Two years ago I found myself in a message channel late at night, enjoying a particularly good goof. We’d been pondering ideas for a game jam – something I’ve always enjoyed but never really gotten to grips with. “Actually making stuff is hard” is what I’d tell myself, and so the ideas would flutter around for a bit before then getting lost to message backlogs, other responsibilities and the inexorable march of time. This would likely be no different, I assumed, and I threw my silly ideas in the pot and had a good laugh about it with everyone.
And then Polyarmory: High Calibre Love happened.
Polyarmory was the first game I’d ever worked on. My experience with audio at this point was a small amount of podcast editing, some bedroom producing and lots and lots of youtube shorts. I think Alex just wanted to avoid spending the project editing their friends moaning again if I’m honest, but it was enough for the rest of the team to trust me, and I got swept along into the full game production.
And I loved it.
The relentless enthusiasm for everything about the creation process from the folks on that team was infectious. Never before have I had my motivation feel so effortless. It turns out when you’re surrounded by excited, passionate people who are in love with the process of making things – it’s so much easier to find and explore your own creative passions.
Thrown in the deep end, suddenly there were so many things to learn! Polyarmory got me experimenting with our audio middleware of choice, FMOD Studio, working with existing libraries, recording our own sound effects and cleaning up and editing voice lines, among many other things. I was completely winging it and learning on the job.
Now, thanks to that very silly game about dating guns, I find myself doing audio for Stupendium Softworks. It’s still a little baffling to me sometimes. The first time I visited the studio, the adapter that holds my main recording mic onto a tripod fell off on the train unnoticed, and I ended up sitting on the floor of the props room frantically trying, and failing, to keep a mic in place with masking tape. All while studio director Alex watched. It’s really hard to argue that I’m not in the right place with the right people, seeing as I survived that professional first impression.
We’re little by little killing that imposter inside me. A few days ago I spent my day recording myself smashing lightbulbs and despite the sounds of absolute glee that followed each smash, they call me an audio professional now. I am riveted by adjusting room tones until they sound right. I eagerly await having to edit my friends moaning. I need to purchase more lightbulbs.
Audio design is my passion.
