Frenzies

Frenzies - Game Audio Showcase

Company: Near Light, an nDreams Studio

Role: Senior Audio Designer

Released: 2024

Platforms: Meta Quest

Engine: Unreal

Audio: Wwise

Responsible For:

Audio design.
Audio and music implementation in Wwise and Unreal.
The overall audio tone.
Audio concepting and style definition in pre-production.
Working alongside the composer to ensure briefs were well presented and delivered upon.
Working with code on feature implementations - VOIP, state changes, audio tools.
Working alongside production to ensure all audio goals and deadlines were met.
Optimising audio resources and maintaining the performance once the game was live.
Mixing audio for the game.

Frenzies was a multiplayer shooter that was genuinely one of the most fun shooter projects to work on. It played like a Mario Party shooter, which led to a great deal of possibilities from the audio. Creative sound design was paramount to highlight the fun, but it also had to work as a satisfying and understandable shooter. I wanted to add humour to the audio through the shocking nature of their presence - pig objectives and comedic player gestures gave a solid canvas for that. But of course there is a fine line between funny sounds and annoying sounds, so balancing it all was a challenge. The music brought a desired edge to the game - and through some creative implementations for certain round types, it really helped to create a unique experience.

Frenzies - Tug Of War Music Implementation

Music Implementation

I wanted the music to feel as playful as the gameplay and treated the implementation as a major part of the development time. Certain round types fed this idea, none more so than Tug Of War. The inspiration here was a "battle of the bands" style stage setup, where as the players add score to their team the central objective is moved towards the scoring zone. As the objective moves, it changes the music. I worked with the composer to create two tracks that expanded from the same bassline and percussion, one synth based and the other guitar based. As the objective gets closer to the final zone, the music grows, expands and more instrumentation is added. All right up to a crescendo as the objective hits the end!

Ambience Implementation

The ambience style in Frenzies was very industrial, to match the concrete cathedral level art style. But the audio was not meant to be foreboding, more to provide a minimal base layer for the hectic gameplay action to sit on top of. (With some fun neon light elements thrown in too.)

It utilised a light-weight usage of Wwise rooms and portals systems, to enable zonal transitions and enabling reverb in the spaces.

Frenzies - Level Ambience

Frenzies - Weapon Audio Implementation

Weapon Implementation

Frenzies weapons utilised 4 emitters attached to the mesh component, with an additional emitter fired off a ser distance forward from the gun to provide en echoing distant shot tail. Each emitter is it's own Wwise container, with different attenutations so the weapon sound subtly changes based on where the player holds it. It's minor, but helps with immersion in VR.

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