Crafting the Ultimate Groove: Sound Effects & Voice Acting

In a game taking place in a club and all about dancing, the musical and audio Element is extremely important. From the outset we wanted to make certain that our music was more than just catchy, and our sound effects weren’t merely functional. We wanted music informed by the times our setting was inspired by and fitting the club aesthetic. We also wanted sound effects that fulfilled their purpose while enriching the spooky and eldritch setting. And finally, we wanted to make our story more engaging and bring our characters to life through voice acting.

The music in Club Cosmic is intended to be diegetic, meaning the music is actually being played in the world of the game. There’s an unseen DJ selecting tracks and keeping the groove going. We give this impression by having several music tracks for the main level that switch as time passes as opposed to having different songs for different areas. There is even a short pause and record scratch between songs to signify the track switching to something new.

Sound effects needed to be realistic enough to make interacting with objects in Club Cosmic feel right. However, Club Cosmic is a strange setting where things will often behave in unexpected ways. A balance needed to be struck between making the sounds make sense and making the club feel weird and otherworldly. We ended up making most interactable objects make the sound expected of them, and then have the strange sounds peppered throughout in the background. In some areas of the club you may hear ominous whispers with no apparent source or meaning or awful muddy squelches echoing from unexpected places, but smashing a glass still sounds like a shatter.

Sound Effect Audio Cues In Engine

Voice acting recording and editing was a very fun challenge. Every character is voiced by a developer on our team. In a VR game, we didn’t want to force people to stare at text boxes to experience the story of the game, and it would be very difficult to get smaller character moments if all dialogue was reliant on text as well. By voicing these characters, we hope to make the story more fun and easier to engage with, and the characters a little bit more memorable.

Voice Acting Recording in Audacity

Some of our major goals in the development of Boogie Beyond was to have strong theming and an immersive VR world. Every aspect of our audio is meant to serve this. From diegetic music and strange but consistent sound effects making the club feel believably otherworldly, to the voice acting bringing life to the patrons of Club Cosmic, I believe the goal was achieved.