Let’s get started
It’s been a busy few days.
I’ve decided to make spreadsheets documenting and observing different audio cues in different games, filling in details like the type of cue, its perceived source, and its trigger, along with additional notes. I did this for one of my favourite action games of recent years, Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon [2023], filling out most of the sounds, needing to exclude unique enemy, boss, and weapon sounds in lieu of simply using broader descriptions to cover a specific type of cue that it would have, but across the object type. I’m primarily doing this for myself, to have a reference point for games I love and consistently reference in terms of sound design, but also for others in the event that I’m not alone in wanting a mostly comprehensive list of cues for a game.
Another thing I’ve been doing has been working on my current game development project, something I’m not so subtly calling “Mechdivers” for now, with inspiration definitely being taken from the currently very popular and time-sinking Helldivers 2 [2024]. I’ve been working on it since the beginning of March, so it’s still in very early stages, but it’s already shaping up to look like a solo project I’ll actually finish. I had been working on and off on a third person shooter survival horror concept for several months, and had made a pretty decent character controller system that included multiple weapon types, aiming, and the bones of a stealth system, with both visual and audible alerts for enemies, which I was particularly proud of. Unfortunately, with my job, working on music with my band, and a healthy dose of life burning me out, I hit a wall in the shape of designing the level, 3D assets, animations, and AI.
So this new project was a way for me to circumvent a lot of those shortcomings without relying on external assets: the level is now a 2D plane instead of an enclosed space, rudimentary and easily readable geometry of models, little to no actual animations, and much simpler pathfinding and behaviour requirements for the AI. Here’s to hoping I follow through because this project is shaping up to be interesting.
Lastly, one more new thing I’ve decided to do is this! I’ve always been very passionate about writing, even deeply considering going to school for writing or literature after high school, but ultimately took to game development, and ended up writing and reading less and less in the years since; this is part of my way to change that. Now I’ll admit, a big chunk of this is also that I’ve heard that blogs about game design are a nice thing to see for recruiters (hello if you’re one of them!), nevertheless I’m still wanting to do it to get some thoughts out that I don’t think would fit anywhere else in particular. So once again to things that I hope I’ll continue into the future!
This blog is something I’ll probably keep primarily focused on game audio and design, but will likely also throw in analyses, maybe even some long winded and overly wordy musings about music I like. Who’s to say, we’ll see with time where this goes. I don’t have a particular schedule in mind for this, but I’ll definitely try to come up with something every once in a while, if for nothing else then to get me writing.
On that note, thank you for reading, take care of yourself, go play some video games and go see Dune.
