In Grosery, the scrubby brush character picks up and loses soap as you play, so it goes from bone‑dry to all sudsy. That change isn’t just visual — you’ll hear it too. Sound is one of the ways you’ll know how much soap you’ve got, and for me it’s also a chance to really dig into the audio side of the game.
I’ve had the sound in my head for a while. A scrubby brush is such a weirdly unique thing sonically — it’s got this ASMR vibe that I think fits perfectly. Since the player only moves one tile at a time, that swish is going to be the most repeated sound in the game. It has to feel right, and it can’t get annoying. Even what I’ve built so far will probably go through more iterations, and I’m even considering giving it its own setting in the menu so players can tweak how they want to hear it.
The way I started was simple: I bought a scrubby brush and recorded it. I scrubbed it across different surfaces, inside and outside objects, just to get a variety of resonances. That gave me a nice library of raw sounds with character. From there, I picked out the ones that had the strongest personality — some that shift resonance mid‑swish to show movement, some that are dry and bristly, and some that are wet and sudsy. I even layered in other “swishy” sounds like waterfalls and sand to fill out missing frequencies and make the whole thing feel fuller.
I ended up building three sets: dry, watery, and sudsy. Each matches the difficulty level the player’s in. Dry is the harshest — itchy bristle sounds that make the game feel abrasive. Water is still rough but less so. Suds are smooth, the easiest state, and they sound more fluid. Together, they give the brush a voice that changes with the player’s experience.
So in the end, this isn’t just a footstep sound effect. It’s the brush’s personality. It’s feedback, it’s storytelling, and it’s something players will connect with every time they move. That’s the kind of detail I want Grocer to have — audio that feels alive, that reinforces the mechanics, and that makes the game more memorable the longer you play.