A History of Hup, the Jump Sound of Shooting Games
2nd April 2022
The hup, as it’s sometimes known, is the onomatopoetic vocalization of effort given by the player-character when initiating a jump. While a gleeful bloop traces back to Donkey Kong (if not earlier), and Z-axis movement dates to the vehicular combat sims of the mid-’70s, a human character jumping in first-person perspective wouldn’t be achieved until 1992’s Ultima Underworld: the Stygian Abyss—released two months before BJ Blazkowicz would begin clearing bunkers full of Nazis with both feet firmly planted on the ground.
An unacknowledged ancestor of the ‘hup’ can be heard in the musical film Chitty Chitty Bang Bang in the scene where the two German spies are carrying a beam and need to cross railroad tracks.