The dialogue was made by recording voice actors making syllable sounds—for example, “ka, ke, ko, ku”—and then processing and chopping those up. I separated them into passing syllables and emphasis syllables (drawing from the dialogue system implementation for Celeste). The longer syllables are drawn out and expressive in intonation, whereas the passing syllables are brief.

The dialogue is implemented such that it isn’t actually dependent on the scrolling of the text. Instead each syllable plays sequentially (with brief, random pauses in between) until the text stops running. This way the speaker sounds more natural and doesn’t change depending on what text scroll speed you set in the settings.

Sound Effects

With the UI SFX, I really wanted the player to feel like a character in the world. So each time you click on a building or menu, it feels like you are truly interacting with that object. For example, the tavern and smithy sound like doors opening, welcoming you into their respective spaces.

At the same time, I wanted to reinforce the “godliness” of the player, by making sure that if you clicked anywhere, it would make a sound. For example, each tree you click squishes and makes a little sound. This plays into that sense of control, as if you could reach out and tap the game world through the screen.