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Visual & Audio ~23 min read 4,556 words

Salt & Steel: Sound Design

Document type: Production — Audio
Status: Canonical
Last updated: 2026-04
See also: Music and Atmosphere | VFX System | Art Direction | Creative Identity

Overview

Sound design is not audio decoration — it is the physical reality of the world made available to the player's ear. The sea is real because you can hear it before you see it. Your ship is real because you know its sounds the way you know the sounds of a house you have lived in for years. Combat is real because the impact of a cutlass on another cutlass is a specific sound that is unlike anything else.

The creative identity document establishes the tone: Salt & Steel should be capable of the full range of human emotional experience within a single session. Sound design is the primary carrier of that emotional range. The music gives the player permission to feel something; the sound design is what they actually feel it with. The groan of a ship in a storm, the specific silence after a cannon volley, the clinking of treasure in a chest — these are the moments that become memories.

Every sound decision in Salt & Steel begins with the question: what is the most truthful version of this sound that still serves the game? Truth comes first. The best game sounds are recognizable as real sounds rendered vivid and specific. A cutlass clash that sounds like a video game sound effect is a failure. A cutlass clash that sounds like a cutlass clashing — the high harmonic ring, the resonance, the specific weight of a blade that has met another blade — is a success.

Combat Sound Design

Cutlass and Edged Weapon Impacts

The cutlass is Salt & Steel's signature melee weapon — the sound of the game's identity. It must be right.

Steel on steel: The characteristic sound of one cutlass meeting another is not the "clang" of cartoons or film. It is a complex event:

  • Initial impact: a sharp, high crack of metal-on-metal contact, very brief (10–30ms)
  • Sustain: the vibration of both blades, producing a harmonic ring that sustains for 0.5–1 second. The pitch of this ring varies based on the blades' sizes, curves, and the angle of contact.
  • Decay: the ring decays naturally as both blades are pulled away

The result is a sound that has the sharpness of real contact followed by a musically identifiable pitch — the ring of steel. In combat where multiple exchanges happen rapidly, these rings layer into a complex, recognizable musical texture that becomes the sonic identity of Salt & Steel melee combat.

Pitch variety: No two sword clashes should sound identical. A library of 8–12 recorded cutlass impacts at different contact points, angles, and blade weights provides enough variation that rapid combat does not feel repetitive. The variations are subtle — same fundamental character, different harmonic content.

Cutlass on shield: A deeper, duller sound — the edge meeting the face of a wooden shield produces a heavy thunk with a shorter ring. Cutlass on metal shield: a crash with significant resonance, lower pitched than blade-on-blade, the sound of a weapon losing momentum against a surface.

Parry success: A successful parry has its own specific sound — the cutlass barely intercepting another cutlass, at a different angle than a full clash. The sound is sharper and shorter than a full clash, communicating the deflection rather than opposition.

Parry failure (weapon stagger): If a parry fails — the weapon is knocked out of line — the sound is a sliding scrape of metal followed by the impact of the failed blow. The scrape quality communicates what happened mechanically without a text notification.

Boarding Axe and Crushing Weapons

Heavy weapons require heavy sound design. The boarding axe is a thick piece of steel on a wooden handle, designed for chopping rigging, doors, and enemies with equal indifference.

Boarding axe swing: The air displacement of a heavy weapon moving fast produces a distinct rush of air before impact — a brief whoosh that gives the attack its telegraphed quality. This is a design-useful sound: it tells the player an attack is incoming before the visual animation has reached its peak.

Boarding axe on wood: A deep, resonant chunk — wood splitting under concentrated heavy force. The specific pitch and decay depends on the wood's thickness and the axe head's contact surface.

Boarding axe on bone/armor: A cracking, crunching impact that communicates mass against a surface that cannot fully absorb it. Heavier and more resonant than a cutlass contact.

Mallet/bludgeon impacts: Differentiated from axe impacts by the absence of the cutting component. A mallet hit on armor is a bell-like impact — metal ringing from a blow, much lower in pitch than blade-on-blade, much longer in sustain.

Pistol and Powder Weapons

Black powder firearms have a completely distinctive sound profile that must be accurately represented.

Flintlock pistol:

  • Hammer fall: a sharp, light mechanical click — the flintlock mechanism
  • Flint-on-steel spark: the briefest high-pitched scrape, nearly inaudible on its own but present
  • Pan flash: a soft hiss-pop of the priming powder catching (very brief, 20–30ms before)
  • Main charge: the primary bang — not a modern gunshot sound, which is sharper and more contained. A flintlock is a contained controlled detonation in an open tube, and it produces a relatively lower-frequency crack with a rapid falloff and almost no echo sustain at close range. At distance, this changes: the sharp component drops off quickly and the low-frequency boom carries, making a pistol shot a hundred meters away sound very different from the same shot at five meters.
  • Post-shot*: the soft hiss of dissipating gas and hot smoke

Musket: All of the above, with the primary charge being substantially louder and with more low-frequency content. The musket shot has a boom quality the pistol lacks.

Misfired pistol: The hammer fall and possible pan flash, then silence or the hiss of a powder that is too damp to catch. The sound of failure is its own design requirement.

Dry fire (empty pistol): A hollow click — the hammer falling on an empty pan. Combat feedback that communicates "out of powder" without interrupting with a UI sound.

Magical Ability Sounds

Magic sounds must be rooted in their elemental nature — the organizing principle is the same as the VFX system's. Water magic sounds like water. Fire sounds like fire. The fantastical element is in the scale, character, and presence, not in abstract whooshing or synthetic tones.

Tide magic (water):

  • Conjuring: the sound of water being drawn up — a rushing, gurgling quality, like a stream running in reverse
  • Active state: continuous water motion — the sound of a substantial quantity of water moving with intention, plus the specific high-end shimmer of droplets and spray
  • Impact: the particular sound of water striking a surface with force — not a splash, but a pressurized impact, a dull whump followed by the spread of water
  • Dissipation: water falling, draining, returning to stillness

Flame arts (fire):

  • Conjuring: the snap and roar of fire catching — not a single flame, but the rapid combustion expansion of a magical fire starting
  • Active state: the constant roar of fire at full size, with the high-frequency hiss and crackle of active combustion and the deeper rumble of large heat convection
  • Impact: an explosive crack of fire contact, then the sustained sound of burning material
  • Dissipation: the dying of fire — the sound of flame reduced, embers settling, steam from heat meeting moisture

Shadow work:

  • Conjuring: near-silence with a quality of something listening — the ambient sound of the environment attenuates when shadow magic begins, as if sound itself is being absorbed
  • Active state: a low, resonant hum at the threshold of hearing, more felt in the chest than heard by the ear. Occasional whispers that are not quite words at the edge of audibility.
  • Impact: a sharp, cutting silence — the sound drops out completely for a fraction of a second at shadow magic impact, then returns with a ringing quality
  • Dissipation: the return of ambient sound, which now sounds too loud for a moment by contrast

Bone singing:

  • Conjuring: a voice beginning to sing — not a full voice, but the beginning of a human melody that is almost right but slightly wrong in pitch, as if the singer is halfway between worlds
  • Active state: harmonic tones building on themselves, with the specific quality of sound in an echoey space — reverberant in a way that does not match the current environment
  • Spectral manifestations: the sound of water and distant wind, even in enclosed spaces, accompanying any drowned ghost that is called. The ghosts bring their death-environment's soundscape with them.
  • Dissipation: a long, fading exhale — not a breath, but the quality of a breath released after holding it a long time

Ship Sound Design

The ship is a living sound environment. A player who spends a hundred hours on their ship should know it by its sounds the way a sailor knows their vessel.

Hull and Structure

Normal sailing in moderate conditions: The foundational ship soundscape. Multiple simultaneous audio layers:

  • Hull planks: a slow, deep creak that occurs as the hull flexes with wave motion. The rhythm is irregular — not a metronome, but the organic rhythm of a large wooden structure responding to water. The pitch and frequency of this creak changes with the ship's speed and heading relative to wave direction.
  • Keel: a deeper, lower-frequency groan beneath the planking creak, the sound of the structural backbone of the ship under load
  • Hull waterline: the rhythmic rushing of water along the hull, with periodic splashes as waves rise against the side. The pitch of this rushing rises with ship speed.

Ship damage states: As the hull takes damage, the sound design communicates it:

  • Light damage: the normal creak increases in frequency and pitch
  • Moderate damage: new sounds appear — sharper cracks from stressed or broken planking, the sound of water ingress hissing through small breaches
  • Heavy damage: the ship's fundamental soundscape shifts — the hull groan becomes continuous and lower-pitched, water sound is constant and louder from below decks, the sounds of crew damage-control work (pumping, hammering) mix into the ambient

Below waterline breach: A specifically alarming sound — the deep rush of water entering from below, not the splash of water against the outside but the interior rushing of a serious hull breach. This sound should trigger a visceral urgency response.

Rigging and Sails

Sail in wind: The constant background of a working sailing ship is the sound of canvas and rope under wind load:

  • Filled sails: a deep, sustained whomp or thrum — canvas under pressure has a musical quality, the cloth drumming against the wind at its natural frequency. The pitch varies with wind strength.
  • Sails luffing: when the ship's heading takes the wind out of the sails, they begin to flap — a rapid, sharp cracking of loose canvas that is both aurally distinctive and emotionally communicative (the ship is losing way)
  • Reefed sails: a different sound, tighter and higher — less canvas area means less low-frequency thrum, more high-frequency flutter

Rigging under tension: The ropes and lines of a sailing ship under load produce their own distinctive sound — a high-pitched whistle or hum from taut lines vibrating in the wind, the particular musical quality of a taut rope at its resonant frequency. This sound rises in pitch with wind strength, creating an involuntary tension response in the listener as the wind builds.

Block and tackle: The specific mechanical sound of pulleys and ropes working — the clicking of wooden blocks, the sliding of rope through pulley wheels, the groan of a loaded tackle being worked. These sounds occur during sail adjustment and should be present and satisfying.

Anchor chain: The rattle and clank of anchor chain running out — a sequence of metal links in rapid succession, lower at first when the chain is moving through the hawse pipe, then the distinctive slowing and final crash of the anchor striking bottom. Chain retrieval is the same sequence in reverse, with the physical effort of the crew providing additional sound context.

Sea on Hull

Wave rhythm variation by sea state:

  • Calm: near-silence at the hull. Small, gentle slaps of small waves. Almost meditative.
  • Moderate chop: a rhythmic series of medium impacts, each with a short burst of spray and white-water sound. The impacts are irregular enough to feel natural, regular enough to feel like a pulse.
  • Heavy swells: large, powerful impacts that shake the hull audio — the low-frequency boom of a significant wave meeting significant hull, followed by the rush of water over the deck. The impacts are widely spaced (every 5–8 seconds in heavy swells).
  • Storm seas: continuous, overlapping impacts from multiple directions simultaneously. The individual wave impacts are still audible but now embedded in a continuous roar of turbulent water, spray, and ship-in-motion sounds.

Environmental Sound Design

Seabirds

Birds at sea are not just a single "seagull" audio loop. The bird soundscape is accurate to location and sea state:

  • Open ocean: the occasional petrel or shearwater — smaller, higher-pitched, less aggressive than coastal gulls. At distance. Suggests genuine openness.
  • Coastal approach: bird density increases as land is approached. The specific calls of coastal species appropriate to the world region.
  • Harbor entry: the full cacophony of a working harbor with birds competing for dock scraps — raucous, varied, layered
  • Storm conditions: birds disappear from the sound environment during serious weather. The sudden absence of bird sound is itself an environmental warning — experienced sailors in fiction always note the silence before the storm.

Harbor Bustle

A port city's harbor is one of the most sonically rich environments in the game. Multiple simultaneous audio streams:

Dock sounds:

  • Rope work: coiling, throwing, securing
  • Cargo handling: the thump of cargo crates, the creak of dock cranes, the shout of workers coordinating loading/unloading
  • Hull work: caulking mallets on hull seams, the rasp of scrapers on barnacled hull bottoms, the drip and splash of underwater hull work

Harbor traffic:

  • Other ships arriving and departing: hull and rigging sounds from neighboring vessels
  • Small boat traffic: the lighter sounds of rowboats and skiffs, oars in water, passengers calling to shore
  • Harbor authority: voices calling across water, hailing arriving ships, directing traffic

Commercial sounds:

  • The general market noise of a working dock district: hawkers, negotiators, argument, the clatter of goods
  • The specific sounds of the fish market if present: the call-and-response of auction, the wet sounds of fresh catch being handled
  • Smithwork audible from nearby repair shops: hammer on anvil, the hiss of hot metal in water

General crowd: A background of human voices at the distance that communicates population density. Not words, but the quality of a crowd — the specific texture of many humans going about their business in proximity.

Tavern and Interior Sounds

The tavern is the social center of port life. Its soundscape:

  • Background music (documented in music-and-atmosphere.md) — live performance at varying energy levels depending on time of day
  • Crowd voices: a continuous background of conversation, laughter, occasional argument — never intelligible but always human
  • Wooden furniture: chairs on wooden floors, cups on tables, the particular sound of a busy tavern as it has always sounded
  • Hearth: if present, the constant background of a fire in a large fireplace — warmth communicated through sound
  • The bar: specific sounds of the pour, the slide of a cup, the thunk of something heavy set down

Spatial audio requirement: The tavern soundscape should be fully spatialized. Walking toward the fire makes it louder. Moving to the back corner of the room reduces the main crowd noise and brings up the quiet conversation of nearby tables. The sound system communicates the room's architecture through audio alone.

Underwater Ambience

The transition to underwater audio is one of the most distinctive moments in Salt & Steel. The sound change must be as dramatic as the visual change.

Transition: When the player character submerges, the surface-world sounds do not disappear instantly but transition:

  • All high-frequency sounds attenuate immediately — the world above water suddenly sounds muffled, soft, rounded
  • A deep, resonant underwater ambient establishes — a low-frequency wash that is the background of the ocean itself, its geological and biological noise at low amplitude
  • The player's own breath becomes audible: each inhalation and exhalation from the diving apparatus (or held breath)

Underwater ambient:

  • Biological sound: fish schools produce a subtle clicking. Coral reefs produce a surprisingly loud biological soundscape — a crackling, clicking, multi-layered texture from thousands of small creatures
  • Physical sound: water moving over rock and through reef formations produces wind-like tones at low frequency
  • Own-body sounds: heartbeat, breath rhythm, the sound of the character's movement through water — bubbles rising, movement creating turbulent water

Pressure and depth: As the character descends, the ambient changes quality — lower frequencies dominate more completely, the soundscape becomes less varied and more ominous, and the character's own sounds (heartbeat, breath) become more prominent, creating psychological pressure through audio.

Creature sounds underwater: Sea creatures have distinctive underwater sounds. The movement of a large creature is heard before it is seen — the displacement of water as something massive moves nearby. Certain creatures produce vocalizations (whales, some larger fantastical sea creatures) that are audible at significant range underwater, navigational and emotional in equal measure.

Storm Sound Design

The storm is Salt & Steel's most demanding ambient sound event. It must communicate genuine danger without becoming aurally fatiguing.

Storm audio layers (mixing in as the storm builds):

  1. Wind picking up: the rigging begins its rising hum; the canvas starts to crack; the hull's water-sound increases in frequency
  2. First rain: the patter of large drops on canvas and wood, distinctive in their individual impact
  3. Rain building: the individual impacts merge into a continuous roar on sail and deck surfaces
  4. Thunder at distance: a low, rolling boom that takes several seconds to travel from the lightning to the listener — never instantaneous
  5. Close thunder: a sharp crack followed by the rolling boom, much louder, with the physical pressure component
  6. Full storm: the combination of all above at full volume — wind, rain, waves, hull stress — into a roar that requires crew communication to be shouted to be heard

Voice priority in storm: During storm sequences, the player's crew should shout their communications — the same dialogue used in normal sailing is delivered at higher volume, faster tempo, with the urgency of people who are frightened and working hard. The audio system must ensure these voice lines are audible above the storm ambient, since they contain gameplay-relevant information.

UI Sound Design

UI sounds are world sounds, not software sounds. The organizing principle: the game interface (documented in UI/UX design docs) looks like physical world objects — the character sheet is a Captain's Record, the chart is a physical chart — and the sounds should match.

Nautical Chart interaction:

  • Unrolling the chart: the sound of aged paper unrolling, with the specific crackling quality of old cartographic paper
  • Hovering over regions: a very soft, almost inaudible crinkling of paper as a finger traces coastlines
  • Selecting a destination: a soft tap of a fingernail or marking tool on paper

Captain's Record (character sheet):

  • Opening: leather cover opening, pages settling
  • Skill allocation: the sound of ink meeting paper — a soft scratch that communicates inscription
  • Turning pages: authentic page-turn sounds

Cargo hold/inventory:

  • Opening: chest latches, lid lifting, the sound of interior air releasing
  • Item pickup and placement: sounds appropriate to the item type — metal items clank, fabric items rustle, paper items crinkle, glass items have a delicate chime

Treasure Pickup

The sound of picking up gold is one of the most important single sounds in an ARPG. Salt & Steel's treasure pickup sound must be:

Immediately satisfying: It should produce an involuntary positive response. The classic coin-collecting sound psychology applies — a high, bright tone or chord that the brain registers as reward.

Specific to amount: Small coin pickups have a brief, light clink — single coins or small amounts. Medium quantities have a cascade of clinks — multiple coins, the sound of a handful. Large treasure events (opening a chest, collecting a boss's hoard) have a multi-layered cascade with a bass-heavy gold-rushing-into-pile sound and the sustained shimmer of many coins settling.

Warm in character: The tone of treasure pickup sounds should be warm — amber-gold in audio terms, meaning a tone with more mid and low-mid frequency than a cold high sparkle. The warmth of the sound matches the warmth of the visual palette for treasure.

Never repetitive: The treasure pickup sound library should have enough variation that repeated pickups in rapid succession (clearing a dungeon room) never produce the same sound twice in a row.

Skill Point Allocation

When a player spends a point on a Skill or Advantage, the sound should communicate the weight of that decision:

Advantages: A warm, resonant chime — the sound of something significant being confirmed. Not triumphant, but affirming. The specific pitch should vary by Advantage type, creating a subtle differentiation between, for example, a combat Advantage (slightly lower, more grounded) and a social Advantage (slightly higher, more melodic).

Disadvantages: A different quality — still affirming, but with a slight undertone of consequence. Perhaps a single note with a subtle minor harmonic that adds complexity without negativity. The selection of a Disadvantage is a meaningful choice, and the sound should honor that.

Skills: A click-and-register sound — more mechanical than the Advantage/Disadvantage sounds, appropriate to the skill acquisition being a more incremental progression.

Map Interaction

Nautical Chart panning: A very soft paper-on-surface texture as the map is scrolled — communicating the physical movement of looking at a large physical chart.

Zone discovery: When a new zone is revealed, a soft "opening" sound — paper unfurling or a stamp of ink — that communicates new information being added to a physical record.

Voyage launch: The moment of committing to sail to a new destination — a combination of the anchor chain beginning to move, sails catching wind, and a brief musical accent (documented in music-and-atmosphere.md).

Hit Feedback by Damage Type

The following section defines the specific audio signature for each damage type, ensuring that sound alone communicates what is happening mechanically.

Cutting Damage

Hit sound components:

  1. The initial high crack of blade contact (very brief)
  2. A short metallic ring (pitch varies by weapon and armor type)
  3. A flesh component beneath the ring if the cut reached skin (a soft, wet quality)

Miss or block: The ring without the flesh component; the deflected-blade variation of the impact sound.

Wound severity: Light cuts produce a brief, bright impact with short sustain. Deep cuts — enough to cause bleeding — produce the same impact followed by a slower, wetter quality that lingers slightly, communicating that the damage done will continue.

Crushing Damage

Hit sound components:

  1. A heavy, low-frequency impact — the thud of mass meeting body
  2. A brief, very low sustain — the resonance of impacted bone and dense tissue
  3. An armor component if applicable — metal on armor produces a very short bell-like ring beneath the impact thud; wood on cloth armor produces a softer, more muffled thud

Stagger/knockback indicator: When a crushing blow staggers a character, a second audio component — the rush of air from a person suddenly off-balance, the stumble of feet — communicates the mechanical outcome without text.

Piercing/Impaling Damage

Hit sound components:

  1. A sharp, very brief impact — the point makes contact
  2. A brief, low-quality wet sound — the penetration
  3. A very short additional sound if the weapon is extracted — a slight pulling sound

Bleed application: When a piercing hit applies bleed, a brief additional audio event: a low, almost inaudible pulsing sound that establishes the bleed's presence before it becomes a persistent low-frequency tick synchronized to the bleed damage pulses.

Death Sounds

Player Character Near-Death

When the player character reaches critically low health, the ambient soundscape changes:

  • A low, resonant heartbeat becomes audible — not loud, but present
  • High-frequency ambient sounds attenuate slightly (the fading of senses)
  • The player's own breathing becomes audible in the mix

Player Character Death

The death of the player character is a sound event that must communicate without judgment:

  • The combat sounds fade rapidly
  • A held musical note (minor, sustained) fades in briefly before the death screen
  • No sting, no failure fanfare — the music handles this moment (documented in music-and-atmosphere.md)

Named Crew Member Death

The death of a named crew member — a character the player has sailed with, whose name they know — requires a specific audio treatment (also documented in music-and-atmosphere.md's silence as a tool section):

  • The immediate combat sound does not change — the fight continues
  • A very brief pause in the musical underscore
  • A specific voice line from surviving crew, not triumphant enemy dialogue
  • After the combat, the return to ambient has a slightly different quality — one fewer ambient voice from the crew soundscape

Enemy Death Sounds by Type

Human enemies: A brief, appropriate death vocalizing (not lingered upon), the sound of collapse, the settling of armor and equipment.

Aquatic creatures: A more mechanical, inhuman quality — the sounds of biological systems ceasing, with the specific wet quality appropriate to creatures whose bodies contain significant water.

Large creatures: A sequence event — the creature vocalizes (the specific vocalization documented per-creature in the creature design documents), then a massive physical impact as the body hits the environment, then a final settling of biological sounds ceasing.

Critical Hit Emphasis

Critical hits are a mechanical peak moment and should sound like it.

Construction: A critical hit sound is the same damage type sound as a normal hit, but with:

  1. A slight pitch shift upward on the impact component (the "snap" of the critical lands harder)
  2. A brief resonance extension — the sound sustains 20–30% longer, letting the moment breathe
  3. A very brief harmonic overtone above the normal impact sound — a ghost of a musical note that is not quite there, the audio equivalent of a visual flash

The overall effect: The critical hit should sound like the best version of its hit type — the hit that made everyone in the room look. It should not sound like a special effect was added; it should sound like the same sound, done better.

See also:
Music and Atmosphere — the musical layer that contextualizes these sounds
VFX System — the visual counterpart to every sound documented here
Art Direction — the world context within which these sounds must be believable