Theres one thing I've never got to grips with - how to actually create sound effects for use in a game. Now I suppose if you were doing a realistic game you would go out and record actual things happening, engine noise, footsteps etc. However I'm after 'arcade-y' sound effects - the kind of abstract blips and swishes you'd expect from a fun platformer. It feels frustrating - its easy to knock up some crappy 2d sprites in a drawing program, but theres no equivilent (that I've found) that lets you 'draw' a sound to create it from scratch. All the sound editing programs I've used have just been variations on cutting and splicing existing sampled sound. What kind of programs should I be looking for? Ideally software would be free/cheap 'cos its obviously not something I'm heavily into. Any advice appreaciated, thanks.

You really can't "draw" sound.

Your best bet is to go around with a microphone and experiment with different things.

I've made some wicked "laser gun firing" sound effect using a slinky and a piece of stiff paper.

After that, those programs that let you mess with waves are useful.

Well thats the point, I can't 'draw' sound, and actually going out and recording things isn't really going to get me the effects I need. So 'somehow' [insert hand waving] I need to actually create some source sounds to tinker with, and thats what has me miffed.

Try finding some free sound effect resource on the net and you can always manipulate them to your needs with a wav editor.

Sound is a tough art, not saying it's any harder or easier than any other art, after all any art is an opinion, but it's hard to tinker with sound.

I can sypathise with you, man. I like seeing things, but wacked out waveforms just don't do it for me. So... I've been able to get most anything with a standard coffee cup and wooden desk. You can drag, drop, shatter, or even hit yourself with it for the grunts!

But seriously, there just isn't anything. You've gotta have some source, and then you just modify the heck out of it, and combine other files. Star Wars used a broken metal fence as the base for the lasers, some water pipes and keyboards for R2D2, etc. I'll try to find the site (just for fun). But that's the only (current) way to do it, really. Someone just asked here about creating sounds from a sine wav (possible, but terribly difficult).

Found it.... Just fun to read through.

There are a small handfull of programs that will allow you to use paint programs as front-ends to synthesizers. The only one that I've had any experience with is "Metasynth," which runs under MacOS 9. The demo version will neither save works in progress nor render out to sound files, but the software is well worth the price of registration. Incidentally, it was used to creat numerous effects elements in the two most recent Matrix films. Great program for anything from instrument panel bleeps to vocoder-style alien winds.

It's not difficult to make those blips, I made a couple for a mini competition once, and it only took me a few minutes. They are done by manipulating small waveform samples (like sin, triangle, etc) with effects like portamento and arpeggio.

I suggest you download ModPlug and some samples and mess around with it. Here's an .it file with some blips to get you started.

In reference to some things said earlier:actually, you CAN draw sound. For example, in SoundForge, there's a waveform editor with a pencil tool. any squiggle you make will be interpreted as a waveform and result in a sound.
I've used that pen myself to redraw waves marred by clicks, pops and other not-cool distortions.
As far as your overall concern of creating your own custom sounds: My advice is to get yersef a cheap electric guitar (it doesn't matter if you don't play if you want sounds not music), and a good effects pedal. An extremely good choice for you would be Moog's MicroSynth effects box for electric guitar. It's maybe a couple hundred bucks used, but it can make an wide variety of sounds. Would solve your lack of custom sounds problem forever. You could combine the sounds you get out of that set up with other sounds, either recorded, scavenged or sampled.

Yes, creativity is all that is necessary. I am a musician and before I was able to afford it, I created the drums for my songs using a guitar! I just hit the strings and then ran some effects through it. The average person would just think that it was badly recorded drums.