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Taphobos: First Play

So I connected with James on twitter initially, and met him at the Lincoln Indie Developers’ meetup, back in January. He suggested that we proceed by me first playing the game, to get an idea of the concept and a feel for the gameplay. We ended up doing this over the Global Game Jam weekend – and James brought the coffin, Oculus Rift and 2D game out for me to play. It was an experience, to say the least. I was more caught up in playing the game that actually noting what sounds i’d need the making. But I think getting a feel for it as a player is important.

We’ve arranged to meet this week to begin looking at the content specifically – breaking the levels down into all of the assets i’ll need to deliver.

(LO3)

 

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#GGJ16 – Global Game Jam 2016

Last weekend I participated in my first global game jam! Global game jam is a international initiate, designed to unite game developers for 48 hours to make games around a set theme. This was my first GGJ but not my first game jam generally (I blogged about my first game jam in AP1), and I was excited to get stuck in.

My last jam was a little disappointing, as, despite making some cool sounds and implementing them, they never actually ended up in the final game build (mostly due to the fact the jam was only 24 hours long, and time was extremely precious). I’d enjoyed working with the developer, and had used the time to explore FMOD in greater depth, but this time I decided to take a different approach to the event, by working on my own:

One of the ‘diversifiers’ (a ‘rule’ to include in the game to make it more interesting to develop) was to make the game entirely with audio – no graphical content whatsoever. As i’m passionate about audio, I jumped at the idea of making an audio-only game. My thoughts turned to.. how. The vast majority of game mechanics (the actual gameplay) are related visually, and the challenge of creating simulating gameplay (more than just an interactive audio-book) was hugely exciting to me. I came up with the idea of a 40s/50s noir detective game, investigating a murder. I chose to keep the game jam concept limited, and stuck to simple player interactions, rather than any complex mechanics. I wrote some lines that I recorded my good friend Daniel Berry performing, as well as minor roles from fellow game jammers. I also created ambient background soundscapes for all of the scenes, any foley/object sounds, and my friend Katie Tarrant wrote some awesome 50s ominous jazz tunes for the soundtrack.

Sadly, the game didn’t come together. I spent too much time making the sounds and not enough time thinking about how i’d put them into a ‘game’. I talked about making a audio-only game on twitter over the weekend – and was amazed at the response of a hoard of blind gamers being extremely interested in the idea, and I had a lengthy twitter discussion with Brandon Cole, who is something of an advocate for blind gaming and accessibility to games for the blind community. This was an aspect I hadn’t really considered – that a complex and extensive audio-only game would be perfect for the blind gaming community – and by the sounds of things, something they don’t really have to date.

I won’t talk too much about my idea in depth – as i’m planning on making it as a personal project in the coming months. But I figured i’d do a quick post on my experience of GGJ as a sound designer.

Below is a selection of the VO I recorded for the game sketch. It’s rough, as the recording environment was far from ideal. But an idea of what I got up to.

(LO2, LO4)

 

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Guest Lecture: Suddi Raval

Today we were lucky enough to hear from Suddi Raval, a legendary acid house producer and a game sound designer/composer, working currently as the audio manager at the Warner Bros. game studio, TT games (responsible largely for the ever popular LEGO games).

Audio manager is essentially the highest audio position in the games industry – the audio manager works with the upper echelons of the game development studio to create a fully cohesive and well delivered soundtrack. The audio manager is involved with both creating audio for the project (Suddi talked about how he generally likes to work in VO, both recording voiceover for the project and using audio content from an existing IP, usually a film), as well as managing the sound designers that the studio employ. Suddi mentioned the studio employ 7 full time sound designers, as well as up to 2 more on contracts. This is a comparatively large number of designers – even considering TT Fusion is technically a AAA studio, with many AAA titles having 2-5 sound designers at most. Suddi did however mention that the number rises all the time.

I was so engaged with what Suddi was saying (and had a million questions popping into my head) I didn’t make any notes on the actual content of the lecture, so this post is mainly key points. However, I found myself nodding in agreement and hearing so much affirmation in what Suddi was saying in relation to my own work and journey into the industry. I’d contacted Suddi about a month before the lecture, and had asked him a few questions and sent him my showreel. He very generously called me out by name and commented on my work, offering me feedback and advice as well as answering a lot of questions that I posed to him after the talk.

There were a few things Suddi mentioned that I want to draw attention to – as they relate in many ways to my project.

He spoke about FMOD, Wwise, and some of the games engines i’d demonstrated ability in on my reel: he talked about how TT use their own proprietary sound engine for implementation, that they generally taught junior sound designers as they join the organisation. He said however, that learning middleware like FMOD and Wwise was important, both for understanding the implementation process and to show that you’ve taken the time to actually learn something for your work. This is helpful and important for me, as I plan to use FMOD to implement my sounds into the game for my project. As I already have some experience using it independently, spending time using it in a game engine would be hugely beneficial.

I also asked him about junior sound designer positions, and the fact they are rarely advertised. I also later asked about the best route into in-house work, to which his response covers both questions – essentially, through work experience. Suddi said that a number of the people working at TT now came in through work experience: they’d proved themselves to be committed and easy to work with during the few weeks that they’d work at the studio, and they’d been asked to join the team full time. I think that work experience is something I should really look into further.

I’ll probably remember a lot of other things that stood out to me from the lecture, but i’ll leave this post at that. A fantastic opportunity to speak personally with someone high up in the audio world of the games industry, I learned a lot and found much of my ideas and preparations confirmed as being on the right track.

 

 

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Taphobos Sound Design – Aims, Objectives and Learning Outcomes

Taphobos is a two player virtual reality game, well known for its rather usual use of a coffin to immerse the player. I was put in touch with the developer, James, after the developer of my last game, Hashtag Dungeon, recommended me to him. The games concept is unique, but simple; one person wears an Oculus Rift, a virtual reality headset, and sits inside an actual coffin. The second person plays a normal game on a PC, roaming around a large church and graveyard scene, and has to find the player who is buried inside a coffin hidden somewhere in the game world. Have a look at the Taphobos website for some videos and descriptions of what the game entails.

 

Aim:

-To create a high quality soundtrack (sound design and music) for the game, Taphobos.

Sub-Aim:

-To spend some time doing work experience with the sound department of a game studio.

Requirements:

1.The full sounds for the game, including ambiences, player sounds and spot effects, for both players in multiple locations.
2. Two music tracks, one looping main menu track and one for the release trailer.

Technical specs:

1.Recordings will be 24bit/96kbps WAVs
2. Sound files will leave the DAW as .OGG (Ogg Vorbis) files for best integration with FMOD.
3. Sound files will be implemented with FMOD then programmed into Unity.

Objectives:

-To record high quality source material using professional techniques to build the sound design from.

-To create sound design assets that are:

1. of a similar standard to other indie games,
2. well considered in light of the genre and the industry,
3. developed and revised to best engage the player and fufil the expectations of the developer.

-To record, produce, implement and deliver high quality sound design and music assets.

-To work alongside the developer to best fit their needs and vision for the sound of the game.

 

Learning Outcomes:

LO1: By the end of the project, I aim to have explored field recording in much more depth, in order to capture all of the sounds for the assets in the game.

LO2: I will explore and evaluate the sound of both other indie games, and other ‘horror’ games, in order to expand my understanding of indie game sound, and deliver a similar standard product.

LO3: I will work alongside the developer, in order to best understand and deliver their vision, as well as using my audio expertise to deliver a high quality product.

LO4: I will explore improve my technical implementation and understanding of FMOD and it’s integration with Unity.