At its core, IWBTG is a love letter—and a middle finger—to the 8-bit and 16-bit eras of gaming. Kayin did not hire a sound designer to create original assets; instead, he ripped audio directly from the games that defined his childhood. This design choice serves two distinct purposes: Instant Familiarity

Why is that so effective?

It’s the opposite of power fantasy. And it’s perfect.

These fan games created an unspoken rule: they adopted the exact same audio toolkit. To this day, if an indie game features a tiny character who explodes into blood with a massive Guilty Gear sound effect upon touching a spike, players instantly know it is an homage to I Wanna Be the Guy .

Perhaps the most frequently heard sound effect in the entire game is the explosion that occurs when the protagonist, The Kid, touches a spike, a falling apple, or an unexpected laser. Instead of a standard 8-bit explosion, Kayin used the massive, dramatic explosion sound effect from the fighting game series Guilty Gear .