CHEMPUNCH DARE ACADEMY 2024
LEAD SOUND DESIGNER / AUDIO DIRECTOR
MARCH 2024 - OCTOBER 2024
CHEMPUNCH (DEVELOPED FOR DARE ACADEMY 2024)
From March 2024 - October 2024 myself, and a team of students at Abertay University formed a team and pitched a game concept to a pannel of judges of industry professionals and lecturers overseeing DARE Academy. The judges were impressed with our game pitch and put us through to the finals where only 6 teams out of the 30+ teams that applied would get the funding and space to develop their game concepts into playable prototypes, which would then be showcased to the general public down at EGX, London in October that same year.​
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Our team pitched and developed 'ChemPunch' a wave defense action game inspired by Netflix's Arcane and fast-paced horde acrade games like Doom and Wrahammer 40,000: Darktide. We developed the game over the course of a month during a full-time Hot Housing period during June, but continued developing and refining the game concept all the way up until October for it to be showcased at EGX.
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I was responsible for handling and overseeing the game's audio direction and production of sound effects, music and ambience tracks. I created appropriate sound effects for the game using a mixture of foley techniques and tools such as Krotos Studios for the more abstract and difficult to recreate sound effects required. I was then responsible for creating AkEvents in Wwise and setting up Wwise parameters for the programmers to use when implementing the assets into the Unreal Engine Blueprints, I worked closely with programmers to ensure success.
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This was an invaluable experience as I was able to get experience wokring in a team to meet strict deadlines and then pitch and present the game to the public, I learned a lot about the production and pitching process among other valuable skills and experience that will help me in furture projects.
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Roles and Responsibilities:
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​Sound library organisation and management.
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Creating suitable sound effects, ambience tracks and soundscapes for the game.
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Implementing the audio assets into Unreal Engine by creating AkEvents inside Wwise middleware.
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Working with programmers to ensure the audio assets have been implemented correctly.
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Overseeing audio production and implementation.
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Assisting our team's producer with production work and helping out other disciplines wherever possible.
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Presenting our game to DARE Academy judges, industrial professionals and the general public with the team.
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Working to strict deadlines with a small team to deliver a playable build at each milestone.
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Technologies: Unity Engine, REAPER, Krotos Studio, Wwise middleware, JIRA.​​​​​​​
Itch.io Project Page:
DARE Academy Finalists Announcements:
Original Pitch-Deck Slides:
OPERATION EXODUS
LEAD SOUND DESIGNER / AUDIO DIRECTOR
JANUARY 2023 - MAY 2023
OPERATION EXODUS - DES310 PROFESSIONAL PROJECT
During my third year at Abertay University I was tasked with designing and developing a game prototype in response to a specific client brief provided by the game publishers Modern Wolf. The brief wanted us to design a rouge-like game that prioritises meta player progression that is carried across levels. In response to this brief we worked as a small team to develop Operation Exodus, a Sci-Fi themed rogue-like that puts the player in the shoes of a colony ship survivor in the middle of an infection quickly killing off their fellow crew members.
During this project I was responsible for designing and producing audio assets required for the game. I sourced audio clips from online and used generation software like Krotos Studios to create a vast library of sound effects that I then put into REAPER and mixed, layered and manipluated to create the finalised sound effects and music tracks that were then used in the final game submission.
This project allowed me to experiment with creating more Sci-fi-orientated sound effects, a genre in which I hadn't touched much upon before. Overall the project went well and our team recived an A grade for our work.
During the project we recieved frequent feedback with our clients (Modern Wolf) and iterated upon the feedback.​
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Roles and Responsibilities:
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​Sound library organisation and management.
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Creating complex sound effects using the digital audio workstation REAPER and Krotos Studios.
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Mixing, mastering and implementing the created sound effects.
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Creating dynamic and immersive soundtracks and ambience soundscapes for the game.
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Technologies: Unity Engine, Krotos Studios, REAPER, JIRA.​​​​​​​
Itch.io Project Page:
PAPER TRAILS SOUND RE-DESIGN
SOUND DESIGNER / PROJECT PRODUCER
JANUARY 2023 - MAY 2023
PAPER TRAILS SOUND RE-DESIGN DES311 PROJECT
Paper Trails (2023) developed by Rock Flock Studios, owned by AfterFire Studios.
I am not affiliated with the original creators of Paper Trails, this project was a re-design of existing audio in-game.
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During my third year at Abertay University one of my assignments wanted me to identify important skills that I wanted to develop and improve upon and to improve them through a self-directed creative research project. For my project I wanted to focus on imporving my skills with using middleware and implementing assets into Unreal Engine. I decided to re-design the audio in an existing DARE Academy game and implement my newly created audio assets into an existing Unreal Project using Wwise middleware.
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During this project I wanted to focus on creating audio assets for assets that were previosuly missing audio, re-design existing audio that I felt wasn't as strong and impactful as it could be and designing assets to match the paper / hand-drawn art style of the games visuals.The sound re-design project was completed with full consent and aknowledgement of the original DARE team that developed the game Rock Flock Studios. During the project I learned how to use Wwise middleware and improved existing sound design skills. Furthermore this was my first attempt at working on existing code, written by a team of programmers that I didn't have close communications with prior to the start of the sound re-design project.
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Roles and Responsibilities:
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Project management, asset organisation and project production.
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Sound design.
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Recording using foley techniques and field recording methods.
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Creating, mixing and mastering finalised audio assets using REAPER.
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Implementing the created audio assets using Wwise middleware.
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Altering and implementing the audio events into pre-existing code inside Unreal Engine Blueprints.
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Technologies: Unity Engine, REAPER, Wwise middleware, TASCAM DR-05X Handheld Recorder, Trello.​​​​​​​
Sound Re-Design Reel:
Original Game Itch.io Page:
MAX SOUND EFFECTS GENERATOR
SOUND DESIGNER / PROGRAMMER / PROJECT PRODUCER
SEPTEMBER 2023 - DECEMBER 2023
SOUND EFFECTS GENERATOR APPLICATION
During my Interactive Sound and Music Design module in third year I was tasked with creating a sound effects application using the visual scripting language Max/MSP/Jitter. I decided to create a horror sound effects generation application that would allow users to import, export and manipluate audio files in real-time similiar to digital audio workstations REAPER, FL Studio or Ableton Live. I designed and scripted a suitable graveyard themed user interface fitting the horror theme I wnated to explore. I then sourced the required sound effects from Pixabay.com to then be used as example sound effects within the application and for testing purposes.​
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I scripted features such as import and exporting, pitch shifting, volume controls, high-pass and low-pass filters, playback speed and reverb filters. Each of these filters could be applied to one or both sound effects as I created a system that allowed users to maniplaute and playback two audio files at once, allowing for interesting and unique sound effects to be created by layering multiple audio files.
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This project allowed me to explore visual scripting using a languague I have not used before, deepened my understanding of the mathematics in audio programming and helped me develop programming MAX scripting skills.
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Roles and Responsibilities:
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Sourcing and organising a library of pre-made sound effects.​
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Designing the user interface of the application and implementing it in the MAX software.
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Scripting everything from the features, user interface and systems using visual scripting with MAX.
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Creating mechanics that allow users to import, export and manipulate their .mp3/.wav files in real-time.
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Scripting a real-time visual feedback window (soundwave) that reacts to user inputs and displays changes.
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Technologies: MAX/MSP/JITTER.​​​​​​​
YouTube Demonstration:
Application Download Link:
PROJECT DESPERATION
LEAD GAME DESIGNER / PROJECT PRODUCER
FEBRUARY 2023
PROJECT DESPERATION
Our game recieved an overall score of 3.733 and won the 'Best Playable Submission' category.
During February 2023 myself and a friend decided to take part in the IWM Wargamming Game Jam.
The jam was sponsored and judged by Rebellion Developments who then provided feedback to the jam winners.​
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For the game jam we were required to design and develop a playable prototype in response to a specific brief provided to us, the brief required us to chose an object from a list of objects and develop a game around that object. The submissions were judged based on creativity and originality, empathy, diversity and playability.
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We developed a short narrative sidescroller game that places the player in the shoes of a British child caught during the London Blitz during WW2, scavenging for food from neighbouring homes whilst the families are distracted by the chaos around them. The game was designed to showcase the struggles that a child during the Second World War might have faced, and to highlight the civilian experiences during wars opposed to soldier's experiences which is much more commonly explored in video games and cinematic media.
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Roles and Responsibilities:
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Project management, asset organisation and overseeing the general game production process.
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Designing the game's core mechanics, features and systems.
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Designing the game's narrative direction, dialogue and story in accordance to the brief provided to us.
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Sourcing audio assets and handled the game's sound design.
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Creating 2D character, environment, gameplay and prop pixel sprites in Photoshop which I then animated.
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Technologies: Unity Engine, Adobe Photoshop, Trello.​​​​​​​
Itch.io Project Page:
Game Jam Results:
