Project Rage DevBlog #4

Here is the breakdown of my work on Project Rage from 3/20/2022 to 4/03/2022.

Creating Game Over Jingle (4 hours)

This week I worked on the Game Over Jingle for when the player has has died/lost the game. As a reference I listened many of different game over screen music such as for games like Undertale and Metal Gear Solid, and many others (1 hour). I then realized that the game over screen needed to be somewhat somber. I thought of a descending and somber melody like Undertale’s game over screen and I created it in Ableton Live, using fairly airy synths to set the mood. At first I added just the base layer of melody(1.5 hours), but I realized that it was probably not enough because it sounded just too empty. So I added some constrasting call and response elements with a keyboard synth (1 hour). I then also added some high hats to keep the beat (.5 hours). Here is the finished Game Over Jingle

Creating Results Screen Jingle (7 hours)

I also worked on the results screen jingle for when the player has completed a level or won the game. As a reference I listened to the results screen and victory screen for many different games like for Hitman 2, Sonic the Hedgehog, Flash Flash Revolution, StarCraft II (1 hour). I then took around 6 hours total to create the music for the results screen. I first added some electronic beeps to the track to fit the cyberpunk theme (1 hour). This took me a while because I had to find a way to create these electronic beeps and boops. Luckily I eventually found some youtube videos which demonstrated this. I also wanted to add some voices in the background to show that the cyberpunk city is alive and filled with people. I scoured freesound to find two different samples and heavily edited them so that they don’t disctract from the music but you can also hear it in the background (1 hour).I was really influenced by the use of overdriven guitar in the Starcraft II and Flash Flash Revolution results screen and really wanted to create a cool melody for a guitar track. I created a guitar track for the game which had two main parts(2 hours). One part was really dark and the other part was more hopeful. I then added the bass and drums to the track to complete it (1 hour). Here is the finished Results Screen Jingle.

Creating Elevator Sound Effect (3.5 hours)

I was also in charge of creating the elevator sound effect for this week. I took a while trying to find samples for the sound effect which took me around 30 minutes. I then combined all the sounds and layers together in 2 hours. This took a long time because I had to try to get rid of a lot of the different imperfections and noise that came within the samples. Thus I had to break the audio into many different segments and try to equilize each single segment and then layer them correctly. For example layering the elevator ding sound with the rest of the elevator sound took a long time because the elevator ding itself was part of another elevator sound which was really noisy and so I had to smooth it all out for the sounds to fit together. When I finished I had one file for both opening and closing of the elevator in addition to a part where the elevator is moving. I was told that we actually didn’t need the parts where the elevator is moving so I had to cut that out and reequilize all my ending segments so that the opening and closing of the elevator can have a smooth transition (1 hour). I was then also told we needed to have different files for the opening and closing portions. So I took some more time to render and export the sounds. here are the two final sounds: elevator opening, elevator closing.

WolverineSoft Studio Meetings (4 hours)

I attended the studio meetings every sunday from 11 to 1 for the past two weeks where the audio team discussed current work and ways to improve our work. This week I am in charge of reiterating on some of the sound effects such as the elevator sound effects.

Time Breakdown

This two weeks I spent a total of 17.5 hours working on the project. I took 4 hours to create the game over jingle. I took 7 hours to create the results screen jingle. I took 3.5 hours to listen to create the elevator sound effects. I also spent 4 hours in wolverinesoft studio meetings.