Hello! It’s been a while! This is proof that I am still here; I’ve just been incredibly busy. This past month of July turned out to be way more challenging than I expected. I was able to participate in not only back-to-back game jams, but a Discord music competition as well. While everything was going on, I also had a family emergency that came as a total, devastating surprise. I honestly thought that I would not have been able to complete some of these projects, but I was able to complete ALL of these projects despite the hardship. I will be talking about my audio game jam project here, as well as the Discord music composition project. I’ll save the other jam project for a future post, because it’s still a work in progress.
Aurora Drift, An Audio Only Game Jam Project
I participated in the RPGIO community audio-only game jam. RPGIO is a community started by a friend of mine, Alixander, to bring game audio professionals (and amateurs) together to share knowledge and to further craft our skills. Alixander was able to contact another friend of mine, Ben, to have him provide a game they are working on for an audio-only game jam.
Both the game jam and the Discord community have been a little intimidating to me at the beginning. Mostly because the server is filled with so, so many talented audio professionals, and I can’t help but compare myself every step of the way. This game jam would be the first time I ever participated in a jam where I had a full team of audio people working on it.
In the end, I had a blast getting to know my teammates, and we made something that we were all very proud of. Let’s talk about the jam.
The game is a simple game where you are in space, controlling two orbs as you fling yourself to different objects for different point values. The overall theme of the jam was “we are not alone.”
Our team decided to make our main audio focus on the duality of the orbs. One orb would have one melodic theme, the other orb would have a counter melody. Both would sound good on their own, but combined, they sing in perfect harmony. We also decided that at a further distance apart, the melodies would fade out and the abyss of space would fade in. We planned to implement this idea with separate audio files from each team member and use Wwise to implement these dynamically.
This also enabled us to have each layer of the song composed by each of us, and then combined. Thinking back on this, this was the perfect way for everyone to contribute their sound. It also had the meta message of orbs coming together to make beautiful music, but our team came together to make music.
I decided to contribute with my biggest strength, creating the ambience. I felt like I was up for that task because of what I created in my very first game jam.
The space ambience ended up being pretty simple, but I still had a lot of fun experimenting with a ton of plugins. Here’s what the project looked like
This screenshot is the entire, looping ambience! The main sound for this ambience was some ocean/lighthouse recording I took in Maine, fed into a lo-fi/bit crush Effector plugin. I used this to perform on the X and Y axis, similar to a Kaossilator, and automated that. I then fed the sound into 2 instances of the Distructor plugin. One had a ton of filters, the other had a ton of chorusing. Finally, to really stretch out the sound, I went back to my beloved Valhalla Supermassive.
On top of that base sound, I layered in a couple of synths. One is from the CMI-V plugin from the Arturia keyboard collection, as well as augmented voices from Analog Lab V. The augmented voices are the main sound you hear as the tremolo chords.
In the end, it was simple, but effective for a space sound, and I’m really proud of how it turned out. Here you can take a listen to my contribution on its own.
After we had all of our separate sound files, it was time for audio implementation with Wwise! Let me make it brief here: it ended up not happening. Myself, along with zachbrunomusic, tried our best to learn a bit of Wwise and to incorporate it into the Unity project. We both kept getting the same errors when we tried to initialize Wwise in the project. After a day of trying to figure it out, we scrapped Wwise and decided to add it in post with a video editor. This was allowed in the rules of the jam to allow folks to work on just audio skills and not worry about implementation. We only had 48 hours for the jam anyway, and if we had more time, I have no doubt we could’ve figured out Wwise.
With that being said, here is the final video of all of our work. Huge thanks to zachbrunomusic, Phelix, ResOnance, and XClaymation for being excellent teammates. It was a pleasure to work with all of you!
RPGIO Composition Challenge
The second of the three projects I worked on in July is for a song composition challenge. For July, we were tasked to write a song on the theme of “Dog.” This song is also supposed to have some field recording that we made ourselves.
This song was a real challenge to complete for me, as I had 2 game jams and that family emergency. I really thought I would not be able to finish and submit anything, but I ended up “finishing” and submitting something. I think that’s what I am most proud of with this piece: just persevering.
I took inspiration from the song “Big Field” from the game “Dog’s Life” on the PS2, and decided to write a song in a similar style. I ended up using the BBC’s orchestral strings and a couple of guitars for it, one being a bass guitar, and the other being an acoustic guitar. All of these instruments are VST, as that is what I have access to at the moment.
For the songwriting process itself, I did what I do with all of my songs: lock myself in a room and spend a long time coming up with a melody. My music, if I were to describe it, is very melody-focused. Melody is the #1 thing that drives all of my music. I have a loose definition of melody, which I might get into on another post, but it is my guiding light.
I ended up writing the song in either B or Bb major (can’t remember to be honest), with the instruments being on top of a recording I made when I was out in Eugene a couple of years ago. This recording was made at the grassy courtyard area to the side of the Knight Library at the University of Oregon. I never wrote about it because it was before this website existed, but at the time, I traveled back to Oregon for a wedding and was visiting friends. I took that opportunity to add to my sound library.
That’s pretty much about it for the songwriting technique of this song. It was pretty straightforward in terms of the song itself and the mix. As previously stated, I would’ve loved to spend more time on this away from personal struggles, but I’m glad I was able to submit anything at all. Have a listen below!
Game Jam Project 2 Teaser and Conclusion
Finally, to wrap things up, in July, I worked on another game jam project outside of the RPGIO projects. I really can’t reveal it at this moment. This project was done in 48 hours, like the RPGIO audio jam, and I am currently in the refinement stage of this project to present at a local art gallery! As the time nears the public exhibition, you will hear about it, trust me!
Thanks to everyone who stuck around and read this post! I really meant to have this out sooner, but at the end of July, I was dead from all of these projects, and needed a break!
Big shoutout again to Alixander, Ben, zachbrunomusic, Phelix, ResOnance, and XClaymation. You guys rock!
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