A game plays the same little sounds over and over. A tap on every button, a chime on every pickup, a buzz on every mistake. The thirteen game sound effects below come from the DailySounds library and cover a typical indie game. They go from menus to combat to a horror scare. There are notes on cutting them into one-shots and getting them into your engine too.
Every pick below is a sound from the DailySounds library. You can play it right here, and its page has the free download as an MP3, WAV or OGG file. If none of them is quite right, browse UI and game sounds, sci-fi sounds or footstep sounds, or read the notification sounds guide.
How the list works
The list follows how a game flows. Menu and button sounds come first, then rewards, then action and atmosphere. Several picks hold more than one take in a file, and that's handy in a game. Split them up and play a random one each time, so repeated actions don't sound identical.
1. Soft Interface Tap
Good for: buttons, toggles, moving through menus. Length: 0.5s.
A soft, plain tap, under half a second long. You can hear it hundreds of times without it getting old. Most of the file is silence after the tap, so cut it to just the hit. Make two or three copies at slightly different pitches to rotate between.
2. Scan Denied
Good for: blocked actions, locked doors, wrong answers. Length: 6s.
That's a loud electronic buzz that says "no" right away. The second half of the six-second file is just the sound dying out. Cut it short for quick menu feedback, or keep the tail for a locked door or a keycard that doesn't work. Show something on screen with it too, so players know what went wrong.
3. Gentle Success Chime
Good for: solved puzzles, right answers, confirmations. Length: 2s.
Just one soft chime that rings once and fades out in about two seconds. It's low and gentle, so it won't get old when it plays a lot. Cut the quiet half second at the end if you want it tighter.
4. Arcade Power Up
Good for: pickups, bonuses, clearing a stage. Length: 1.3s.
A bright synth sweep going up, about 1.3 seconds long, with a fuller sound under it. It's short enough for frequent pickups, but it lifts enough to feel like progress. Line the rise up with the moment the item gets collected.
5. Various Game Powerups
Good for: a matching set of pickups and level-ups. Length: 10s.
A bunch of short rising chimes and blips in one file, with a pause after each one. Cut them at the gaps and you've got a small set of pickups that go together. Common items get one, and rare items get another pitched up a few semitones. They're quiet as recorded, so normalize each piece.
6. Chest Powerup Special
Good for: treasure chests, achievements, finishing a level. Length: 10s.
It starts with an opening bit, then rising, sparkly notes, with gaps between the parts. Put the first hit where the chest lid opens and let the sparkle ring under the loot screen. Or trim it to just the ending for a shorter achievement sound.
7. 8-Bit Explosion
Good for: player deaths, blocks breaking, beating a boss in a retro game. Length: 9s.
A chunky, pixelated blast that hits right away and then keeps crunching for most of its nine seconds. Cut the tail short for fast gameplay, or keep it for a boss going down.
8. 8-Bit Sword Unsheathe
Good for: drawing a weapon, equipping gear, retro melee. Length: 9s.
A few sharp chiptune swipes that sound like old handheld games. There's silence between them, so each one's easy to pull out. Use different takes for draw, swing and equip. Pitch one down for a heavier weapon.
9. Laser Blaster Fire 5
Good for: sci-fi shooters, turrets, arcade games. Length: 5s.
That's a run of blaster shots with short pauses between them, mixed really loud. Cut out single shots and replay them with small pitch changes. There are five versions of this sound in the library, from Laser Blaster Fire to this one, so different weapons or enemies can each get their own.
10. Magic Poof
Good for: spawning, despawning, teleports, spells. Length: 3s.
Just a soft, bright puff with a short tail. It works for things appearing and vanishing. When something appears, reverse it so the sound swells into the moment. And stack a light chime on top if you want it more magical.
11. Footsteps on Stone
Good for: dungeons, castles, town squares. Length: 10s.
Ten seconds of even steps on a hard surface, spaced out enough to cut into single steps for a walk cycle. There are takes on other surfaces too, so the sound can change when the player walks onto grass, wood, gravel or snow.
12. Terrifying Game Stinger 2
Good for: jump scares, death screens, horror reveals. Length: 12s.
This is a dark stinger made of a few deep hits and swells, with near-silence between them. It's about twelve seconds long. Put the first hit right on the scare and let the rest play out under what comes after. It's mixed at a medium level, so there's room to push it louder at the big moment.
13. Video Game Intro
Good for: title screens, press-start prompts, game trailers. Length: 6s.
Two bright electronic hits, kinda like an arcade title screen. Use both on your start screen, or trim it to just the second hit for a simple confirm sound. It's on the quiet side, so turn it up to match your music.
A few tips
Trim every one-shot right up to where the sound starts. Even a little quiet at the front makes a button feel laggy. Normalize them all to about the same loudness. Then balance them against your music inside the engine, not in the files. And give anything the player triggers over and over a small random pitch change, a few percent either way.
Using these MP3s in Unity, Godot and Defold
Every sound on DailySounds is stored as an MP3. Each download button can also save a WAV or an Ogg Vorbis (OGG) copy made from that MP3, so just pick the file type next to the button. Unity imports MP3 directly, along with WAV, Ogg Vorbis, AIFF and FLAC. It re-encodes each clip when you import it, using that clip's import settings. Godot 4 imports MP3 too. Its docs suggest WAV for short sounds that repeat a lot and Ogg Vorbis for music and long sounds. They also say MP3 takes less CPU to decode than Ogg Vorbis, which helps on mobile and web. Godot can also trim the silence off the start and end when it imports a WAV file. Defold doesn't play MP3. Its sound components take WAV (8- or 16-bit PCM) or Ogg Vorbis, plus Ogg Opus with an optional decoder. So for Defold, download the WAV or OGG version.
Use WAV or OGG for looping sounds too, like ambiences or engine hums. MP3 encoders add a few milliseconds of padding to the start and end of a file. That can leave a small gap or click where a loop repeats. The WAV and OGG copies here usually leave that padding out.
Can I put these sounds in a commercial game?
Yes. The DailySounds license covers games and apps, paid ones too, with no credit needed. What you can't do is share, sell or re-upload the raw files on their own, for example as a sound pack or an asset store listing.
Need WAVs instead of MP3s?
Pick WAV next to any download button and you get a 16-bit WAV made from the MP3. For 48 kHz / 24-bit WAVs that are already trimmed and named, grab the Daily Sounds sound packs. The 60-sound Game Starter pack is free.