My Limberjacks entry needed sounds, and I thought that “winter forest needs some wind sound”. How to make such? I grabbed four almost-free tools of mine to help get the job done:

* My Samsung Galaxy S3 (cheap)
* Smart Voice Recorder app (free)
* Audacity (free)
* My mouth (free)

I start blowing very gently towards the screen (not towards the microphone, since that would just create noise). I didn’t blow directly to the microphone, and my mouth was above the screen. After recording the audio (making sure the quality of recording is highest possible) I copied the files to my computer and tweaked them in Audacity (basically, cut off the clip and might have slightly reduced the noise if necessary).

After that, the job was done: your cheap-as-hell background wind sound is finished.

Yes, it sounds crap if you compare it to… well, almost to anything BUT there’s one advantage: it’s still much better than no sound at all. Just by spending few minutes on this, I have enhanced the game experience. Now it kind of emphasis the cold winter scene. Having any small sounds can make a big difference.

Or, at least a little difference in a game JAM like ludum dare.

To check it out, here’s the Limberjacks entry.