2011 September

Many moons ago when I was starting out in sound design one of the key projects that boosted my skills tenfold was Nuclear Dawn. It was a mod made by a team of incredible artists that had a huge scope. It quickly gained a massive fanbase due to the quality of the art, which was the games downfall.

As the art improved the less team members we had as they were swallowed up by the industry! We then had to cease development due to this and InterWave Studios bought the rights to make a retail version of the game from us. Yesterday they officially released the game, years later! It’s a brilliant achievement and we’re all super proud of the guys for pulling it off.

Check the game out by clicking the image on the left!

I’m really happy to announce one of the two projects I’ve been slaving away at the last few months. Presenting.. Molecat Twist!

Molecat Twist is a challenging puzzle game developed by iWait4 Developers that takes place in the weird and beautiful world of the Molecats. The gameplay is a cross between Lemmings and a tile twisting game. I’ve been working on the game for a number of months now, and even had a chance to represent iWait4 at Eurogamer Expo 2011 as Molecat Twist was picked for Indie Games Arcade (the game was hand picked out of a pool of over 100 games!)

Assistant Sound Michael Benzie (left) and Myself (right) at the Eurogamer Expo 2011

The guys worked hard to design and build a prototype for the expo which is playable on the website molecats.com. My audio is featured in the prototype but unfortunately I had no control over the mix. There are a few audio issues with the prototype.

• One of the pieces of music is double in amplitude compared to the others, which drowns out the entire mix
• The small amount of dialogue featured in the game has been cut down in the mix and isn’t very audible

Luckily, the final game is being built in Unity (the audio engine is a modified version of FMOD). This allows me to have full control over the mix and soundscape. We are aiming to have the game complete in the next few months, as we are well underway in development and so far it is going smoothly. There are some cool audio features that have been implemented and I am hoping to put together a quick making of the audio video once the game is complete. If not, at least some posts going into technical detail over implementation approaches and choices (as well as how sounds were designed).

I have to put out a massive shout to our composer Vasily “Mushroomer” Kashnikov whose created some incredible music for the game which works so well with the visual aesthetic. The trailer below features his music (but not my sound) and shows just how great it works with the style.