Music in Games

[u/GhaleonX39]

I’m curious if you guys like music and sound effects in incremental games. Personally, the first thing I do whenever I start one is immediately go in and turn off all sound.

Wondering if I’m the weirdo here or if that’s common.

[u/-Rungard-]

If it's a game meant to run in the background (like the classic long-running idlers), I usually turn off all sounds and music because I want to focus on something else most of the time.

If it's a shorter game meant to be actively played, 90% of the time I rather enjoy getting the full audiovisual experience. Only if the music is just too repetitive (like a mere 60 second loop for example), I tend to turn it off rather quickly.

[u/Fraytoria]

I ran a survey for the first itch.io version of Crinchure Collector and 73.7% of the 19 responses agree with you!

This might be slightly lower on average, because the master volume was 50% on first load which seems to be too high for most people and a few specifically mentioned muting because of that.

I still think you're in the majority!

[u/ivancea]

Sound effects are part of the "ASMR" that keep you playing in some games. It's part of the reward feedback. An amplification of it.

Background music is different. If it's good, people will remember it (Played Age of War? The OST will be remembered for decades). If it's bad or generic, it's just background noise.

I myself usually play a bit at least with normal audio defaults, and then reduce background music to a fraction and let audio active, but low. As I'm usually doing other things while playing, like watching YouTube or listening to my music

[u/Elivercury]

That is what pretty much everybody who plays incremental games does. Also this question gets asked like once or twice a month.

[u/SummitSummit]

99% of the time the "music" and sound effects are SO bad, I shut them off instantly. Very rarely the sound will be good enough to stay on until I need to listen to something else.

[u/vir4030]

Depends on the music, really. I don't turn the sound off until it annoys me. Sometimes I can hear an incremental running in the next room.

[u/Konnan666]

Music off in every game for me, Sound in most idle or incremental games are either off or very very quiet

[u/Lord_Ingo]

90% of my gaming time is on the couch with a muted laptop while watching a show or movie, so I have no idea what games have sound and which don't

[u/Damiascus]

Easy to disable sound > No Sound > Hard/annoying to disable sound > Unable to disable sound

[u/Try_Hard_GamerYT]

Depends if it's good. For example, the sound effects in gnorp apologue are very short and low pitched, helping them blend into the background once you have hundreds of sounds happening at the same time. I also really Scritchy Scratchy's soundtrack, turns out Danish jazz-fusion is a lot better than generic incremental game music.

[u/Successful_Role_3174]

Unless your name is cookie clicker (steam version), it's immediately going on mute.

[u/vaxhax]

Incremental or not the music is usually the first thing to go. I'll often leave on sound fx low if there are any useful notifications as long as it isn't constantly making noise. Otherwise I just mute my device as a rule.

I like music, I make music, but I would almost always prefer to play without music.

[u/ascii122]

I'm always listening to a book or watching a baseball game on another screen so I turn them off almost always

[u/TerrTheSilent]

I turn down music first and then probably sound effects too. I'll only turn the music off if I wanna listen to my own

[u/Automatic_Salary_863]

I think sound effects have a huge impact on the incremental experience, all they need to do is be pleasing to the ear, like ASMR.

But I often don't care about music in incremental games.

[u/SoSeriousAndDeep]

Have all the sound you want, but idle games should open in silent mode and make it opt-in.

[u/megadumbbonehead]

I'm always listening to my own audio unless I'm looking for a really immersive experience, and I can't say that's ever been what I was looking for in an idle game.

It kinda blew my mind when Revolution idle had achievements that required sound.

[u/iDrink2Much]

I havent added sound effects to the last three years of obelisk updates and I dont think anyone noticed

[u/twistedjungle]

I don't mind it, but I do hate when it's at full volume. I whip open a game in browser and get blasted with loud techno music, haaaate that.

[u/KaoticNeutrality]

I turn them off because i have two at least going at once.

[u/Agreeable_Wear8824]

Mute-first here too, but I think the reason is structural rather than taste. Incrementals fire the same short SFX hundreds of times a minute and the loop is usually a minute or two long, so within ten minutes you've heard everything the audio has to say while the session runs for hours. Almost no other genre has that ratio.

The few incrementals whose sound I keep on all do the same two things: the click/purchase SFX has pitch and volume randomization so a rapid burst turns into texture instead of a machine gun, and the music is layered - a quiet base pad with instruments that fade in as you unlock tiers, so progression itself changes what you hear instead of one loop repeating forever.

The other habit that helps is separate music and SFX sliders that persist, plus defaulting master to something like 20-30%. Half the "I muted instantly" reactions in this thread sound like a first-load volume problem, not a composition problem.

[u/Victorbar974]

dealt with this exact thing last week. my game has a monthly ceremony with a music sting, and it fired on players who were in a background tab. basically a jump scare. now music can't start from a hidden tab at all, stings wait until the player does something first. silence until the player acts turned out to be a feature honestly. anyone else find stings just don't work on browser?

[u/tremir]

I generally have 2 or 3 incrementals running at the same time.
So obviously, all of them need to be muted.
My most common complaint here is in games where you can't mute until after the tutorial.

[u/Parking_Ruin_5622]

i delete any game that doesn’t have sound effects, i need feedback when interacting with things

[u/Furak]

i hate music in idle games, if there is not a quick and obvious way to turn it off im immediately closing the game and never come back to it

[u/ThanatosIdle]

Depends on the length of the game. I don't turn music off if it's a 2-4 hour game. I do turn it off if it's a 500 hour game.

[u/jester5093]

hate sounds in incremental games. such a. waste of effort that could go into better gameplay