Add sound effects to a Phaser web game

Free, CC0, no API key. Pick one coherent kit, preload it straight from the URLs, play cues on game events, loop an ambience bed. Works in Phaser 3 with the default Web Audio manager.

1. Pick a set

A set is one sound per role, chosen so the kit sounds like one game. platformer covers jump, land, coin, hit, sword, gunshot, explosion, footsteps, door, checkpoint and death; retro-game is the chiptune version; puzzle-game has match, combo, bonus, win and lose; horror-game has drone, stinger, heartbeat and creak. All 15 sets are at /sets.

curl "https://sfxmint.com/api/v1/sets/platformer"

The response has a sounds object per role (slug, acoustics, two alternates) and a flat urls map you can paste as-is:

"urls": {
  "jump": "https://sfxmint.com/dl/retro-game-jump-06.mp3",
  "land": "https://sfxmint.com/dl/impact-thud-33.mp3",
  "coin": "https://sfxmint.com/dl/retro-game-coin-13.mp3",
  "hit": "https://sfxmint.com/dl/impact-punch-25.mp3",
  "sword": "https://sfxmint.com/dl/impact-sword-02.mp3",
  "gunshot": "https://sfxmint.com/dl/impact-gunshot-01.mp3",
  "explosion": "https://sfxmint.com/dl/retro-game-explosion-25.mp3",
  "footsteps": "https://sfxmint.com/dl/footsteps-wood-18.mp3",
  "door": "https://sfxmint.com/dl/door-open-25.mp3",
  "checkpoint": "https://sfxmint.com/dl/feedback-confirm-24.mp3",
  "death": "https://sfxmint.com/dl/retro-game-game-over-24.mp3"
}

Picks can change as the library grows; the URLs you paste never do.

2. Preload

Loop over the map in preload(). Absolute URLs are fine — no setBaseURL, no setCORS needed.

// sfx.js — paste the "urls" map from the set response
export const SFX = {
  jump: "https://sfxmint.com/dl/retro-game-jump-06.mp3",
  coin: "https://sfxmint.com/dl/retro-game-coin-13.mp3",
  hit: "https://sfxmint.com/dl/impact-punch-25.mp3",
  checkpoint: "https://sfxmint.com/dl/feedback-confirm-24.mp3",
  death: "https://sfxmint.com/dl/retro-game-game-over-24.mp3",
};

// GameScene.js
import { SFX } from "./sfx";

export class GameScene extends Phaser.Scene {
  preload() {
    for (const [key, url] of Object.entries(SFX)) this.load.audio(key, url);
  }
}

3. Play on game events

create() {
  this.physics.add.overlap(this.player, this.coins, (_player, coin) => {
    coin.destroy();
    this.sound.play("coin", { volume: 0.6 });
  });
}

update() {
  if (this.cursors.up.isDown && this.player.body.blocked.down) {
    this.player.setVelocityY(-330);
    this.sound.play("jump", { volume: 0.5 });
  }
}

this.sound.play(key, config) creates a throwaway sound each time, which is right for short cues. For something you trigger dozens of times a second (footsteps, machine-gun fire) keep one instance with this.sound.add(key) and call .play() on it.

4. Background ambience on a loop

Ask for a loop role — rain-loop, forest-loop, wind-loop, drone-loop, engine-loop — and you get a sound with loopable: true. Use its wav_url: the WAV is gapless at the seam, the MP3 has a few milliseconds of codec padding you will hear as a tick.

curl "https://sfxmint.com/api/v1/roles/forest-loop"
# → { "role": "forest-loop", "loopable": true, "wav_url": "https://sfxmint.com/dl/<slug>.wav", ... }

preload() {
  this.load.audio("ambience", "<wav_url from the response>");
}

create() {
  const startAmbience = () => this.sound.add("ambience", { loop: true, volume: 0.3 }).play();
  if (this.sound.locked) {
    this.sound.once(Phaser.Sound.Events.UNLOCKED, startAmbience);
  } else {
    startAmbience();
  }
}

this.sound.locked is true until the player has clicked or tapped — browsers refuse to start audio before a gesture. Cues you play from input handlers are already inside a gesture; the ambience is the one thing that starts on its own, so it waits for Phaser.Sound.Events.UNLOCKED.

5. Why hotlinking just works

Phaser's Web Audio manager fetches audio with XHR and decodes it, so a cross-origin file needs CORS. SFXMint sends Access-Control-Allow-Origin: * on every /dl/ URL. The HTML5 Audio fallback needs nothing.
Cache-Control: immutable: the browser keeps the files for a year; repeat visits load nothing. URLs are permanent — a slug is never reused or re-encoded.
MP3 for size (a 1 s cue is about 15 KB), WAV when you need gapless loops or lossless quality. Both are always available for every sound.
Shipping to itch.io, Steam or an offline build? Copy the files into assets/sfx/ and point the map at relative paths. CC0 allows it. Never append query parameters to /dl/ URLs.

6. One-off sounds: roles and search

curl "https://sfxmint.com/api/v1/roles/chest-open"            # QA-checked default + alternates
curl "https://sfxmint.com/api/v1/roles/laser?style=crisp"       # re-rank the family by acoustics
curl "https://sfxmint.com/api/v1/search?q=crate+breaking&category=impact&limit=5"

Roles are the reliable path: one deterministic default per purpose, aliases accepted, listed at /roles. Search results carry match — role and exact are safe to ship blind, partial and semantic deserve a listen. Every result includes acoustics (attack, tail, brightness) so you can pick the punchier or darker variant without opening a DAW.

License

Every SFXMint sound is CC0 1.0: commercial use, no attribution, no signup, no credits screen required. Full terms at /license.

Building with an AI agent?

Claude Code, Cursor and similar agents can install the skill and follow this workflow on their own — role first, then set, then search — instead of inventing URLs:

npx skills add flreey/sfxmint-mcp -y

MCP: claude mcp add --transport http sfxmint https://sfxmint.com/mcp exposes get_role_sound, get_sound_set and search_sounds. Full reference: API docs.