A Sound Plan

A Sound Plan is a local competitive arena game set in a horror-fantasy world where up to four players use sound to manipulate zombies into attacking their opponents. Players can choose a passive strategy by throwing rocks to create noises that lure zombies or a violent approach by directly bashing enemies with rocks, emphasizing strategic resource management in this survival-themed party game.

A Sound Plan: A Symphony of Betrayal and Strategy in a Zombie Arena

In the crowded landscape of local multiplayer party games, few titles dare to ask the question: “What if you could weaponize sound to feed your friends to the undead?” A Sound Plan, the 2019 debut from the small independent studio Studio Kumiho LLC, not only asks this question but builds an entire, brutally chaotic arena around its answer. This is a game where the clatter of a thrown rock is a death knell, where silence is a tactical shield, and where the only law is the survival of the cleverest. As a game historian, it’s fascinating to dissect a title so profoundly focused on a single, elegant mechanic—sound propagation—and how it spirals into a masterclass in emergent, social strategy. While its commercial footprint is modest, A Sound Plan stands as a brilliant, if niche, monument to the power of constrained, concept-driven design.

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1. Introduction: The Calculus of Chaos

A Sound Plan arrives with a premise as deliciously simple as it is morally bankrupt: you are a contestant in a gladiatorial arena, armed only with a limited supply of rocks and your wits, surrounded by shambling zombies. Your goal? Eliminate the other players. You can do this directly, by hurling a rock to bludgeon them into submission, or indirectly, by creating a sound—by throwing a rock at a wall or, more deviously, at another player—that attracts nearby zombies to do your dirty work. The official tagline, “Ever wanted to feed your friends to zombies, but the pesky law is in your way?” perfectly captures its anarchic, conspiratorial spirit. This review will argue that A Sound Plan is a hidden gem of the local multiplayer genre, a game whose apparent simplicity belies a deep, psychological battlefield of bluff, trap, and auditory misdirection. Its legacy is not one of blockbuster sales but of proving that a single, well-exploited systemic idea can generate unparalleled social tension and replayability.

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2. Development History & Context: The Kumiho Experiment

Studio Kumiho LLC, founded by Jimmy Spencer, represents the classic indie ethos: a small, passionate team building a game around a compelling core fantasy. The studio’s own “State of the Studio 2019” blog post reveals that A Sound Plan was their first release, a project that allowed them to “fully round out our team.” This context is crucial. The game was not born from a AAA resources but from a focused, almost academic, exploration of a single gameplay question: How does sound as a resource change player dynamics?

Technologically, the game reflects its era and scope. Built with accessible tools like GIMP and SDL, it sports a functional, pixel-art aesthetic with a top-down, diagonal perspective. This wasn’t a game pushing graphical boundaries; it was a pure systems design project. The 2018-2019 indie scene was fertile ground for such experiments, with games like Crawl (2015) and SpeedRunners (2014) proving that local, competitive “party brawlers” with a twist could find an audience. A Sound Plan entered this space with a uniquely auditory hook. Its subsequent port to the Nintendo Switch in 2020, as hinted in the studio’s blog (“mystery console”), was a smart move, aligning with the platform’s reputation as a hub for local multiplayer social games.

The constraints were clear: a tiny team, a shoestring budget ($4.99 on Steam), and a need to communicate a complex idea (zombie pathfinding based on sound) in the most straightforward way possible. The result is a game that feels both meticulously designed and deliberately unadorned.

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3. Narrative & Thematic Deep Dive: The Arena as a Social Laboratory

A Sound Plan is narratively sparse, and this is by design. There is no story mode, no character lore, no overarching plot. The setting is a “fantasy” arena, as classified on MobyGames, but one infused with horror and survival elements via the constant zombie threat. The “narrative” is purely emergent, born from the interactions of the players. The gladiatorial frame is pure thematic glue, justifying the bloodshed and providing a stage for the core theme: the tension between cooperation and betrayal.

Every match becomes a tiny Machiavellian drama. Do you form a temporary alliance to throw a rock at a common threat, only to become that threat’s next meal? Do you stay silent, letting others make noise and draw zombies, or do you risk exposure to create a diversion? The game’s genius lies in how its mechanics force constant, low-stakes social negotiation. The zombies are not mere enemies; they are a neutral, manipulable force—a tool for the cunning and a hazard for the reckless. The theme is one of paranoia and resource control. The rock is not just a weapon; it is a currency of influence. Throwing it creates a temporary “event” on the map, reshaping the risk landscape for all players. The game asks: who can best manage this chaos?

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4. Gameplay Mechanics & Systems: The Algebra of Auditory Chaos

At its heart, A Sound Plan is a turn-based real-time strategy disguised as an action brawler. Let’s deconstruct the systems:

• The Core Loop: Players move within a fixed-screen arena (2D scrolling, flip-screen style). The primary action is throwing a rock (limited ammo, replenished slowly). A thrown rock does two things:

  1. Direct Damage: If it hits another player, it stuns them, leaving them vulnerable to a follow-up attack or, more commonly, a waiting zombie.
  2. Sound Generation: Wherever the rock lands (on a wall, floor, or another player), it creates a “sound event” at that location for a duration. Zombies have a simple AI: they hear the sound and move toward its source.

• Strategic Duality: Playstyles & Rock Economy: This is where the “Sound Plan” crystallizes.

  • The Passive/Stealth Player: Hides, moves quietly, and waits for others to create noise. Their goal is to let zombies do the work, conserving rocks for defense or a final, decisive throw.
  • The Active/Conductor Player: Aggressively throws rocks to create chaotic sound patterns, luring zombie hordes through high-traffic areas or directly into opponents’ hiding spots. This is high-risk, high-reward, consuming rocks rapidly but creating maximum turmoil.

• Progression & Depth: There is no character progression. Mastery comes from:

  • Map Knowledge: Learning the arenas’ layouts, choke points, and walls that create advantageous sound echoes.
  • Zombie Pathing Prediction: Understanding how the simple AI will route zombies from a sound source.
  • Rock Management: Knowing when to spend your precious resources. The “special rocks” (molotovs for area denial, homing eagles for guaranteed hits) add tactical layers, acting as power-ups that can swing a match.
  • Psychological Play: Bluffing by making noise in a direction you are not actually going, or feigning cooperation before betrayal.

• UI & Feedback: The interface is minimalist. Player avatars, zombies, and rocks are clearly distinguishable. Crucial auditory feedback (the thud of a rock, zombie groans) is excellent. The “hype” meter mentioned in the Steam description (“create mayhem to generate hype!”) is a subtle UI element that rewards chaotic play, nudging the match toward more active strategies. Its flaw is a lack of single-player depth; against basic AI, the nuanced strategies collapse, making this a purely social experience.

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5. World-Building, Art & Sound: Atmosphere Through Abstraction

Visually, A Sound Plan embraces a retro, pixelated aesthetic. The arenas are clean, readable, and thematically bare-bones (often just stone chambers with some decorative elements). This abstraction is a strength: in a game where spatial and auditory awareness is paramount, visual clutter would be fatal. The top-down, fixed-screen perspective ensures every player has the same information, a critical design choice for fair competition.

The sound design is, expectedly, the star. Every action has a distinct audio signature:
* The clack-clack of a rock throw.
* The different sounds of a rock hitting a wall, floor, or flesh.
* The escalating groans of a zombie horde as it converges on a sound source.
* The satisfying crunch of a rock connecting with a skull.

These sounds are not just effects; they are the game’s primary UI. They communicate critical information across the screen. The audio engineering is precise, allowing players to localize threats by ear alone. The music is minimal or non-existent during matches, further amplifying these crucial sound cues. The atmosphere is one of tense, dark comedy—the horror of being devoured by the undead is undercut by the goofy, oversized character sprites and the absurdity of the premise.

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6. Reception & Legacy: A Cult Classic in the Making

A Sound Plan never achieved mainstream success. On Steam, it has a mere 2 user reviews (both positive), and on MobyGames, no critic reviews exist at time of writing. Its commercial performance is quiet, a testament to the difficulty of standing out in the indie space. However, its critical reception in the indie circuit was warm. It was invited to the Indie MEGABOOTH at both PAX East 2020 and PAX West 2019, premiering at major gaming festivals. It also appeared at the Portland Retro Gaming Expo 2018 and Northwest Majors 2018/2019. These invitations signal that, within the industry, its unique hook was recognized and celebrated.

Its influence is subtle but identifiable. It sits in a lineage of sound-based games (Loud‘, The Hide‘), but its specific implementation—using sound as a tactical resource that manipulates neutral enemies in a PvP arena—remains rare. It likely influenced later titles focusing on environmental manipulation. Its true legacy is as a proof-of-concept for audio-centric competitive design. For historians, it is a case study in how a single, focused rule (sound attracts zombies) can generate vast strategic complexity and memorable social moments.

The game’s life cycle tells a story of a small studio’s journey. After launch, Studio Kumiho expanded its team and shifted focus to a new project, “Chang’e,” which they had been working on for a decade. Their blog shows pride in A Sound Plan‘s role in building their studio, but also a desire to move toward a more narrative-driven project. This is the typical lifecycle of a passion-project debut: a successful experiment that funds and informs the next, larger endeavor.

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7. Conclusion: A Brilliant, Flawed Gem

A Sound Plan is not for everyone. Its lack of single-player content, limited map pool, and reliance on a local, couch-coop audience restrict its appeal. For the player without a regular group of friends to gather around a screen, it is a curiosity, not a destination.

But for those who crave deep, strategic, and treacherously social multiplayer experiences, it is a masterpiece of minimalism. It takes one audacious idea—sound as a weaponizable environmental force—and explores its every implication. The gameplay loop of creating, controlling, and exploiting auditory chaos is perpetually engaging, turning every match into a high-wire act of prediction and psychology. The tension between the passive mouse and the aggressive lion, the constant calculation of rock expenditure, the devilish pleasure of luring a horde into your “friend”—these are moments of pure, unscripted gaming theatre.

In the canon of video games, A Sound Plan will likely remain a cult footnote. But within that cult, it will be revered as a brilliantly concise and clever design. It is a game that understands its core mechanic so completely that every pixel, every sound effect, and every design choice serves it. It is a sound plan, executed with near-perfect precision, making it one of the most inventive and underrated local multiplayer titles of the late 2010s. Its verdict is not one of universal acclaim, but of absolute, unshakeable identity. It knows exactly what it is, and for the right player, it is indispensable.