Retro Sound Effects

704 retro game sound effects: 352 sounds, each in an 8-bit and a 16-bit version, as WAV and OGG. Menus, dialogue blips, coins, power-ups, jumps, footsteps, lasers, explosions, hits, magic, doors, alarms, jingles, creatures and more, 12 of them seamless loops. For platformers, RPGs, shmups, arcade, puzzle and jam games.

Licence in one line: use them in your commercial games; do not resell the sounds. No credit required.

Two versions of every sound

• 8-bit: pulse waves (12.5/25/50/75%), a 16-step triangle, 1-bit noise and "metal" noise, with pitch and volume stepping at frame rate like the 8-bit consoles.
• 16-bit: FM tones, smooth filtered noise, soft triangles, a gentle low-pass and echo on longer sounds.
• The same file name in both folders (WAV/8-bit/pickups/coin_01.wav and WAV/16-bit/pickups/coin_01.wav), so you can swap the whole set by changing one folder.

What you get

• UI and menus (37 x 2 = 74): menu click, cursor move / hover, confirm / accept, cancel / back, error / not allowed, menu opens, menu closes, toggle on, toggle off, slider tick, keyboard key / typing, notification, pause, unpause.
• Dialogue blips (26 x 2 = 52): dialogue voice "tiny", dialogue voice "pip", dialogue voice "mid", dialogue voice "deep", dialogue voice "robot", dialogue voice "gruff", dialogue voice "ghost", dialogue voice "chirp", text finished, next text box.
• Coins and pickups (22 x 2 = 44): coin, gem / crystal, item pickup, key pickup, heart / health pickup, ammo pickup, purchase / cash.
• Power-ups (16 x 2 = 32): power-up, level up, extra life, invincible / star, power down.
• Jumps and landings (16 x 2 = 32): jump, double jump, spring / bounce, landing, landing (heavy).
• Footsteps (16 x 2 = 32): footstep on stone, footstep on grass, footstep on wood, footstep on metal.
• Lasers and shots (20 x 2 = 40): laser, blaster, charged shot, machine gun burst, plasma shot, rocket launch.
• Explosions (13 x 2 = 26): small explosion, medium explosion, big explosion, distant explosion, bomb fuse then boom.
• Hits and blocks (16 x 2 = 32): punch, hit, critical hit, block / shield hit, slash hit.
• Hurt (12 x 2 = 24): player hurt, enemy hurt.
• Death and defeat (10 x 2 = 20): player dies, enemy dies, boss defeated.
• Melee and weapons (14 x 2 = 28): sword swing / whoosh, heavy swing, bow shot, arrow hits, throw.
• Magic (20 x 2 = 40): fire spell, ice spell, lightning spell, heal, buff / stat up, debuff / stat down, poison, summon.
• Teleport and time (10 x 2 = 20): teleport, warp / portal, rewind, time stop.
• Doors and mechanisms (16 x 2 = 32): door opens, door closes, door closes (heavy), locked, switch / button, lever, chest opens, secret wall / rumble, elevator / platform (loop).
• Alarms and timers (14 x 2 = 28): siren (loop), beeping alarm (loop), klaxon (loop), countdown beep, countdown: go, clock tick, clock tock, warning, low health beep (loop), heartbeat (loop), time up.
• Jingles (18 x 2 = 36): level complete, victory fanfare, game over, secret found, item get, quest complete, game saved, shop / bell, press start.
• Creatures (16 x 2 = 32): slime, bat squeaks, monster roar, small creature / bird, ghost wail, robot voice.
• Sci-fi and machines (14 x 2 = 28): engine hum (loop), thruster burst, shield up, shield hum (loop), computer beeps, scanner, machine powers down, machine powers up.
• Water, weather and world (16 x 2 = 32): splash, bubble, water drip, wind (loop), rain (loop), campfire crackle (loop), thunder, dig, crate breaks, glass breaks.
• Score and combo (10 x 2 = 20): score count tick, combo (rising), bonus, multiplier up, new high score.

Made for game work

• WAV 44.1 kHz 16-bit mono + OGG Vorbis of every sound.
• Loudness-matched (K-weighted short-term loudness, -12 dB): 85% of the files are within 1 dB; sounds with sharp peaks stay at the -1 dBFS peak limit. Never clipped, trimmed, no DC, a 5 ms fade-out.
• Loops with loop points: the WAVs carry a "smpl" loop chunk (Godot 4 imports them as loops by itself), the OGGs carry LOOPSTART/LOOPLENGTH (the RPG Maker convention).
• Cue sheet (CSV + JSON): every file with its version, group, description, length, peak, loudness and loop points.
• soundboard.html: open it in your browser and click through every sound, offline, with search and an 8-bit/16-bit switch.
• Names that say what each sound is: coin_01, jump_03, explosion_big_02, door_open_01, alarm_loop_01, blip_robot_high.
• Plays in Godot, Unity, GameMaker, RPG Maker, Construct, Phaser, LOVE and anything else that plays WAV or OGG.

Hear it before you buy

The preview reel (a free MP3 on this page) plays all 704 sounds in order, about 9 minutes, with a timestamp list in the free sample. The free sample has 74 sounds (37 designs from every group, both versions, WAV + OGG) with its own sound board.

What it does not include

No music tracks (only short jingles and stingers), no voices or recordings, no stereo or 48 kHz files, no synthesiser source code. The 16-bit versions of the longer sounds have a short echo tail; use the 8-bit versions if you need them dry.

Licence

Use and edit in personal and commercial projects; shipping the sounds inside your game is fine. No resale or redistribution of the sounds, edited or not, and no registering them with content-ID systems. Credit is appreciated, not required. Not for AI training or NFTs.

How it was made

Every sound is synthesised by our own code (Python + numpy): oscillators, noise, envelopes, pitch sweeps, filters and echo, rendered at 4x and band-limited down to 44.1 kHz. Nothing was recorded or sampled, and no AI audio model was used. The synthesiser and the sound designs were written with AI-assisted tools, which is why the page is tagged AI Assisted (Code).

See our packs in a real game: Gridwright Survivors (free demo).
Make your own game: Gridwright Survivors Template.

Missing a sound? Leave a comment: the pack gets updates.