Sound in Tabletop Games

An under-used UX tool

As a user experience designer working on websites, I don’t get to use sound too much. Long gone are the days where Good Charlotte would auto-play on a friend’s MySpace page (thankfully). But I love sound as it often makes an object feel more tactile and real, like when you hear the clicks as you type on your touchscreen. This got me thinking about how tabletop games often don’t have sounds.

I don’t mean the sound of five dice shaking in the Yahtzee cup or the soft thuds as you count your shoe token along the Monopoly board. I’m talking about meaningful sounds that contribute to the player experience (“player exp”). I think there is more space in tabletop gaming for meaningful sound in games.

Historically Used to Indicate Error or Expiration

There are games that purposefully use sound to contribute to the player exp. Classic games like Operation, Scategories, and Taboo come to mind. But games like these more often use sound to call attention to a player’s error or to say that time is up. How many times have you been jostled by the buzz ripping through the tension because you touched a wall trying to get that damn charlie horse or because you said the wrong word? We tend to focus really hard on the task at hand with these types of games, so having a sound to snap you back to reality is the perfect tool for the job. But that buzz is often grating and associated with something negative. I’m more interested in how sound can be used in a more positive way.

Sound to Enhance the Player Experience

One of my favorite sounds in board games is that POP you hear when in a game of Trouble. The whole game is literally built around that pop. Mechanically, the pop doesn’t do anything to the game. The end result is still rolling a D6. But from a player exp perspective, that pop is the start of my turn and the sound of a successful roll. I’ve been in many games where players had to re-roll because we didn’t hear that pop. That’s how much that pop connects with players on a visceral level. Trouble uses that pop to mark an event. I don’t care if you got a 6. If it didn’t pop it didn’t count.

Zombie 15' also uses Sound as an event, but cranks it up to 11. Zombie 15' is an escape-the-hoard type game. Collect key items, don’t get bit, etc. What’s different about Zombie 15' is that each game is played in real time against an actual soundtrack. The soundtrack and the game are 15 mins long. If you don’t meet the win condition before the song is over, you lose. There are very distinct RAWR sounds that mark when a new wave of zombies is introduced to the board, and emergency siren sounds that indicate how much time has passed.

Outside of being a being a baller-ass timer, this soundtrack enhances the game in two key ways. First, it uses RAWRS as a mechanic that directly impacts the game. Each growl means more danger is entering the board. Often the players are so focused on the chaos already on the board that they can’t really predict when a new wave of zombies is going to hit. This really plunges you into that feeling of dread and panic that the zombie survival genre sells itself as.

Secondly, the soundtrack provides an amazing atmosphere that creates a bubble of Zombie 15’. For 15 minutes players are locked into this bubble through the soundtrack that keeps raising the tension until the last minute is just stress. And then it’s over. The music ends, the bubble fades, and the players are back at their table relieved that it’s over. That use of sound creates a high level of engagement because it helps the players zoom in on the game at hand.

On the flip side of Zombie 15’, Magic Maze uses silence & one sound to create its atmosphere. In Magic Maze players must move their characters across an expanding board to collect four magical items. However each player controls one direction of movement, players can‘t talk or point or anything like that, and there is a 5 min timer on the entire game.

While both games use timers to create a sense of urgency, Magic Maze’s silence creates a bubble of quiet tension where you are screaming in your head because Sam won’t move that character to the left! That bubble is the game. For the next few minutes there is nothing but Magic Maze. There is only one sound in the game. Players can thump the “Do Something!” pawn and eye someone down until they move that damn character to the left. That thud becomes the most charged sound in gaming, expressing a range of emotions from helpful nudges to passive aggression to pure rage. That’s engagement. That’s fun! Sound in these games mean something, and I think there is more we can do with it.

Using Sound More

The classic games I mentioned before used electronic means to create sound. We all have smartphones so it’s not too much to expect players to have access to the correct sound for the game. I’m more interested in games that use analog sound, mostly because I’ve been burned too many times by a set of dead AA batteries. What I like about Trouble is that the pop-o-matic bubble is inherently noisy. It is designed to make a sound. I’m curious to see more games that use components designed to make sounds.

What would it feel like if Jenga blocks were cut in a way to creak or click every time you pulled a block out? Wouldn’t it raise the hairs on your neck a bit more? Or imagine some board game where one of the dice rolls into a secret bell. That bell chime can mean a +1 to the roll total or the player draws an extra card or that the win condition has been changed. How about a real-time game that uses some wind-up device that makes a to change the active player? Maybe each player has their own distinct sound that they have to stay alert for because it’s the only thing that allows them to use their most effective ability. Dedicated noise-making components can open up a lot of gameplay options.

Sound Off

I know that not all games need to make sounds, but games can have a more impactful player experience if they did. Games that buzz to tell you something bad happens. Games that fanfare when you do something awesome. Games that catch you off guard by growling at you with something unexpected. Sound is another tool to make a moment which helps make a story. That is one of the best parts of games. They are engines to make stories with friends.

Thanks for reading. If you’re interested in a game that uses the sound of movies mechanically, check out my game Movie Cues. It’s a movie-based reaction game where players try to collect cue cards triggered by the movie. Whoever has the most at the end of the film is The Champ. Cheers!