make your own game sound effects

why record your own sounds

Sound libraries are great, but other games use the same ones, and licences differ from pack to pack. Sounds you record yourself are yours, and they fit your game because you made them for it. Most of the sounds a small game needs are things you already have at home: doors, footsteps, cloth, paper, keys, cups, zippers, your own voice.

from microphone to game engine

1. One group per sound. Make a group like Footsteps and type the sound name, for example Step Gravel.
2. Record variations hands-free. Press A and take ten steps. You get Step Gravel_001.wav to Step Gravel_010.wav, trimmed and faded.
3. Keep the good ones. Press space to audition, arrow down through the list, star your favourites, delete the rest with x.
4. Layer the bigger sounds. A chest opening might be a creak, a thud and a jingle. Stack them on the compose tab and export Chest Open_001.wav.
5. Point the engine at the folder. The folders and names on disk are exactly what you see in the app, so the files are ready to import.

pro-tip! record five to ten variations of anything the player hears a lot, like footsteps or hits, and let the engine pick one at random. it stops the sound from getting annoying.

files that fit your engine

Pocket SFX saves standard mono WAV files, 48 kHz and 24-bit by default (44.1 and 96 kHz, 16-bit and 32-bit float are options). WAV imports into Unity, Unreal Engine, Godot, GameMaker and every other engine and middleware we know of. Mono is what you want for most 3D game sounds anyway, since the engine places them in space.

A naming template sets the file names: {name}_{###} gives Coin_001.wav, and tokens like {group} and {project} are there if you want longer names. Numbering always continues, so nothing is overwritten.

you don't have to be an audio person

There are no plugins to set up and no tracks to arm. Plug in a mic, press (calibrate), press A, make noise. If you want some basics on mic distance and levels first, read how to record sound effects.