Cradle of Sins
(in development)
This is a VR video game project, with U24 Solutions in charge of development, looking to create a MOBA style game in VR – two teams battling each other in a virtual arena, trying to destroy the opposing team’s towers and eventually their base, with minions, jungle monsters, character with unique powers, a looming temple and other goodies interjected in between.
I joined the project in early June of 2020, though it had been active considerably longer, and I was responsible for the concept, design and implementation of the entire soundscape of the game. This, on a few occasions, was re-design, as there were already audio assets in the game before I came about, but most of those were replaced entirely. Since this is a VR project, the first full development cycle on one of those for me, the traditional means and ideas of putting together a sound scheme had to be shifted a bit. More emphasis is put on immersion and “realism,” trying to help create a lived-in and believable in-game experience for the player, rather than meta-gaming and pushing each sound effect to become an edge/mechanic for the competitors of the arena.
The project itself is based in Unreal Engine 4, still under development, though available for public testing, if perhaps featuring a few ongoing bugs. Of the larger systems, I utilized Google’s Resonance Audio plugin for more detailed spatialization and additional reverb options among other benefits, as well as audio files mixed in an ambisonic format, as I found this greatly improved the continuous player immersion.
As mentioned above, this is still a work in progress, which anyone can follow along via the website, the game’s Steam page, Discord community and all the various social thingies out there. As such, I’m still keeping this section up to date with the latest patches whenever they concern the audio sections I built, and will keep doing so until the eventual release of the game into this wonderful world.
Currently, the team is still polishing the additional game modes and maps, as well as working through the general testing phase, working out all the kinks and bugs that come with trying to create a thing.
Wwise Music Integration Prototype
To preface this, the music samples in this video are not made by me. I only cut together and mixed them to provide proper intro/outro/transition sections, as well as loops in line with the requirements.
This was a test to see how well a music system would work within a game prototype. The music was to switch between 5 states – intro & outro sections and low/mid/high intensity variants forming the active body. The music sections were to transition between each other seamlessly and keep following a set timing throughout.
For this, I used the Interactive Music Hierarchy section within Wwise to populate the project with the mixed sounds and set up their timing, adding in transition stingers (entry/exit cues) in the end to help with the task. The states were triggered/switched using a Game Sync parameter that an Unreal Engine blueprint referenced afterward.
To help illustrate the end result, I set up a simple room in Unreal Engine, based on the 3rd person character example map. I used door frames as triggers to switch between the states, adding in a smoke particle effect for each to indicate which state the system was swapping to next. Finally, added in a button on the side to transition into an ‘Empty’ state, so as to simulate the music stopping completely.
Factory Level
SoundBox Simulation
Simulation of a bedroom I decided to make as part of a larger marketing project. The goal of the greater project was to design and market a prototype audio system that could be implemented in a smart home in the near future. The product was the SoundBox, which, when integrated into a room, would analyze the surrounding ambience and enhance it with added sounds and effects so as to make the environment less distracting and noisy in general. My simulation was meant to help immerse the user, letting them experience the surrounding effects of our system by moving around with controls to enable/disable it.
The simulation itself was created in Unreal Engine. I sourced all the assets, making sure they were all under the CC0 license, and designed the layout of the room, placing the assets in accordingly. All the sounds were pre-made in an outside DAW using plugins and automation, i.e. there is no processing going on inside the engine, all the sounds are simply originating from various sources around the house. There are controls for the system, as well as for switching between two sets of sounds to accentuate the system’s benefits and its effects on the space.
There are many more sets of sounds, made with a similar effect in mind – to enhance the soundscape for the better. There was even an entire test held by us, surveying some of the participants to see which sounds were more effective. The results and the other sounds can also all be shared, if you’d be interested.
The second video is of an ambient actor simulation, showing off some of the power of the console debug commands, as well as an (intentionally sloppily) made soundscape around The Room. It’s largely the same level as above, presenting a new purpose.
Thought I might as well push it here, since I put a decent amount of effort into, and ultimately, it’s my website, right? So, I get to choose what pops up in here, and Me and My Council deem that this is a useful piece of content to publish!
Besides, honestly, how many people really wander as far into a portfolio site as this sub-section? And then, even more – read the full descriptions?? If you’re as colorful and naturally-stylish to be doing that, feel free to collect that virtual muffin at the end of the tour! You’ve earned that and way more, if you ask me :))
Incomplete Project Highlights
This is an honorable mention to a few other game developments that I’ve been a part of, which, for reasons outside my control, were never properly finished. These are mainly here because, even though there is no playable demo to be showcased, I did finish the entire soundscape and musical cues on my end, at least as far as the final concept of the particular project at the time. I wanted to showcase the samples at least, as I still put in a lot of work and effort into sourcing and designing these sounds.
Down below you’ll be able to find a few playable samples, and of course, I’m happy to provide the full soundscape’s worth of samples for any of these, if need be.
Guitar Adventure Samples
“Guitar Adventure” was a working title for a game me and a few other developers made over the span of 2 days during the Global Game Jam in Scotland. We named ourselves Bird-Crab, as an ingenious way to combine all the first letters of our names into…that. There’s even a thematic intro cue I made for it!
It’s a top-down survival game, where the main character has crash-landed on a strange planet, having to find a way home, with his only weapon being…the guitar. The objective is to collect the necessary parts for the guitar – pickups, strings, etc. – that are scattered around the map. Each addition also makes the guitar more powerful and adds a few abilities along the way. The enemies are small, sluggish creatures that can be destroyed via a strum of the guitar. After the player collects all the guitar parts, they’re guided to the final area, where they leave the planet using the full power of their guitar.
I went full-force with the SFX concepts, having guitar riffs as respawn cues and ongoing music while the player’s strumming away.
The entire project was going great, but we only had two dedicated programmers, one of which couldn’t last through the second night. So, there was a lone programmer, hacking away at the game on Sunday morning, trying to get a finalized version of the game however he could. It worked somewhat for the Jam’s purposes, though afterwards there were many compatibility issues and it couldn’t really be launched properly, with full controls, to even be demo-ed.
Minutes to Meltdown Samples
“Minutes to Meltdown” was one of two video games developed by me and a few 4th Year students studying Game Development in Glasgow. A lot of them were the same as the Game Jam group, aided by a couple replacements.
Inside Jon Samples
“Inside Jon” is the second game developed by the same 4th Year student group. (as well as an amazing pun)
It was much more complex, as it was meant to become a multiplayer game, at least on a local level. Essentially, it was to be a cops & robbers baseline, having a top-down view, 2 players on each team and additional traversal features embedded into the game map. The two characters on each team had unique abilities, with the ‘robbers’ having to find and collect the data and ‘cops’ trying to catch the ‘robbers’ before that.
I made musical loops according to the amount of players currently left, as well as tied this and “Minutes to Meltdown” together, in an initial menu, so they can both be launched seamlessly from a joint main menu. The abilities and entire menu also had their own dedicated SFXs.
This game project was the least finished of the three featured here, as the team decided to scrap the multiplayer concept altogether.