The game with original audio is available here: https://kwixb.itch.io/seight It is a lot of fun so go check it out and give it a try.
Above is the video submission I made for my project which shows most of the sound design elements and systems I implemented. I go into some more depth below about some of these features but not everything, if you hear something you'd like me to talk more about, get in contact or comment below and I'd be happy to explain my processes and methodology.
When approaching the sound design for this project, I mainly wanted elements of the sound design to react to changes in the game state, therefore making it adaptive. Using Wwise to implement audio into an Unreal project for the first time, I wanted to make use of most of the available features and become more accustomed to the abilities of the middleware. From learning that the main objective in the game is to reach the top of the level using a special 'Second Sight' ability within the time limit, I realised the best way to represent this battle against time would be through adaptive music. The player can also choose what difficulty they play, relating to the amount of time they have to reach the top. Other elements of the sound design featured systems design to enhance the player's experience and the amount of intensity they feel.
Audio Systems
I picked out a few words to become the main 'audio pillars' of this project to guide and inspire me throughout the production of the project.
“Creepy”, “Decrepit”, “Abandoned”, “Anxiousness” and “Intense”
These words helped when realising elements of the sound design such as the ambience. The main ambience in the level consists of a looping low rumble track with certain random elements. The random elements are tracks such as bats, dust falling or rocks crumbling and are played at different intervals using the playback randomisation features within a Wwise Random Container. They can be heard every so often to make the environment feel more alive than if it were just the rumble track. Other elements of the ambience include a water dripping into water track that can only be heard in a certain part of the level, a constant dripping that is triggered in the 'Play Mode' section of the random container every few seconds but even the delay between retriggering the sound is randomised to a certain degree.
Surface types affect the sound of the player's footsteps and therefore help the experience be more believable overall. A Foley session of me recording my own footsteps on rock and in water were used in the game. Also, extra amounts of reverb and effects were added to the sound of footsteps on the rocks that appear when using the 'Second Sight' ability, becoming increasingly affected the higher the difficulty chosen by the player. Using a 'Switch Container' in Wwise, each footstep or jump relating to a surface type was organised into a random container that was given a switch association. Then, in the Unreal project a custom line tracing system was added which would detect the surface type the player stands on.
Some other interesting systems I added include a wind woosh sound that the player can hear when falling from a distance. A recording of wind I had was added to Wwise and an RTPC was added that related to player velocity, meaning that once the player had reached a certain velocity, the wind woosh sound would get louder and higher in pitch. Below you can see the blueprints I added to the project to relate to this RTPC in Wwise.
The Music
The music used in this project is, as previously mentioned, the main feature of the sound design that helps focus and direct the overall sound design. I knew from the start that I wanted some music that gets more intense and can be arranged vertically and horizontally. I'll be the first to admit that I am no composer, nor do pretend to be but I do have a love and passion for music and have a keen interest in the implementation techniques for interactive and adaptive music. Therefore, the music used in the game included sample music with extra added elements from myself to add to the intensity, yet I believe the music I chose fits stylistically and aides in the player experience.
The game level was split into three main sections: bottom, middle and top as shown by my drawing above. An extra ending piece was added to signify reaching the end goal. The main sections were made into loops and extra guitar and percussion elements were added which could be heard depending on the difficulty the player chose. Therefore, the music gets more intense when the player reaches a higher level and also when they choose a higher difficulty. Each height section of the level relates to a triggerbox in the engine that sets a game state that causes the transition from one music section to the next (horizontal sequencing) in Wwise. Switches in Wwise were used to vertically change the instrumentation depending on the difficulty.
The music also had further elements that suggested urgency to the player. A warning layer of music plays in each section of music once the player has used up half of their time, allowing them to subtly be made aware of this. The time element is a large part of the overall playthrough experience which is why such importance has been put upon it in terms of sound. There are some extra audio systems and elements that suggest urgency as well as music, watch the video at the top of this post and listen out for them, let me know if you can spot them.
The Outcome
Overall, I believe this project achieved what I had planned for in terms of creating an exciting redesign of the sound for this game that suggests and supports the urgency of the main objective. There were few areas that had to be compromised on and little in the way of issues faced. I think that certain elements of the project such as the music could benefit from further development. For instance, a custom composed music piece could be even more interactive and adaptive and would further help the suitability and relation the music has to the player's experience.
Some features of the Wwise implementation into Unreal were a little cumbersome in terms of not working how I had expected, but problems were quickly overcome. Most of the issues I did face with Wwise were due to my inexperience with it as it was my first time really using it, but I believe I now know a lot of the features and abilities it has in terms of being a useful sound design tool and I look forward to using it in further projects when possible. I am happy to say that I am confident in using it to implement audio and I will definitely further explore the different uses Wwise has.