Bod's Seaside Adventure

This is my submission for the Intermediate Interactive Audio module on the Sound Design course at Edinburgh Napier University. 

I challenged myself to create my own level to implement the audio into in order to have a completely unique portfolio piece. I have created a short game (main menu + 3 different scenes) in which the player, who plays as Bod, is encouraged to run around collecting shells and discovering the weird and wacky characters on the island.

During the day time the village is bright and lively which contrasts with the dark and thundery night. Using a range of spatialisation techniques within Wwise, I have attempted to create a world that feels realistic yet whimsical for the player. There are lots of sounds desiged to be a treat for anyone listening closely- for example the birds in the trees in level 1 or the sound of the rain on the umbrellas in level 3. The player also has the opportunity to visit below the deck of a pirate ship and discover the pirates treasure.

Using RTPCs, the players actions have an impact on the soundtrack they are hearing. This is demonstrated through the sound of the shells rattling in Bod's pocket as he moves. The number of shells also impacts the percussive stem of the music in level 1. When the player has collected no shells, they will hear no percussion, however when they have collected 15 shells, they will hear the full drum line for the theme, and this gradually builds up as they collect the shells.

As per the requirements of the brief, the game can be enjoyed in multiple different languages. I took on the challenge of fully localising my game for 3 languages - English and Farsi, and made up "game language", Oddish. I wanted to incorporate Oddish into my game as, personally as a player, I prefer games that are not fully voice acted and instead use entertaining vocalisations to convey the emotions of the characters. I used the in built Unity localisation feature to ensure that all of the text and audio for the langauge selection matched.

In order to craft a piece of unique and interesting work, I dedicated a lot of time to recording and designing my own sound effects and music. This meant I had a high degree of control of the overall vibe of the project and could ensure a sounds matched and complemented each other. A good example of this is that the UI button sounds use sections from the same recordings as the shell pick up sounds and the shell rattling sounds. This allowed me to create a very consistent sonic theme. This project uses the full 200 sounds allowed by the Wwise free trial. 97% (194) of these sounds were recorded/created by me. The microphones used include a Zoom H5N, a Scarlett Studio condensor mic and a AT8015 shotgun mic. The DAWs used were Reaper (sound design) and Ableton (music).

This project is made using (mostly) free visual assets from the Unity Asset Store.