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All audio files live in the assets/sounds/ directory, organized into categorized subdirectories. All sound files use the .wav format. SDL2_mixer handles both short sound effects (Mix_Chunk via Mix_LoadWAV) and streaming music (Mix_Music via Mix_LoadMUS).

The following sounds are stored in assets/sounds/unused/ and are not loaded by the game. They are available as reserves for future use.

SDL2_mixer is opened in main.c with:

Mix_OpenAudio(44100, MIX_DEFAULT_FORMAT, 2, 2048);

All sound effects use Mix_LoadWAV and are fully loaded into memory. The background music tracks (water.wav, lava.wav, winds.wav) use Mix_LoadMUS which streams from disk, keeping memory usage low. Music is assigned per level via the TOML level definition's music_path field.

1. Place the .wav file in the appropriate assets/sounds/<category>/ subdirectory.
2. Add a Mix_Chunk *snd_<name> field to GameState in game.h.
3. Load it in game_init:

gs->snd_<name> = Mix_LoadWAV("assets/sounds/<category>/<name>.wav");
if (!gs->snd_<name>) {
    fprintf(stderr, "Warning: failed to load <name>.wav: %s\n", Mix_GetError());
    /* Non-fatal — game continues without this sound */
}

4. Free it in game_cleanup (before SDL_DestroyRenderer):

if (gs->snd_<name>) {
    Mix_FreeChunk(gs->snd_<name>);
    gs->snd_<name> = NULL;
}

5. Play it wherever the event occurs:

if (gs->snd_<name>) Mix_PlayChannel(-1, gs->snd_<name>, 0);

The if guard is important: if the WAV fails to load for any reason, the game continues without crashing.

// Load (streaming — not fully decoded into RAM)
gs->music = Mix_LoadMUS("assets/sounds/levels/new_track.wav");
if (!gs->music) { /* handle error */ }

// Start (loop forever)
Mix_PlayMusic(gs->music, -1);

// Volume (0-128)
Mix_VolumeMusic(64);  // 50%

// Stop and free
Mix_HaltMusic();
Mix_FreeMusic(gs->music);
gs->music = NULL;

Mix_Music streams from disk; it does not load the entire file into RAM. This keeps memory usage low for large audio files.