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I've seen SFXR before, and while I can see the point of using these tools for things like prototypes or quick game jam entries, I am absolutely appalled when th

I've seen SFXR before, and while I can see the point of using these tools for things like prototypes or quick game jam entries, I am absolutely appalled when the sounds end up in otherwise high quality titles. Why ruin a good, otherwise beautiful game with these unimaginative sound effects? My issue is not as much that the sound effects are cheap or boring as the fact that I can immediately tell where they come from, and that it could easily have been avoided by paying a sound designer an almost negligible amount of money to make sounds that somewhat fit the theme of the game in a more profound sense.

Detrus 12y ago
Which titles specifically? To OP: Broken in Safari OSX for me, works in Firefox.
- boomlinde 12y ago
  I can't really think of any specifically except Hoplite right now. An absolutely great playing and great looking game where the author went as far as having it scored with an original soundtrack, but still stuck with those sound effects. Not sure if you expected me to have compiled a list.
TheZenPsycho 12y ago
The original motivation for SFXR is the number of games produced that were simply silent. SFXR changed that to not silent. It sounds cheap to say this, I'll admit. But if you want a better world you've got to make the tools that make that better world really easy to make, which is what sfxr is or was. Maybe we address this by making a tool that makes better sounds than sfxr. On the other hand, maybe we address this by making a tool that makes it really easy for game devs to work with sound designers.
- boomlinde 12y ago
  > The original motivation for SFXR is the number of games produced that were simply silent. SFXR changed that to not silent. Sure, it lowers the barrier of entry when it comes to sound design. I think it has worked well for a few games, and as I said it makes perfect sense for something like ludum dare or just prototyping. But when you want to polish your game and have a vision and/or a budget of any sort, I don't see how the sfxr sound effects aren't the first thing to go. Sfxr makes it all a lot simpler, but it sometimes strikes me as arrogant to use it for an otherwise polished product, since in my mind it means that these game developers don't recognize that it isn't trivial to create a good set of sound effects. +1 on creating a tool that makes collaboration easier. I have a friend who does this professionally, and the process usually involves manual revisioning by renaming files or timestamped folder names and moving them to dropbox. The last project I saw him work on actually had an in-house tool to manage volume levels and delay times, though.
  - TheZenPsycho 12y ago
    sometimes the barrier to entry is simply not knowing anyone you can ask. I'd almost suggest something like 99 designs but, the problem with that site is it significantly devalues the work of artists. I would hope that any tool that surfaces for this niche is more respectful to the craft than that.

Detrus 12y ago

Which titles specifically? To OP: Broken in Safari OSX for me, works in Firefox.

boomlinde 12y ago
I can't really think of any specifically except Hoplite right now. An absolutely great playing and great looking game where the author went as far as having it scored with an original soundtrack, but still stuck with those sound effects. Not sure if you expected me to have compiled a list.

TheZenPsycho 12y ago

The original motivation for SFXR is the number of games produced that were simply silent. SFXR changed that to not silent. It sounds cheap to say this, I'll admit. But if you want a better world you've got to make the tools that make that better world really easy to make, which is what sfxr is or was. Maybe we address this by making a tool that makes better sounds than sfxr. On the other hand, maybe we address this by making a tool that makes it really easy for game devs to work with sound designers.

boomlinde 12y ago
> The original motivation for SFXR is the number of games produced that were simply silent. SFXR changed that to not silent. Sure, it lowers the barrier of entry when it comes to sound design. I think it has worked well for a few games, and as I said it makes perfect sense for something like ludum dare or just prototyping. But when you want to polish your game and have a vision and/or a budget of any sort, I don't see how the sfxr sound effects aren't the first thing to go. Sfxr makes it all a lot simpler, but it sometimes strikes me as arrogant to use it for an otherwise polished product, since in my mind it means that these game developers don't recognize that it isn't trivial to create a good set of sound effects. +1 on creating a tool that makes collaboration easier. I have a friend who does this professionally, and the process usually involves manual revisioning by renaming files or timestamped folder names and moving them to dropbox. The last project I saw him work on actually had an in-house tool to manage volume levels and delay times, though.
- TheZenPsycho 12y ago
  sometimes the barrier to entry is simply not knowing anyone you can ask. I'd almost suggest something like 99 designs but, the problem with that site is it significantly devalues the work of artists. I would hope that any tool that surfaces for this niche is more respectful to the craft than that.