The Voices of Chronautical

            In January of 2023 – three months before Chronautical’s March launch date – I was playing through our current build to make sure everything was working properly and sounding good. The visuals were looking great, as we had just begun an overhaul of the art style, and the writing was really nice, with different sounding dialogue that made each character sound distinct. However, as a sound designer, I could tell something was lacking.

            Because the game is so character-focused, the obvious answer was some sort of sound for the characters speaking, be it voice acting or otherwise. Some games, like Undertale, have that signature sound for each character as their text is written out, effectively giving them a voice without a voice actor. Others use human voices to make it more realistic or personable. Within this category, there are two main methods: reading full lines of dialogue, and recording barks. Barks are short lines of dialogue delivered by NPCs that give a bit of personality and atmosphere. They are used in many different ways depending on the type of game, but in visual novels they are often short phrases or utterances that give a character voice and emotion without needing to read and act out every single line of dialogue.

            Now we knew from the start that we simply did not have the budget to voice act this entire game. As indie developers, we have to pick and choose what aspects we can feasibly complete for a project, and voice acting requires a finalized script EARLY on in the process, as well as reliable access to good sound equipment, voice actors that are available for multiple long recording sessions, and an editor to put it all together and implement it. We didn’t have all that, so we needed to figure something else out.

            Now we did have some of those things. While the script wasn’t finalized, the characters, their personalities, and basic interactions were. We had access to a recording studio that we could book for periods of time, a couple team members with voice acting experience, and myself to edit/implement it all. Again, we also only had three months in which to do this.

            With those resources and constraints in mind, we decided to utilize the recording studio and voice actors we had to be more similar and recognizable in the visual novel genre by using vocal utterances and phrases as opposed to a sound as the dialogue is typed out, and by using fewer resources than a full voice acting would require.

            Continue reading for a post about the process of recording, editing, and implementing these barks.