When developing a game, the developer is usually not a jack of all trades and may have a hard time when looking for sound and music. Apple's own GarageBand provides an easy way to create music using predefined loops or even one's own instruments. Another possibility is to find talented people who can help to create audio files. One of the places to look out for are the TIGSource forums—a place for independent game developers—which has a portfolio section at http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?board=43.0 and a section that offers paid work at http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?board=40.0.

Generating sound effects

Bxfr is a procedural sound generator which is often used in game jams. It is available online at http://www.bfxr.net/; the standalone versions for Windows and Mac OS X can be downloaded from this link as well. Its purpose is to generate 8-bit sound effects in just a few clicks:

First of all, we need to select a type, which we can then modify with several...