Sound and music in games

I don’t think many people expect you to use sound in a text game, so it can be a pleasant surprise when done right.

My experience creating a parser game centered around music and its effects on the PC (detailed here) got me thinking about the effect of music on the player.

Sounds are woefully underused in text games! In some instances, they may be more effective than pictures at enhancing the experience. But there have to be boundaries. The most important thing an interactive fiction author wanting to insert sound can do is be polite about it.

In my hubris, based on what others have said and my own experience, I came up with Robert’s Rules of Sound:

  • A text game should never start with sound. (Playing sound on the first turn is an excellent way for players with young children to hate you and can also make the user’s browser automatically mute the game.)

  • As soon as possible, the author should warn the player that the game has sound and ideally provide an option to mute it.

  • The game should be playable without sound. Puzzles and story should be centered on what the player reads, not on what the player hears.

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