Audio is incredibly important for creating a professional quality game. Unfortunately, it is often the most neglected element and the last to be implemented. One reason for this is the fact that we can play a game without the audio and still enjoy the experience. However, a good soundscape in a game will make it much more immersive and help improve user feedback.
In order to create audio we will need to use external software, as GameMaker: Studio does not come with any built-in audio creation tools. There are a range of software choices to choose from. For creating sound effects and music there are popular programs such as the very full featured
Reason, http://www.propellerheads.se/, which emulates a rack of synthesizers, mixers, and other components. On the free side, there is BFXR
, http://www.bfxr.net/, that allows you to create game sounds online and then there is also Sonant
, http://sonantlive.bitsnbites.eu/, for making music. All these packages are fun and easy to use. One thing to keep in mind is that audio is very challenging to create. Sometimes it is better to just download some free music or sounds and there are plenty of sites out there with both free and purchasable audio. Freesound
, http://www.freesound.org, have thousands of audio clips that you can download and use. For a more classic chiptune style of music and sounds there is the 8-bit Collective
, http://8bc.org/, a site dedicated to game audio.
If adding audio wasn't challenging enough already, HTML5 makes it just a little bit harder. The first difficulty we will encounter is the fact that the HTML5 audio tag has not been standardized as of yet. There are two file formats competing to be the official HTML5 standard: MP3 and OGG. The MP3 file format is one of the most commonly used formats, but has the drawback of being licensed and patented, which could result in large fees being paid out. The OGG file format is both open source and patent free making it a viable alternative. On top of this issue is the fact that the various browsers have their own preference for file types. For example, Internet Explorer accepts MP3s but not OGG, while Opera accepts OGG but not MP3. Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox are hedging their bets and support both. GameMaker: Studio deals with this issue by converting all audio to both MP3 and OGG file formats when the game is exported.