A history of Hup, the jump sound of shooting games(wired.com)
wired.com
A history of Hup, the jump sound of shooting games
https://www.wired.com/story/hup-history-jump-sound-video-games/
106 comments
> What I think of as the golden age of FPS games happened shortly after, in 98, with the release of Half-Life and Unreal.
I think there are two components to this: the quality of the games and the community. Modern shooters like Overwatch are amazing. Where they tend to falter:
1. Lack of emergent gameplay (circle jumping, bunny hopping, conc grenade jumping)
2. Curated experience (matchmaking) is inferior to community-led servers and maps
The magic of games from that period was due to both the game design and the nature of the Internet itself.
I think there are two components to this: the quality of the games and the community. Modern shooters like Overwatch are amazing. Where they tend to falter:
1. Lack of emergent gameplay (circle jumping, bunny hopping, conc grenade jumping)
2. Curated experience (matchmaking) is inferior to community-led servers and maps
The magic of games from that period was due to both the game design and the nature of the Internet itself.
It's been a long time since I played a multiplayer shooter, but I used to have admin on a UT2k3 IG CTF clan server. One oddly strong memory I have from those days was banning cheaters and swapping lists of banned UUIDs with the admins of our peer clans. Nowadays I read about rampant cheating and banwaves, but I think there was something to be said for local decisions around banning and the immediacy of it. It certainly felt like a cozier community, at least.
Not being a gamer, I'm not familiar with the level of cheating possibilities in modern games. I hear about it being done and the banwaves. What are players doing that is considered cheating?
Invisible walls and automatic aiming. It ruins the experience for anyone trying to get better at it. Especially now, with automatic matchmaking. You have to climb the ranks and beat the cheaters, whereas before you just had to know which servers had the good players in them.
Okay, but how does a cheater use invisible walls and automatic aiming? Are they patching their local binary of the game to give them features other players do not have? I know playing against a cheater sucks, but I'm really curious on how the cheats occur. I'm guessing this is like anything else where one clever person figures it out first, and then the rest of the cheaters just use the trick without knowing anything about how/why it works. I guess I'm getting at the point that I might be impressed with the original discoverer, and they kind of have a HNer's mindset
> Are they patching their local binary of the game to give them features other players do not have?
Pretty much. It's often a little more sophisticated, (e.g. it's common to use dll injection and not actually modify the binary) but yes
Pretty much. It's often a little more sophisticated, (e.g. it's common to use dll injection and not actually modify the binary) but yes
I'd like to add: 3. A huge (for the time) mod community. The amount of stupid mods I played in Quake 1/2 was amazing. So many original ideas that sometimes lead to the creation of completely new sub genres like action quake (a heavy influence for counter strike) or team fortress.
I remember working at Compaq doing server support, clocking off at 5:30, and someone would fire up a Quaker 2 server. Roughly 20 people in the office would stay back to play for an hour. The mods were awesome. Someone had a Homer Simpson skin with about 10 different vocal samples for various damage. Best LAN sessions I ever had, I think.
I think the best commercial arena shooters were Quake 3 Arena and Unreal Tournament 2004. Played the hell out of those at LAN parties.
For years I didn't game. I was never into solo play. However, about a year ago while working at a small start-up we decided to have a quick daily Deathmatch and settled on Xonotic (similar to Q3/UT2004) and I've actually been playing it a few times a week since. Absolutely love the fast pace arena stuff.
I think the best commercial arena shooters were Quake 3 Arena and Unreal Tournament 2004. Played the hell out of those at LAN parties.
For years I didn't game. I was never into solo play. However, about a year ago while working at a small start-up we decided to have a quick daily Deathmatch and settled on Xonotic (similar to Q3/UT2004) and I've actually been playing it a few times a week since. Absolutely love the fast pace arena stuff.
Funny, I think Quake 2 or Unreal Tournament were both better, respectively. Most likely an age thing. To be fair they were all pretty good.
I remember getting Quake on CD, and playing it with the disc in the drive, so I got the atmospheric music/sounds produced by Trent Reznor. It was actually pretty scary playing that in the dark. I remember walk into a room. The music changes. The door slams shut behind me. Oh shit! A Shambler!
Totally agree. Half Life also had Tau/Gauss jumping. Movement dynamics by comparison nowadays are way more restricted, scripted, and generally "easier" but less rewarding. Nothing quite as thrilling as timing a perfect conc nade jump to launch yourself across the map deep into the teams flag room :)
Funny you mention Overwatch because it has both
Mountains of emergent gameplay (if you play at a high enough level), and community led servers with custom game modes via the workshop.
But people still queue up for competitive because the very existence of a 24/7 accessible competitive system with instant post match feedback (read: not going to tournaments) is a huge draw for a lot of people, even if it's at the expense of the community aspect.
Mountains of emergent gameplay (if you play at a high enough level), and community led servers with custom game modes via the workshop.
But people still queue up for competitive because the very existence of a 24/7 accessible competitive system with instant post match feedback (read: not going to tournaments) is a huge draw for a lot of people, even if it's at the expense of the community aspect.
Wrong. Don't get me wrong Overwatch is a well done game but there just isn't nearly the level of freedom and community you had with UT2k4 and Q3. The nature of the game itself is so so much more prescriptive. I played OW enough to get some faint shadow of 2000's era gaming (scrims, a regular team, loads of time to dedicate to it) but it's trash compared to the experience of hopping on a clan server.
Overwatch has more mechanics than either of the games you mentioned, if you don't get that then you're not a good enough player to have discovered them, which is fine.
And you failed to comprehend my comment: the player base mostly doesn't want the community part over the immediate feedback of comp.
People don't want clan servers, they want to queue up, win or lose, then queue up again.
After all, nothing stops OW from supporting clans. Unlike say Warzone that needs 40 something people for a private match, OW will let your team play another team with no problem.
But people still overwhelmingly go it alone, because they want that immediate feedback loop of solo queue.
And you failed to comprehend my comment: the player base mostly doesn't want the community part over the immediate feedback of comp.
People don't want clan servers, they want to queue up, win or lose, then queue up again.
After all, nothing stops OW from supporting clans. Unlike say Warzone that needs 40 something people for a private match, OW will let your team play another team with no problem.
But people still overwhelmingly go it alone, because they want that immediate feedback loop of solo queue.
Overwatch has more mechanics than Go, yet it is not a deeper game.
It was gaming, specifically Half Life, Quake, and Unreal that really gripped me in my young years and fascinated me. I attribute my love for software those wonderful years!
What the article kind of gets wrong or at least doesn't mention explicitly: pre-Quake id shooters didn't have a jumping sound not because it wasn't a priority, but because it simply wasn't possible to jump in Wolf 3D or Doom 1/2. So it totally makes sense that the first id game where you could jump would also have a sound for it.
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I still recall playing Hexan at the office in the 90s. I kept one of my co-worker as a chicken for 2 hours! Was driving him crazy. But as soon as he would return from chicken transform, I would shoot an egg at him and turn him back into a chicken! He would not give up...
I played lots of quake2-3 but that wasn't the golden age. Now you have even better selection for competitive gaming, like CS Go, valorant with their 128 ticks/s servers.
> When I was a youngster in the early 90s [...] most homes didn't have a computer
"Most homes" might be technically correct, but home computers were a thing since the late 70s, and really taking off in the early 1980s withe the ZX81, ZX Spectrum, VIC 20, Commodore 64, and a myriad of others, depending on your geography.
> Almost nobody my age was playing computer games, only people working in industry.
This, of course, is complete nonsense. By the early 90s capable home computers such as the Amiga and Atari had if anything reached their hayday, with a myriad of popular games available. (Not to mention the popularity of dedicated games consoles.)
"Most homes" might be technically correct, but home computers were a thing since the late 70s, and really taking off in the early 1980s withe the ZX81, ZX Spectrum, VIC 20, Commodore 64, and a myriad of others, depending on your geography.
> Almost nobody my age was playing computer games, only people working in industry.
This, of course, is complete nonsense. By the early 90s capable home computers such as the Amiga and Atari had if anything reached their hayday, with a myriad of popular games available. (Not to mention the popularity of dedicated games consoles.)
I think you should allow people to share their own anecdotes and recollection of their own childhood. Its not like this person claimed that this was the case for all of the world, all of the US or all of their state. Maybe few/nobody his age where he lived was playing computer games, how can you know if that is nonsense?
He's right though. Home PCs exploded in the early 90s. He said he was in DC. What he's saying is just not accurate at all. I grew up in a small Midwest town and tons of people had computers in the early 90s. Most people had a PC and internet by the late 90s. It was the heyday of Doom for crying out loud.
In the early 90s it depended vastly on your demographic in my neck of the woods (Minneapolis). I read that comment largely nodding in agreement.
First you had to be able to afford one, even second hand 286's in the early 90's were a moderate expense for many families.
I was absolutely the abnormal one of my peer group in school when I had pre-existing computer knowledge from home for "computer class". Certainly the only one at all into gaming on it, other than friends enjoying coming over to play random games at times.
Entering high school in the mid-90's there were only maybe a half dozen to dozen kids who you could remotely describe as "PC Gamers" - but plenty of console folks who you could at least talk with. Only a small handful who regularly used BBS' or knew what a MUD was or the like.
I think for "most houses had a PC by then" might be accurate for houses with school-age children (as it was a powerful meme by then you needed one for schoolwork), but I don't recall a single childless relative having one other than the hacker uncle who taught me. The vast majority of my peers who had PCs or Macs at home never really used them other than as-prescribed for word processing or whatnot - a lot lacked the hardware (math coprocessors, sound card, a bit later graphics accelerators) to really interest most kids when they had been exposed to arcades and the NES by then.
It rapidly shifted around 93-95 or so, but the years fly by so I could be off a couple. I remember distinctly going from being the only one who had ever heard of the Internet to being asked daily about how to get hooked up. Crazy rates of change compared to today's relatively stagnant industry.
First you had to be able to afford one, even second hand 286's in the early 90's were a moderate expense for many families.
I was absolutely the abnormal one of my peer group in school when I had pre-existing computer knowledge from home for "computer class". Certainly the only one at all into gaming on it, other than friends enjoying coming over to play random games at times.
Entering high school in the mid-90's there were only maybe a half dozen to dozen kids who you could remotely describe as "PC Gamers" - but plenty of console folks who you could at least talk with. Only a small handful who regularly used BBS' or knew what a MUD was or the like.
I think for "most houses had a PC by then" might be accurate for houses with school-age children (as it was a powerful meme by then you needed one for schoolwork), but I don't recall a single childless relative having one other than the hacker uncle who taught me. The vast majority of my peers who had PCs or Macs at home never really used them other than as-prescribed for word processing or whatnot - a lot lacked the hardware (math coprocessors, sound card, a bit later graphics accelerators) to really interest most kids when they had been exposed to arcades and the NES by then.
It rapidly shifted around 93-95 or so, but the years fly by so I could be off a couple. I remember distinctly going from being the only one who had ever heard of the Internet to being asked daily about how to get hooked up. Crazy rates of change compared to today's relatively stagnant industry.
My experiences are similar, though I lived in Packer country. I was very middle/lower middle class, and by 96, I would say most homes had PCs and started seeing some AOL installs, and by 2000 or so, most also had internet.
Late 80s however, the most advanced computers I'd see were parents that used them for work (developers and accountants) and Atari/Commodore 64.
Prices started dropping rapidly around 1990, and specs went explosively through the roof.
A great time to be alive, for sure.
Late 80s however, the most advanced computers I'd see were parents that used them for work (developers and accountants) and Atari/Commodore 64.
Prices started dropping rapidly around 1990, and specs went explosively through the roof.
A great time to be alive, for sure.
> and by 96, I would say most homes had PCs
Only ~35% of US households had a computer in 1997 [0]. Goes to show that your particular surroundings can easily skew your view of the situation.
[0] https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/1999/Apr/wk1/art01.htm
Only ~35% of US households had a computer in 1997 [0]. Goes to show that your particular surroundings can easily skew your view of the situation.
[0] https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/1999/Apr/wk1/art01.htm
Right, throw out seniors and households below the poverty line and I bet that number shoots to like 85%. The avg/median person very likely had a PC in 97.
There's quite a bit wrong with that statement.
If you just discard the data you don't like you will indeed end up only with the numbers you like. To turn the 35% into 85% you eliminated 60% of the households from the statistic.
The average or median person (household?) may have had one but it was still just 35%. So if you lived in a place with few old or poor people and the feeling that "everyone had a computer" was justified, it would just show how biased such anecdotes are. Because it means somewhere else a twice as many people lived surrounded only by the rest of the households where there were almost no computers at all. And in the "early 90s" the ratio was closer to 1:5.
> Goes to show that your particular surroundings can easily skew your view of the situation.
If you just discard the data you don't like you will indeed end up only with the numbers you like. To turn the 35% into 85% you eliminated 60% of the households from the statistic.
The average or median person (household?) may have had one but it was still just 35%. So if you lived in a place with few old or poor people and the feeling that "everyone had a computer" was justified, it would just show how biased such anecdotes are. Because it means somewhere else a twice as many people lived surrounded only by the rest of the households where there were almost no computers at all. And in the "early 90s" the ratio was closer to 1:5.
> Goes to show that your particular surroundings can easily skew your view of the situation.
It’s hard to truly capture how revolutionary Doom was when it dropped in ‘93. One could argue categorizing PC gaming history as “before/after Doom” the same way people say pre/post [major historic event usually a war].
Maybe not people his age, but I suspect he was simply too young to be aware of the burgeoning home computer scene, as made apparent but the bizarre suggestion that the only people playing computer games were computer professionals. As I said, "nonsense".
Even as late as 1997 only ~35% of households in the US had a computer [0]. Earlier in the '90s it would have been quite a bit fewer, closer to the ~15% in 1990. Elsewhere in the world even fewer still. And it's very plausible that computer professionals were more likely to have a computer, substantially above the average.
You seem to have taken offense with what OP said and returned it for free, with no arguments attached.
[0] https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/1999/Apr/wk1/art01.htm
You seem to have taken offense with what OP said and returned it for free, with no arguments attached.
[0] https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/1999/Apr/wk1/art01.htm
This strikes me as a bit pedantic as both of you are somewhat right and ultimately a lot of the assessments have been pretty subjective/qualitative. I tend to lean towards the other guy’s characterization personally, but I wouldn’t say you’re wrong. Part of it is that we have to recognize the video game industry dwarfs all other media right now - but in the early 90’s? Not even close. Yes gaming existed prior, including computer games, but the vast majority of kids did not have the technical know-how, let alone the hardware, to install and run them until later in the decade. Adults at the time were a very mixed bag about it, with most electing to not participate at all.
Doom came out in 1993. Things really began to shift about that time. By ‘96/‘97 you had Starcraft and other games start blowing up, but that’s latter half of the decade for sure.
Doom came out in 1993. Things really began to shift about that time. By ‘96/‘97 you had Starcraft and other games start blowing up, but that’s latter half of the decade for sure.
My perspective (from near Dayton, Ohio, US, born in 1977) was that a significant number of people had home computers (a lot of Commodore 64's and VIC 20's, various TRS-80 models, some Atari 8-bit machines, some TI machines, a few Amiga machines, a scant few Apple II's and even fewer Macintosh machines) but most kids my age weren't using the machines significantly.
Kids might play a game here or there, or type a school paper on them, but that was mostly it. I went to a few of the local "computer club" meetings that were mostly attended by the stereotypical middle-aged "computer guy" (who I have now become... >sigh<). Doom was definitely "a thing" in the early 90s and started to bring some of the kids over into PC gaming. We had a small BBS scene, too, so that brought a few of the more computer-inclined kids into computing. (Of course, the ISPs moving in in 94-95 killed the BBS scene quickly.)
Game consoles-- the Atari 2600, NES, and SNES-- were the only significant interaction with computing devices at home that I saw. The "gaming scene", in the early 90s, was mostly about NES / SNES carts and arcade games (Mortal Kombat was a big deal).
I didn't got to a particularly well-funded public school so I saw Atari 8-bit, Apple II, and Mac LC machines there. Oh, and TI calculators, of course (but, sadly, mostly the TI-81... The '85 wasn't becoming "a thing" until I was in college).
Kids might play a game here or there, or type a school paper on them, but that was mostly it. I went to a few of the local "computer club" meetings that were mostly attended by the stereotypical middle-aged "computer guy" (who I have now become... >sigh<). Doom was definitely "a thing" in the early 90s and started to bring some of the kids over into PC gaming. We had a small BBS scene, too, so that brought a few of the more computer-inclined kids into computing. (Of course, the ISPs moving in in 94-95 killed the BBS scene quickly.)
Game consoles-- the Atari 2600, NES, and SNES-- were the only significant interaction with computing devices at home that I saw. The "gaming scene", in the early 90s, was mostly about NES / SNES carts and arcade games (Mortal Kombat was a big deal).
I didn't got to a particularly well-funded public school so I saw Atari 8-bit, Apple II, and Mac LC machines there. Oh, and TI calculators, of course (but, sadly, mostly the TI-81... The '85 wasn't becoming "a thing" until I was in college).
I'm a few years older than you. In my suburban schools in the S.F. Bay Area, many kids were producing any writing homework printed on home computers or word processors as soon as the teachers relented on requiring "cursive" handwriting. I think this began around the 4th or 5th grade and ramped up through middle school (so around 1983-1988 in my case).
Early on, the homework signaled which families had Apples and Macs with fancy printers that made an attempt at WYSIWG rendered fonts instead of grotty fixed font dot matrix. A lot of kids had Macs without techie parents but I suppose white-collar jobs or even some tradesmen who had made it to middle or upper-middle class. By high school PCs with Windows and laser printers were joining the fray. Marketing told parents this was good for their kids, and kids were aware of the wealth indicator too.
I feel like home computers were more office tools or educational rather than game platforms for most of my peers. I remember a subset of kids had games on VIC 20, C64, DOS PC, or Apple IIe/IIc in the mid 80s. By the late 80s we had more PC games, but many households already had dedicated Atari, Nintendo, or Sega set-top gaming. I think shareware and pirated game floppies did circulate further than just those who actually attended or even knew what a computer club or BBS might be.
Early on, the homework signaled which families had Apples and Macs with fancy printers that made an attempt at WYSIWG rendered fonts instead of grotty fixed font dot matrix. A lot of kids had Macs without techie parents but I suppose white-collar jobs or even some tradesmen who had made it to middle or upper-middle class. By high school PCs with Windows and laser printers were joining the fray. Marketing told parents this was good for their kids, and kids were aware of the wealth indicator too.
I feel like home computers were more office tools or educational rather than game platforms for most of my peers. I remember a subset of kids had games on VIC 20, C64, DOS PC, or Apple IIe/IIc in the mid 80s. By the late 80s we had more PC games, but many households already had dedicated Atari, Nintendo, or Sega set-top gaming. I think shareware and pirated game floppies did circulate further than just those who actually attended or even knew what a computer club or BBS might be.
Yeah this is very much how I’d describe as well. Nintendo had captured ~90% of the console market in the late 80’s/early 90’s while consoles were basically THE way most people played video games.
There’s a great book called Console Wars if anyone is curious about the rise of Nintendo, Sega, etc. It can be a tad dry at times but overall the stories behind these companies are often compelling in their own right. It does a GREAT job of explaining early gaming at universities and how certain programs proliferated. The 70’s were fascinating - people saw what games could be but were all tripping over each other trying to figure out how to get there.
There’s a great book called Console Wars if anyone is curious about the rise of Nintendo, Sega, etc. It can be a tad dry at times but overall the stories behind these companies are often compelling in their own right. It does a GREAT job of explaining early gaming at universities and how certain programs proliferated. The 70’s were fascinating - people saw what games could be but were all tripping over each other trying to figure out how to get there.
I lean towards the other poster too. In 1994, my household had a computer with windows 3.1 and games. My dad was a software engineer. I was still in grade school. Every other kid who had a desktop computer and Doom 2 at home had a parent who worked as a software developer/engineer, or they were some sort of IT/network/sys/admin. The only exception I can recall is a kid whose parents were neither, but his uncle was one of the OG Blizzard devs.
Things changed very fast after 1994, though. I think by 1998, everyone I knew had a desktop at home, even if they didn't play videogames.
Things changed very fast after 1994, though. I think by 1998, everyone I knew had a desktop at home, even if they didn't play videogames.
>Almost nobody my age was playing computer games, only people working in industry.
I recall these days and this statement has some truth to it. Sure, a lot of folks had home computers, but they were mostly people who were interested in computers in the first place, and that was because of their work in the industry.
I recall these days and this statement has some truth to it. Sure, a lot of folks had home computers, but they were mostly people who were interested in computers in the first place, and that was because of their work in the industry.
Went to high school in an affluent suburb in the 90s in the US. “Playing computer games with friends” was either on one computer or involved dragging a computer over to a friend’s house and wiring it together with their desktop. Parent’s experience rings true to me.
This definitely didn't come from Quake. Dark Castle did this, and that game came out in 1986:
https://youtu.be/UndXYYosDk4?t=41
https://youtu.be/UndXYYosDk4?t=41
I came here to say the exact same. This doesn't seem to be a particularly well researched article.
But note that Dark Castle doesn't make any sound on jumping -- it makes a sound (often) on completion of the jump. I presume that still counts.
But note that Dark Castle doesn't make any sound on jumping -- it makes a sound (often) on completion of the jump. I presume that still counts.
Not quite the same sound but very memorable. I have it for the Genesis and put many hours into it as kids. Both the sound of the jump and guys waving their arms (nyaaynyana) was engraved in my brain.
There used to be a video game database that tried to catalog firsts. It was almost always wrong because fans would put in their faves and not know the history.
One example I remember is the claim that Sonic was the first character with an idle animation. Plenty of examples from 10 years before Sonic.
Others were things like first game with an inventory. First game to scroll. Someone would always find some older game. Then people would argue about influence or trying to define genres (first RPG, that depends on what an RPG is, etc...)
One example I remember is the claim that Sonic was the first character with an idle animation. Plenty of examples from 10 years before Sonic.
Others were things like first game with an inventory. First game to scroll. Someone would always find some older game. Then people would argue about influence or trying to define genres (first RPG, that depends on what an RPG is, etc...)
I remember we played Price of Persia without soundcard and one day my father came to tell me he saw the game in someone’s else computer and he could listen the steps and the junp.. we got a Sound Blaster 16 for that Christmas which came in a huge box. Bigger than a laptop today
Edit: maybe it wasn’t prince of persia, I am confused now.
Edit: maybe it wasn’t prince of persia, I am confused now.
The Prince of Persia had such iconic footsteps. I think in part it was the rhythm. You could never go more than one screen-width before the steps would pause as the next screen appeared, so even when you were zooming through well-known territory, there was a start-stop rhythm.
If I close my eyes, I think I could even work out the width of the screen in steps. I think around 10 or 11.
If I close my eyes, I think I could even work out the width of the screen in steps. I think around 10 or 11.
Sound Blaster 16. Wow, brings back memories.
Mostly of wrangling DOS & Win 95!
Mostly of wrangling DOS & Win 95!
Donkey Kong (1981). Notable as the first platformer with jumping. Although this version may not be the original. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSc3GCVOt_Y
Donkey Kong Jr (1982). https://youtu.be/GmOJN-zq6yg?t=21
Moon Patrol (1982). https://youtu.be/39EsNumG3Fc?t=129
Jungle King (1982). https://youtu.be/ahfHlIqOLRY?t=13
Alley Cat (1983). Note silence until clothes line. https://youtu.be/C9pFZVfWPMo?t=180
Manic Miner (1983) and Jet Set Willy (1984) are roughly equivalent: https://youtu.be/BgUzteADsRI?t=4 https://youtu.be/94Ywx6uVn9E?t=2
Super Mario (1985). https://youtu.be/rLl9XBg7wSs?t=15
Bubble Bobble (1986). Allegedly a version came out in 1982/83, this sound may have differed. https://youtu.be/BuXOSBb4hQw?t=2
I believe we can conclude that the premise of the article is largely false... jumping sounds had a rich and varied history in gaming before hup, and grunts are just one arrow in the stylistic quiver thereof. For a real 8-bit grunt, scroll to the start of Jungle King. Awesome. New ring tone anyone?
Donkey Kong Jr (1982). https://youtu.be/GmOJN-zq6yg?t=21
Moon Patrol (1982). https://youtu.be/39EsNumG3Fc?t=129
Jungle King (1982). https://youtu.be/ahfHlIqOLRY?t=13
Alley Cat (1983). Note silence until clothes line. https://youtu.be/C9pFZVfWPMo?t=180
Manic Miner (1983) and Jet Set Willy (1984) are roughly equivalent: https://youtu.be/BgUzteADsRI?t=4 https://youtu.be/94Ywx6uVn9E?t=2
Super Mario (1985). https://youtu.be/rLl9XBg7wSs?t=15
Bubble Bobble (1986). Allegedly a version came out in 1982/83, this sound may have differed. https://youtu.be/BuXOSBb4hQw?t=2
I believe we can conclude that the premise of the article is largely false... jumping sounds had a rich and varied history in gaming before hup, and grunts are just one arrow in the stylistic quiver thereof. For a real 8-bit grunt, scroll to the start of Jungle King. Awesome. New ring tone anyone?
Dark Castle (1986). An early Mac B&W game that showcased the system's audio capabilities. It has jumps with the "hup" sound. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCkbp4wurW0
I was reading the article incredulously, wondering how they kept going back and forth between pong and Quake, as if no game between had ever had a character jump before, in complete disbelief that the writer seemed totally unaware of the concept of a 2D platform game.
It may have been edited, but the article's current title is "A History of Hup, the Jump Sound of Shooting Games" - which seemsore accurate.
I completely agree.
The increasing and decreasing blips as seen on your Manic Miner example is what I remember as iconic jumping sounds. The pitch and tones of those blips you vary from game to game but they were prevalent in the 80s era games on 8-bit micros.
After that I’d say it was shorter version that still employed a rising to lowering tone but which didn’t span the entire duration of the characters air time. The Super Mario example demonstrates this. Sonic The Hedgehog did too.
I find it weird to discuss jump sounds from an era where encoding PCM data was trivial but ignore several generations of games where sound effects had to be programmed as tones.
The increasing and decreasing blips as seen on your Manic Miner example is what I remember as iconic jumping sounds. The pitch and tones of those blips you vary from game to game but they were prevalent in the 80s era games on 8-bit micros.
After that I’d say it was shorter version that still employed a rising to lowering tone but which didn’t span the entire duration of the characters air time. The Super Mario example demonstrates this. Sonic The Hedgehog did too.
I find it weird to discuss jump sounds from an era where encoding PCM data was trivial but ignore several generations of games where sound effects had to be programmed as tones.
Bubble Bobble! I got to level 56 at my local Dairy Queen in about 1999.
There is this explosion-like “swoosh” sound that was emitted in Doom by one of the big baddies, and ever since I played that game as a kid I’ve heard it in all sorts of TV shows, movies, and other games.
I wish someone did an article on that sound too!
I wish someone did an article on that sound too!
I know exactly the sound you mean, and I hear it all the time in other media too. You can hear it repeatedly starting at 1:19 in this video: https://youtu.be/GQnuj5QsJFE
Yeah, I keep hearing DSBOSPIT in various places: television, movies, and other video games. When I hear it outside Doom, it seems to suggest a lack of care in sound design, because it was pulled from a sound library and because people associate it with Doom. For example, in Super Mario, Fiery Mario always had a distinct fireball sound, but in the Galaxy games? Nope -- DSBOSPIT. And I'm like, really, Nintendo? You couldn't do better?
I also frequently hear some Doom mechanism and door sounds (usually DSPSTART and DSPSTOP but sometimes also DSDOROPN and DSDORCLS) in commercials, movies, and TV shows, as well as DSFIRSHT (imp/cacodemon fireball whooshing sound). Shows with werewolves or other monsters may feature the imp or zombieman sounds.
I also frequently hear some Doom mechanism and door sounds (usually DSPSTART and DSPSTOP but sometimes also DSDOROPN and DSDORCLS) in commercials, movies, and TV shows, as well as DSFIRSHT (imp/cacodemon fireball whooshing sound). Shows with werewolves or other monsters may feature the imp or zombieman sounds.
YES!!! What is that thing?! Haha
Many of the Doom sound effects were sourced from the "Sound Ideas' General series sound effects library".
I always thought it came from Blues Brothers (albeit "hut" vs "hup", but we were always saying it for jumping around sounds in the 80s and after): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Atks5rRqQkg
Likely that Blues Brothers was riffing on the military’s use of hut/hup in marching cadence. Great scene, especially the guy rappelling.
https://www.vocabulary.com/articles/wordroutes/hut-the-story...
https://www.vocabulary.com/articles/wordroutes/hut-the-story...
They mention Goldeneye lacking a jump sound. Am I remembering incorrectly that it dind't have jumping at all?
My memory isn’t what it used to be but I recall that the Bond Spacesuit character did have the ability to jump. I have the original cartridge and a somewhat functional N64. I’ll rig it up today and verify.
Bond couldn't jump, but I'm pretty sure I remember enemies doing a jump and roll thing. It's been long enough that I don't entirely trust that memory, though.
Pretty sure you are right. I can see the image in my head, the soldier would roll and then kneel while shooting. Bond had no jump that I can I remember though.
And now that I wrote that I sincerely hope to not have it mixed up with the "kneel while shooting" stance of the enemies in deus ex. Those did no roll.
Edit: One can one enemy see do the roll in the next few seconds of https://youtu.be/D6l6_WKxRck?t=353.
And now that I wrote that I sincerely hope to not have it mixed up with the "kneel while shooting" stance of the enemies in deus ex. Those did no roll.
Edit: One can one enemy see do the roll in the next few seconds of https://youtu.be/D6l6_WKxRck?t=353.
It was a really hilariously slow roll, and it didn't give enemies invincibility frames, so you could just shoot them a bunch while they were rolling and they'd flop over dead once they ended the roll.
Yep! It was an easy kill for sure!
Yeah there's no jumping.
You could “jump” off ledges
My favorite 'Hop!' sample is at 0:08 of this song: https://youtu.be/kL8CyVqzmkc
I knew it had to be TheFatRat. Such good music.
In Norwegian (and probably other Scandinavic languages) the word for "jump" is "hopp".
I've never realized before how intuitive I've always felt it to be.
It's like an animal sound verb (mooing etc.), just for a human activity.
I've never realized before how intuitive I've always felt it to be.
It's like an animal sound verb (mooing etc.), just for a human activity.
allez-oop is what French circus acrobats would say before a jump, parents now say before helping a kid up: allez means go, and oop is this sound too.
In English both hop and up.
In English both hop and up.
Czech has a version of "jump" that's similar as well, so I wonder if Slavic languages also do. Czech is odd in that some roots are Slavic and others German so who knows where it came from!
> In Norwegian (and probably other Scandinavic languages) the word for "jump" is "hopp".
Also true in English.
Also true in English.
The English cognate is to hop, to jump on one leg or make a small jump.
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An Archimedes platformer called Nemesis I had that came out in 1992 had a very distinctive 'hup' sound on jump (also a very distinctive 'sploosh' sound when you fell into the water and died, it was not a forgiving game) - I wonder if earlier platformers also did, and Quake was just the first game with such a sound effect that became truly iconic.
(I'm not proposing any genealogy here, it's sufficiently sensible linguistically that I'd be surprised if it -hadn't- been independently invented multiple times)
(I'm not proposing any genealogy here, it's sufficiently sensible linguistically that I'd be surprised if it -hadn't- been independently invented multiple times)
> (A snippet of the famed Wilhelm Scream would become Quake’s sound for taking damage in lava.)
Huh, I never would have guessed. And yet — and several readers here with me I guess — reading that sentence immediately retrieves that sound from wherever my brain was keeping it and plays it internally (on repeat). Playing Quake I as a teenager on a LAN with friends must've had an impact.
Huh, I never would have guessed. And yet — and several readers here with me I guess — reading that sentence immediately retrieves that sound from wherever my brain was keeping it and plays it internally (on repeat). Playing Quake I as a teenager on a LAN with friends must've had an impact.
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In a sense, every (English?) word that ends in a vowel eventually ends in a 'p' when you close your mouth.
Hup! Nope! Welp! Yep!
Hup! Nope! Welp! Yep!
It would if you had to continue the airstream indefinitely until your mouth was closed¹, but we can also stop the airstream of a vowel without closing our mouths at all (I guess either by using a stop further back in the vocal system, or disengaging the muscles that are producing the airflow²). So in practice, there are other ways to end the production of a vowel without producing a /p/.
¹ I haven't thought clearly about how nasals affect this, but it seems like still another possibility is to allow air to exit through the nose, producing /m/ instead of /p/.
² When I try to pay attention to what I'm doing when I deliberately stop a sustained vowel, it seems like I'm using glottal or velar stops much more often than I would have thought. Interesting!
¹ I haven't thought clearly about how nasals affect this, but it seems like still another possibility is to allow air to exit through the nose, producing /m/ instead of /p/.
² When I try to pay attention to what I'm doing when I deliberately stop a sustained vowel, it seems like I'm using glottal or velar stops much more often than I would have thought. Interesting!
I can’t tell what this is trying to say
I have a guess OP meant that you tend to close your mouth while jumping. But it's just my guess...
Because closing your mouth makes a “p” sound, at least in languages that accept “unreleased stops”, like (American?) English does.
But the unreleased stop is not a [p], it's just a glottal stop. The same thing happens to /t/ and /k/.
I! Agree! Completely!
(3 instances on where ending in a vowel does not give a ‘p’)
Ip dop seep thep ideap.
What?
The sound effect that always gets me is the dragon cry from Warcraft 2. I feel like I've heard it in perhaps a dozen movies over the years.
For me it will always be associated with Quake, although my first foray to world of Quake was with Quake Live. Still play it sometimes.
HN title is wrong.
Should be:
A History of Hup, the Jump Sound of Shooting Games
Should be:
A History of Hup, the Jump Sound of Shooting Games
I wonder if there is some connection to the underground HUP comics (1987-1992).
The screams of Constance Goodheart captured by Doctor Chaotica in Star Trek Voyager have a wonderful ironic quality.
When I was a youngster in the early 90s, a grade school classmate of mine had a huge computer network at home. His dad worked for the (local) Washington, DC NBC affiliate as one of their system engineers. Their house was fully networked mecca of multiple Unix, Windows, and Apple machines on different floors.
Back then most homes didn't have a computer, and if they did, it was just one. Internet connections were achieved with dial-up modems to the local BBS or service provider. Almost nobody my age was playing computer games, only people working in industry. Even fewer had a network, since online play didn't exist for most games (tho there were exceptions, like Netrek...miss that game too)
I originally learned the command line by using it to start computer games. This guy had basically ALL of the major gaming titles through about 1997, at which point I bought my own computer. Many of the other shooters back then were horror-themed knockoffs of Doom and Quake (like Hexen, Heretic, etc.), though all had their nuances. What I think of as the golden age of FPS games happened shortly after, in 98, with the release of Half-Life and Unreal.
That early experience was how I got into computing at a time when most kids had no real exposure to computers. Still miss those times.