On the audio side of things, will there be voice over by actors, recorded small sound bytes, or using a sound library?
Voice over won't be 1-to-1 with text for scope and flexibility reasons. However, our plan is to support intro + outro lines for the characters, which can change depending on your relationship with the character. The two ways they will change, is if you're friendly, or if you're romantically involved. So, if you level up to a spot where you are in a romance, the voice line intro and outro line will change. Other than that, we're going to record "Zelda-like" efforts to sync to their animations. This is more just flavor for the character... so that when you see a character gasp, there is an associated sound to go with it.
What kind of music will we be expecting in the game such as in the village, wilderness/ruins and would there be any way to get a sample?
The music and sounds of Palia is one of our playtesters’ favorite experiences from the latest Alpha! Here are a few peeks at the work our composer, Steffen Schmidt, was doing with all of the amazingly talented musicians in a recent live orchestra recording in Vienna:
On the topic of music, will there be a way for players to create music and play instruments?
Regarding playable instruments in Palia, we’re really excited about the possibility as we think it meshes well with the vibe and experience we’re trying to create. While we’re aware this is a frequent request from our community, we don’t have anything to announce in this regard at the time.
Will the villagers be fully voice-animated in the future? Will our characters be voiced or not?
As of writing, each villager has anywhere between 40 - 60 voice lines, depending if they are romanceable. These lines are played during the intros and outros of your dialogue with the characters. They’ll change as you level up your relationship with the character, and we have different tiers of voice lines for both Friendship and Romance tracks.
Additionally, there are some sound effects tied to character animations, such as sighing, or being surprised. If our voice lines are well-received, we could even expand them to factor in more context, such as weather, time of day, etc. There’s a lot we can do!
As for player characters, the plan is to have a total of 10 voice options you can choose from, and they’ll be based off timbre.