesthetic, so keeping the retro feel is important to me. I personally loved the idea of the letter sounds. To me, it helped create personality while allowing me to imagine the physical size of a character. A lower pitch was usually used for physically imposing or evil characters, whereas a higher pitch would be common for women or children. Shining Force 2 used this as well (another one of my favorites).


My question to you all is... Is it annoying? Assuming it's used in the right way, I think it's a neat feature. Just looking for feedback.

 

[Uzuki]

As long as there's an option to turn it on or off and it's not too loud I say go for it.

 

[Galv]

Lufia 2 is one of my favourite games, too


I have played games where I remember the noise being annoying and others where it didn't seem to bother me. I agree that a setting to turn it on/off is a good idea if you do it.

 

[Sieginder Niederlage]

Do it, but try to be crafty with its usage doing things like turning it off in a moment of great suspense at the same time as the background music or something like that.

 

[LightningLord2]

Undertale makes use of letter sounds for various purposes - mostly for foreshadowing events and to show Flowey's two-faced character.

 

[mauvebutterfly]

I disagree that this should be an option for the player to select. If the game is designed with text sounds, then have that just be a part of the experience. If you can't implement it in a way that isn't annoying, don't implement it at all.


Having some choices in the menu can be nice for the player, but too many choices ends up being a lot of work for the developer while increasing the chance of bugs. For something small like this, I think implementing a choice is wasted effort, particularly since it would go against the feeling of your game as you initially stated.

 

[Titanhex]

Depends on the personality and design of the game.

There are plenty of instances where a text sound will help a game. For people who would want to do Lets Plays with voice-overs, it can direct them to what voice to use if you put in that extra effort.


If the game relies on dialogue for a lot of tension building and dissipation, you can benefit from Text-Sound.


But if there's a lot of frivolous dialogue in your game, you are better off forgoing the Text-Sound.

 

[Sieginder Niederlage]

Undertale makes use of letter sounds for various purposes - mostly for foreshadowing events and to show Flowey's two-faced character.

That's what I meant. Only without mentioning Undertale.
The Fallen Child does not make a sound when talking, and neither does sans when he gets serious.

 

[Neo Soul Gamer]

I disagree that this should be an option for the player to select. If the game is designed with text sounds, then have that just be a part of the experience. If you can't implement it in a way that isn't annoying, don't implement it at all.


Having some choices in the menu can be nice for the player, but too many choices ends up being a lot of work for the developer while increasing the chance of bugs. For something small like this, I think implementing a choice is wasted effort, particularly since it would go against the feeling of your game as you initially stated.

This is why I was so torn between "option/no option". When it comes to the game's overall experience and feel, I think an option should only be present as a way to kind of "tone things down." Like Random Encounters for example... They're a necessary part of the game and can't be avoided completely, but people enjoy having the option to turn them off from time to time. That doesn't really work for letter sounds. 

 

[Wavelength]

I find these constant sounds to be extremely annoying, and while it's not a complete dealbreaker for me, it significantly hurts my enjoyment of a game..


I agree with Uzuki that if you do use it, there should be an option to turn it off.

 

[kamui82]

This thread grabbed my attention since I was just reflecting on this very thing the other day while replaying Lufia 2!  I was noticing for the first time that the tone of the sounds changed depending on the character.  Somehow this hadn't struck me before (which is strange since I'm a musician).  


I definitely think it adds a certain quality to the game because it fits the aesthetic.  The dialogue is more sparse (using the speech balloons vs boxes) and emotions seem to be conveyed more heavily through the movement of the characters (just consider the intro and how much is conveyed with the movement of Tia and Maxim's sprites!).  I say if it fits the aesthetic (with a retro game it certainly could), adds charm to the game, and contributes something meaningful to the portrayal of the characters, then use it. Personally, though, I could see it starting to get grating if there were large chunks of dialogue, so it might depend upon how heavily you are relying on text in the game.  Just my two cents!