Here’s part 3 of my series of blog posts explaining some of the audio systems I designed for our game Dieper and Deaper (https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/48/dieper-deaper). This time, I’m discussing the musical footstep sounds that trigger if the player picks up the Cactus costume to sneak around. The game is developed in Unity, with FMOD for all the audio.

Yes, You can be a sneaky Cactus in this game!

My favourite mechanic in Dieper & Deaper is the Cactus costume. The game is about stealth/infiltration, and we already knew that disguises would be a key mechanic. @Saskle (our wonderful artist) started making props for the environment, and one of the earliest decorative elements was a potted cactus. It wasn't long before a throw away joke evolved into a central mechanic: what if you could dress up like a cactus, and become undetectable when you stand still?

Mickey Mousing

To underline the comedic effect, I decided to design a "cartoon sneaking footsteps" sound to go with the costume. The common technique of syncing the accompanying music with the actions on screen is called "Mickey Mousing" (going back to Disney's 1928's "Steamboat Willie"). Typically for a sneaking cartoon character, the sound of a xylophone, pizzicato strings, or even a bassoon in an ascending or descending scale tends to be used for footsteps.

So I made several sounds, finally settling on high pitched pizzicato strings combined with xylophone (lower strings melded too much into the background music). For pitches, I simply took the minor scale(in the key of my background music, to avoid clashing), spanning 3 octaves, for a total of 21 pitches.

A 240 step sequence up and down three octaves

I organised my footsteps into an FMOD multi-instrument, set to trigger them in sequence from lowest to highest pitch, and back down again, but I found this became repetitive and irritating too quickly. Instead I settled on a longer sequence that still maintains the "up and down" feel: Always ascending through the scale, but dropping back down an octave every 8 notes. When I reach the highest note, I descend back down the scale in a similar mirrored fashion. This means the sequence only truly repeats after 240 footsteps, but keeps its cartoony "going up and down a scale" feeling. The system is built in such a way that if the player stops for a while, then starts walking again, the sequence does not restart, it instead continues wherever it left off.

Conclusion

All in all, it's a minor audio detail, that some players might not even notice, but I think it really adds to the comedy of the Cactus Costume, and personality of the game by emphasizing the old time-y cartoon vibe.

Thanks for reading!

I hope this is of interest to some. If anybody has any questions or remarks regarding FMOD or the system, please let me know in the comments! And of course, go check out our game "Dieper and Deaper" to hear the system in action!

You can also find Part one of this blog series discussing the adaptive music system here: (https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/48/dieper-deaper/dynamic-audio-systems-in-dieper-deaper-01-adaptive-music)

And Part two on the Animal Crossing style gibberish voice system here: (https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/48/dieper-deaper/dynamic-audio-systems-in-dieper-deaper-02-animal-crossing-style-gibberish)