Games that allow customizable characters sometimes ask you to pick a voice for the character you’re creating. If you’ve chosen a male character, for example, the game may offer you to pick whether you want your character to sound like a scruffy male, crazed male, pleasant male, or alien male. The problem is instantly noticeable. It turns out none of these voices fit the character you had in mind. Odds are you’ll settle for the option that has the least noticeable voice acting or the one that is so absurd you’ll laugh whenever your character talks. No matter your decision, you’ve already lost a degree of connection with your character. He’s now just some dude that came off the character creation assembly line, instead of your in-game avatar.
How did the player get into this position? Let’s rewind time and visit the game designer during the making of this game. The designer decided that players should make noises and grunts when they are hit by attacks or attacking. Then they remembered that they let you create a male or female character when you start the game, so they need two sound files for each noise they want to make - the male and female versions. Then they figured since you can make a big beefy lumberjack guy with a beard or a thin and gangly Ichabod Crane kind of fellow, that they should probably add a couple more sound files per noise; one from a lumberjack and one from a school teacher. Assuming girls can be lumberjacks and school teachers as well, we’re already at four sound files for one noise.
At this point, the designer digs in his heels. A whole slew of technical constraints just entered his mind. Will he have the budget to hire all these voice actors? Will the game’s platform limit the file sizes and quality of the sounds? How many languages is this game going to be released in again? What does an alien sound like when it’s speaking French? Maybe we should avoid saying words to remain language neutral.
The designer has entered what I call a game design avalanche. It starts with one poor decision, in this case voicing customizable characters. From there the designer makes a series of choices and compromises that weaken the integrity of the feature. At release he’s left with an aspect of the game that disappoints a lot of players. To the players, their imagination is the limit. If they covered their character in fur, why isn’t there a voice set full of barks and growls? You could remove the fur from the list of options, but now all those players who want their character to be furry war machines are left unfulfilled. Make enough cuts like that and you’ll shoehorn the players into a handful of rigid character designs.
So what can be done about customizable characters that need sound effects? The first step is to remove any gender constraints. You don’t need to have a male or female scream sound for when the player gets hit. If your characters are humans, then they’re big bags of flesh and bone, and when you hit them they make a sloppy sound like a sack of meat hitting the wall. That’s your hit sound. If characters can be robots, then they’re going to make clanging noises when they’re hit, or release steam, or beep and boop. When those characters die you don’t need tons of long and drawn out EEAAAUUUGHHHHH sound files. Play a little jingle with a death toll in it. If your characters can be human OR robot, that’s fine too. Choose the set of sounds for the player based on whether they want their character to be human or robot.
Players don’t question why humans squish and robots creak.