Going solo

Hey there cats and kittens. This is your recently-appointed resident sound guy talking (okay, sound girl, technically, but that sounds naff and wishy-washy).

Finally getting around to blogging about my individual role for this semester's projects, so that all of you (my current developers-in-arms) what's going on, and what you can ask me for if you need it.

The way I am currently thinking about it, the role of sound in these projects can be broken down into three areas:

1. Design

The decision-making process. This is really key to the what, if any, impact sound has on the way the player plays the game, and the player's impression of the game.

Off the top of my head, this is the sort of stuff I can work with people on, if you guys want my input:

• deciding where and if music or sound effects should be used
• picking and choosing the right kinds of sounds and the right places to use them
• what will they signify to the player?
• do they serve as feedback or stimulus?
• will the player be able to read them correctly?

2. Sound programming

I would really like to build some kind of simple system that everyone can use to easily organise and trigger sounds and music for their games (probably in Unity, since the majority of projects will be happening in that).

I haven't had a chance to think too deeply about this yet, and I would welcome feedback on the kind of system people would like in order to help them streamline the audio pipeline. How would you guys like to be able to handle sound in your scripting?

3. Composition/Recording

This one is slightly trickier. I am a little rusty in this area, and I am not sure how quickly I will be able to produce music and/or effects. At this stage, I'm going to say tentatively that I will do the music for two projects this semester. These are actually already pretty much set - I'd like to compose for Horse, because there is the potential for a lot of fun and silly chiptuning there, and Tyson has already lined me up to work on their Bullet game, so unless the projects get especially shuffled around these two are pretty much locked in.

That said, if people want me to record Foley or create SFX (or even come over to my place and do their own while I record), I am happy for this to be arranged.

Do let me know if you want this facility available to you as an option, because I need an excuse to go get a new mic + monitoring headphones, and I will need time to sort that out.

So, in a nutshell, get in touch if you want soundie stuff, kids.