Sound In MiniMicro

Introduction

Undertale is a well-known game because of its unique mechanics, storytelling, and its

UNIQUE MUSIC

But, how does music even affect a game, and how do I implement it into mine?

That's what we are going to answer today.

What is the need for sound in game development??

It makes the world feel alive

In real life, every single action we do has a sound tied to it – footsteps, rustling clothes, cars passing by, birds chirping. Now imagine the same world, no sound.

Feels… empty. Like something’s missing.

Similarly, if you want the best out of your user’s experience, you must give your game an audible soul. Even subtle background sounds (wind blowing, rain tapping on windows) can make your game world feel real and immersive instead of flat and lifeless.

It’s feedback to the player

Games are interactive. Sound is the language your game uses to talk back to the player.

• Pick up a coin? Ding!
• Unlock a door? Click-clack.
• Hit an enemy? Thwack!

It sets the mood and emotion

Undertale nailed this. Remember how “Megalovania” instantly makes you sweat? Or how “Home” gives you cozy, safe vibes? That’s because music drives emotions hard.

(Megalovania and Home are name of Soundtracks in undertale)

Music helps:

• Build tension in horror games
• Intensify the boss fights
• Calm the player in peaceful zones

It's like controlling players' emotions.

How can you implement sound in YOUR game?

For today, we are choosing Mini Micro as an engine, but this tutorial series will continue with Godot, Love2D, and whatever you wish

In Mini Micro, we have a function --> file.loadImage(x) which loads an image on path x and returns the image as a map.

This Map returned by file.loadImage() has following values:

Key	Value
__isa	Image
_handle	ImageHandle
width	64
height	64
path	"/sys/pics/Balloon.png"
name	"Balloon.png"

{"__isa": Image, "_handle": ImageHandle, "width": 64, "height": 64,
"path": "/sys/pics/Balloon.png", "name": "Balloon.png"}

THIS EXAMPLE IS WHEN THE file.loadImage IS USED WITH PATH "/sys/pics/Balloon.png" AND VARIABLE x

Similarly, there is also a function like file.loadImage, which is file.loadSound(). This also returns a map with the following value.

Key	Value
__isa	Sound
_handle	blam.wav (AudioClip)
duration	0.55

{"__isa": Sound, "_handle": blam.wav (AudioClip), "duration": 0.55}

THIS EXAMPLE IS WHEN THE file.loadSound IS USED WITH PATH "/sys/sounds/blam.wav" AND VARIABLE x

We can use this function to store with a sound, like here I store variable x with the returned map by file.loadSound

Now we can just use the function .play to play the sounds, for example:

x.play here would play the sound

But I suppose in some cases you might need your sound to be looped, In such cases:

x.loop = true

It can be used to make the sound effect loop.

While testing, I also felt the need to stop the looping sound, for that I can use

x.stop

There are some other methods like:

x.isPlaying

Which returns true if sound is playing.

x.duration

Which returns "TOTAL" length of the audio stored in the file returned by file.loadSound

OUTRO

These were the most commonly used methods/functions while handling sounds, but sometimes you might find the need for more things for such situations. I do highly recommend the official Sound page on the miniscript wiki

-> SOUND

So drop down your doubts in the comment section, Till then stay awesome and Bye