Behind the Scenes: Recording Over 2500 Footstep Sounds (Patreon)

Hey everyone! We’re back with more audio behind-the-scenes posts! Last time we showcased the creation of one of our newest Build mode tracks “Little Trinkets” in this post right here! Check it out! This time we will go through some very simple yet probably one of the most important characters’ sounds to be added into the game: footsteps! 👣We’ll be talking about the things to consider when adding these sounds as well as many other character and object sounds to be added later on.

🎥In the above video, you saw the recording process of many footsteps as well as a few extra things. So without further ado, let’s talk about the details 🦶

How Many Sounds Do We Need?

No object will ever sound exactly the same twice. Whether you strum a guitar or hear the rustling of tree leaves, the noise they create will always be different. Therefore, if we want to imitate the real world in the soundscape of a game, we have to add many variations to the same sounds. For example, each type of footstep in Paralives has over 40+ variations on average. 

On top of that, we have to consider the many factors that are producing the sound. In this case, what surface are our paras moving on? What type of shoes are they wearing? Are they walking, jogging, running, or going up a staircase? And you could complexify even further by adding more variables. So far in the base game, there are 8 surfaces, 4 footwear types and 4 kinds of movement confirmed, which gives a total of 5120 different footstep sounds! Which is actually normal in modern games 🥸

How Do We Create Them?

It would’ve been very simple to go to an online library and get all the footstep sounds from there. However, we figured that by creating them ourselves, we could make sounds that fit the animations specifically and also fit the cozy vibe of the game (most sounds on online libraries are more action/warfare oriented). We are also not restricted by how many variations are uploaded to the library and can make as many as we want ourselves. It’s also super fun to record them! 😁

The hard part for me isn’t recording, but finding the right materials! I took a little trip to the dollar store and a construction store to buy some of the things that you saw in the video. I also bought some nice high heels at the second-hand store 👠✨With all these new materials, we can get some pretty good recordings. In any case, where it’d be more difficult to make something sound right, that’s where we would start searching through a library 🔊

Here is a picture of all the things I bought for the recording session. 

This is only the beginning of the many things that will need foley sounds in Paralives. Like I said, everything makes noise. Whether it is kitchen appliances, furniture your Para is interacting with, electronics, plants rustling with the wind, even walls sometimes just creak out of nowhere! We’ll be making the sounds for most of these things in the following days and hopefully, I could show you some of the work done in the next post! What foley sounds would you like to be included in the game? Hope you enjoyed this week’s post! Have a great weekend 🎉

Until next time,

Andrei ♪♩♩ ♪♩♩♩Edit - March 20th, 2025: This post is now public, feel free to share it!