Weird laughing woman in Ravenholm, Half Life 2

[^3T^0itan^3U^0ranu^3S^0.]

The first time I played through Ravenholm, I stood at the exit from the mineshaft for ages thinking of all the nastiness about to attack me. I watched those legs swinging from the tree and the crows hopping about. I heard lots of sounds like screams and howls.

Then I heard a woman laughing crazily somewhere in the distance.

Did anybody else hear that sound effect? I definitely did not imagine it, and it definitely came from the PC speakers and not the real world. I've played the level several times trying to hear it again. I hear screams, moans and howls but never that crazy laughing woman again. Odd.

[Combeferre]

Lol, it's probably some kind of an inside joke of the devs, or something they were going to add and forgot to remove the sound effect when they decided not to do it. Maybe there was supposed to be a boss fight with some kind of a crazy woman? Or father Grigory was supposed to be female originally? I guess we'll never know.

[^3T^0itan^3U^0ranu^3S^0.]

Maybe. My best theory is that it's some kind of easter egg that was only triggered because I stood in the same place for so long. I'm going to try and trigger it again.

[Combeferre]

Well if you're going to do that, you should try to record it. Makes it easier for you too because ytou can just go over the footage to find a point where the audio peaks in a certain way, or you can just watch the whole thing later to see if it comes up.

[^3T^0itan^3U^0ranu^3S^0.]

Lol yeah, and it will also help me prove out my sanity :Z

[Fenny]

Hmm strange. I've heard a screaming woman/child before, but never that.

[^3T^0itan^3U^0ranu^3S^0.]

Well, I went back to the start of Ravenholm, stayed still for over 30mins and listened carefully to the background sound effects.

Most of them are on a short interval, and you hear them frequently.

Some effects are on a longer interval, and you have to wait a while to hear them. Examples are a woman's scream, what sounds like a clucking chicken, and another sound effect that sounds a bit like somebody chuckling.

I didn't hear the laughing woman again, but maybe it's on a much longer interval.

I don't really care any more, I just wondered if anybody else had heard it. :)

[^3T^0itan^3U^0ranu^3S^0.]

Thanks for that PepperPi. No sign of the laughing woman though, so maybe I made a mistake.

town_child_scream1 is clearly what I thought was the screaming woman.
town_scared_sob2 is what I thought was a clucking chicken in my last post, haha !

Maybe I heard town_scared_sob2 combined with another effect the first time, and my mind tried to interpret it and came up with a woman's laugh. The mind can play tricks on you like that.

I think we've solved this issue now, thanks guys.

[^3T^0itan^3U^0ranu^3S^0.]

That last sound effect, playground_memory?

I never thought about it until I read the filename. I always assumed I was hearing kids in the distance, but if it says 'memory', does that mean Gordon was remembering his own children?

Poor guy, I never knew he had a family. No wonder he's so upset and likes to kill everything he sees, smashes up every crate and throws stuff around for no reason. :(

[Chippy]

that was a dude shooting zombies