FAQ / Organizing indie game voice lines
How do I organize voice lines for an indie game?
A scheme that scales: one VoiceOverAndOver project per character (or per scene), every line as its own paragraph, file names like npc_blacksmith_greet_01.wav, and a master spreadsheet that maps in-game event names to file paths.
Decide the unit of work
For games with a manageable number of characters (say, under 20), one project per character is the cleanest unit. For sprawling games with thousands of lines, one project per scene or quest beats per-character organization because it keeps a session focused on a single chunk of work.
Naming pattern
Pick a pattern and never deviate. Something like {role}_{character}_{intent}_{nn}.wav:
npc_blacksmith_greet_01.wavnpc_blacksmith_greet_02.wavnpc_blacksmith_quest_offer_01.wavboss_dragon_taunt_01.wav
Lowercase, underscores not spaces, two-digit indexes. Future-you, on a different machine, with a different sound engine, will still know what every file is.
One line per paragraph
VoiceOverAndOver treats every non-blank line in the script as its own paragraph. Paste your character's lines in. Each becomes a row. Record one line, hit Stop, move on. If the writer changes a line, you re-record that one line.
On the merge screen, uncheck "Merge all audio tracks into one". You will get one numbered audio file per paragraph, named off the stem you typed in the save dialog. That gives you blacksmith-01.wav, blacksmith-02.wav, and so on, in scene order, in one export pass. Rename them to match your engine's expected file names and drop them in.
Keep the line-to-file map in a spreadsheet
For anything beyond a couple dozen lines, you want a sheet with columns: event_id, character, line_text, file_name, status. Your game engine reads event_id; your audio team reads file_name. The text is there so writers and audio can both see what is supposed to be said.
Captions and accessibility
If you tick SRT export, you get a caption sidecar timed against the merged file. Even for split exports, the sidecar uses the same paragraph timeline. The text column in your spreadsheet should match the SRT cues; that becomes the basis of your in-game subtitle string table.
Version everything
Audio is binary, so keep it in the same VCS or asset manager as the rest of the game, even if you have to set up LFS or a binary asset folder. Treat each project save as a checkpoint. When a writer revises a line, you want to roll back to the previous take if the new take is worse.