Here’s a few video clips from some of the projects I’ve been working on throughout July and August while studying on the School of Video Game Audio’s Unity course.
Grenadier Footstep Sound Re-Design
Grenadier Grenade Sounds Re-Design
Viking Village Water Submersion Toggle
I’m currently in the early stages of making a Bitsy game!
I recently got introduced to Bitsy through the works of Cecile Richard, and found them to be really cool and moving experiences. I was particularly impressed by how evocative and immersive Bitsy games can be; the limited mechanical and technical restrictions of the Bitsy editor are positive creative constraints for a game designer wanting to make really unique narrative experiences.
After my initial exposure to this exciting new world of Bitsy games, I felt inspired to start making one myself…and so I did! While having a mess around in the Bitsy editor to get a feel for making basic tile and sprite assets, my mind wandered back to the announcement trailer for the upcoming game Season, which has this really cool opening sequence of the player character recording the sounds of a nearby dragonfly.
Although the use of microphones as a gameplay mechanic is not particularly new, they’re often used as a means of boosting the player’s auditory percepttion or awareness (the directional mic in Metal Gear Solid 2 + 3 is a good example of this), rather than as a means of capturing or cataloguing the environmental sounds happening around the player. With these thoughts in mind and taking a hefty dose of inspiration from Season, I thought that making a small game based around field recording could lend itself well to making for a short, fun and personal Bitsy game experience.
So, here’s what I’ve got planned out so far. The rough structure I have in mind is to have the player start by checking in with their game dev team to see what sounds they need for their project, before collecting their equipment and heading outdoors to start recording. I’m thinking of having the player go to visit three different locations, where they have to record a sound from the environment. Once all the required sounds have been captured, the player then heads back to their studio computer in order to upload their sounds into the game. Here’s the opening scene of the player’s room/studio:
The player’s humble abode, complete with field recorder, headphones, microphone and batteries on the right. I need to change the field recorder sprite (top) to look more distinct from the batteries (bottom).
I want to make this a highly-idealised and rose-tinted view of a typical day of freelance game audio, so there’s no software crashes to worry about, or pesky version control software issues to wrestle with. Instead, it’s all about trying to capture that joy and excitement of exploring the outdoors with a recorder in-hand and having lots fun and Bob Ross' style happy accidents along the way!
I’m still learning the tools and editor workflow (and crucially, the audio implementation) as I go, so progress will likely be a bit on the slow side for the time being, but I’ll aim to post (hopefully timely) updates on Twitter/Instagram every now and then once I’ve completed a new section of the game or made a decent chunk of new progress. The aim is to keep this as small and tightly hemmed in scope-wise as possible so that I can actually complete it!
I’ve made a new sound design showreel! The featured projects include:
Space Plague VR - SIGTRAP Games + SMASHfestUK (Sound Designer)
To Miss The Ending - idontloveyouanymore (Sound Designer with We Make Audio)
http://film-directory.britishcouncil.org/to-miss-the-ending
Oddworld: New 'n' Tasty - Oddworld Inhabitants (Sound Re-Design)
Doom Eternal - id Software (Sound Re-Design)
Crossbow Weapon - AD Graphics (Sound Re-Design)
It was incredibly good fun to work with Kim Lomas (Level Designer) Sean Hall (Programmer) Juliana Milusheva and Ythen Sawers (3D Artists) on 'After the Storm', a short game we made for the GJL Game Parade Spring Jam!
The theme for this jam was 'Strength Lies In Differences', and the story for our game is as follows:
“As the thunder rolls in, a catastrophic tsunami hits the once vibrant and lively beach town you reside in, separating you from your family. After finding a small boat in the place you took shelter in, you set out to find and reunite with them, but it’s the kindness of strangers that will help you on your way. As you come across survivors, you must find a way to communicate with each despite speaking different languages. Help them on your journey and they may help you in return.”
The game is available to play directly in your browser from the itch.io page:
https://seanwhall.itch.io/after-the-storm
Music is from Phil Michalski + Brandon Boone’s ‘Digital Illusions’ pack.
It was great to work as an Assistant Sound Designer for We Make Audio on Gods Will Fall, which launches today!
I helped out for a couple of months with core game SFX.
Keep your eyes on We Make Audio for more details on this exciting project!
