Engines and Middleware 1 - Assignment 1: Audio Implementation

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One of the big pieces of work I submitted back in April this year was the audio implementation assignment of my Engines and Middleware 1 module. Working in a group with my friends and fellow game audio students Adam White (@AdamRWhitehead) and Aaron Turner, the objective for this module was to take an existing Unreal Engine 4 game with all the original audio assets removed, and substitute them with our own (hopefully suitable) replacements.

The specific game we were given for this task with was the tower defence strategy game from the UE4 example game projects collection.

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Futureworks: Year 1 Complete

My first year studying Game and Interactive Audio at Futureworks has been absolutely fantastic experience. When I started this blog halfway through the academic year in January, my intention with it was to post regular, timely updates about my audio design projects as a means of documenting my progress. Well, a quick look at the date of this post compared to the previous one confirms that this didn't exactly happen!

Now that all my assignments have been handed in (for better or worse), my intention is to make a few retrospective posts on my work so far, both curricular and extracurricular. I know, I know; backdating information is never as good as capturing one's thoughts and processes in the heat of the moment, but I'm hoping this should nonetheless be a productive personal exercise in recording which areas of my work went well and which bits need a LOT of improvement. Oh, and hopefully I'll make it somewhat interesting to read about too!

Recording and Production 1 - Creature Comforts (Assignment 1)

After several months of hard work, I submitted Assignment 1 for my Recording and Production 1 module at Futureworks today - phew!

Working with my fellow game audio students Joe Foulds (@Foulds_Joe) and Josh Hindle (@BassFaceBindle), our brief for the assignment was to replace all the original audio from a Creature Comforts clip with our own recorded sounds. I was primarily involved with recording the musical elements of the project, recording and performing Foley work and transcribing and editing the script for the VO actors.

Here's the finished production we came up with:

I’m really pleased with how this one turned out (if I do say so myself). Anyway, onwards, ever onwards; Assignment 2 will be due in shortly, so I'd best get cracking with that!

Cube Tossers

I took part in the Futureworks game jam (held from the 17th-19th October 2016, during the Semester 1 Development Week of my first year studying Game and Interactive Audio) and helped make Cube Tossers with fellow students Thomas Kennedy and Callum Wyness.

We had two and a half days to come up with something playable in Unreal Engine 4 based on the theme of 'ten seconds'. Together, we came up with a simple timed cube throwing game. The games rules were, as you might well imagine, pretty simple: get the cube into the goal within ten seconds.

Each of us designed three of the nine levels in the game, and TK and Callum handled the bulk of the design and scripting duties. My main contribution to the project (apart from making the three dumbest levels in the game) was the creation of the following 10-seconds of aural agony that served as the game's soundtrack. Feast your ears on the audio abomination that is 'Boxing Clever':

As you can hear, it's pretty basic stuff. However, I think it suited the rudimentary nature of the game pretty well. Yes, the music is annoying, but despite its crudeness, I feel it's appropriate to the game's themes of speed, urgency and mounting panic. Stylistically, I was going for a similar feel to the stressful drowning music that played in the Mega Drive Sonic games.