Jump, move, die, dodge, die, speed and die your way through
ShapeWay. You die a lot.

ShapeWay! A game about shapes and, erm, way?

ShapeWay is a puzzle platformer developed by Paperbox Studios, with a focus on two components; building a solution and then playing it. The game has been in development for a while, but is now released on mobile platforms!

Following the launch of the mobile versions, the game was submitted to Steam Greenlight where its campaign was successful. Shapeway will launch on Steam in 2016!

Play it now!

Android

iOS

Steam 
(coming 2016)

ShapeWay on display at PAX Australia.

No headphones though, tut tut!

This was the first game I worked on with Paperbox, which started way back in 2014. My role was to compose background music and create sound design that would compliment the games visuals and gameplay, including all of the dying. As everything tries to kill you in the game, it was important for the sound to not demean or insult the player. Every mode of death has its own unique sound, from being squished by a crusher to breaking on the spikes.

Every sound was designed to feel 'real', yet downgraded. The seemingly simple pixel-art visual style lent itself well to 8-bit sound effects, however from fear of being too predictable, I thought it was best to stay away from this. Instead, real world sounds were used and distorted to give a downgraded impression; to provide extra depth to the world while being in tune with the visuals. For example the real-world boots for the footsteps, or an angle grinder for the saw blade, and the smashing glass for the poor character getting spiked.

You solve the puzzle, and then platform
your way out!

On the other hand, the soundtrack is almost entirely reliant on an 8-bit sound. Initially the four worlds were to be named after shapes - circle, square, triangle and pentagon. It was my intention to therefore have a different tune for each world, based on the relating audio waves - sine, square and triangle, with pentagon involving a combination of all three. This gave each world a distinct musical sound, while remaining in the 8-bit realm. The menu music was the exception, and includes bells with additional percussion to make it just that little bit different, and hopefully not too annoying!

It has been great to see this game finally release, and I look forward to seeing it on Steam in the future. There is room for expansion, so I'm sure this isn't the last we'll see of Mister BlueCube.

Another year, another game jam. Once again I teamed up with Paperbox Studios to make a game in one weekend under the theme of Your Are The Monster. You can see the games Ludum Dare page here.

The idea of the project was simple, the scope not so much. You play as a simple mutant beast who just wants to get through life by feasting on the blood of innocent city dwellers. But because you are a clever mutant, you can transform yourself to look like one of the locals. That way the police won't shoot you. And when they are not looking, you simply transform into your hideous true self and devour the population. You can play it for yourself in a browser here, or download a standalone for Windows here.

In terms of sound design, there was a lot required. So much so, that I ended up creating most of them with just my own lungs. (In comparison so Kid Got Lost - the game we made for a Ludum Dare last year - Downtown Devourer featured ten-times the amount of individual sound files.) My vocal work can be seen on the townspeople, but where my unquestionable talent primarily lays in the making 'slurpy' monster noises. Everything from the sliding movement to the hideous transformation gurgles of the monster made for a very sore throat the next day. I also had fun creating the sounds for the bumbling townspeople. I repeat their happy little mumbles so much perhaps we should all communicate by 'blub-blub-blubbing' to each other...

As soon as I saw early prototypes for the game I knew it had to have a rock soundtrack. Early ideas were thrown around such as 'horror' and 'tense', but for some reason the idea of rock music matched the monster perfectly. It became apparent very quickly that this wasn't going to work as a tense horror game, mostly because of my interpretation of the audio. However, the slow human music creates the calm atmosphere that the townspeople all bop along to, and the heavy monster music raises the stakes and intensity for when they should be running for their lives.

It is a difficult game, but a fun one to work on nonetheless. My high-score is about 10, which I imagine is easily beatable.

 

In BallTopple, you must use the powers of tilt to collect the right colour balls in to their matching bucket. Hone your skill over 3 difficulty levels and 2 gamemodes until you can call yourself the Emperor of Balls, or something.

The challenging modes and addictive gameplay will have you entertained and hooked until you are seeing red and blue balls in your sleep.

This game probably won't change your life, but should keep you entertained for a while. Can you set a new high score?

The full version featuring 3 levels, 2 gamemodes, public leaderboards and achievements!	BallTopple (Free) features the same addictive gameplay but is (unsurprisingly) completely free!

BallTopple started as a small side-project during the development of my my Interactive Showreel. This was the silly, fun and annoyingly addictive project that is really the first real game I have produced myself. I wanted to give players a choice with the final game, which is why there are two versions. The full version includes 3 levels, 2 gamemodes, public leaderboards, 15 achievements to collect and is entirely ad free. The free version features the same levels and gamemodes but has ads, makes sense really. The choice is yours!

Here are a collection of images to you in the mood for collecting balls.

One project for my final year of university involved the replacement of all audio in an extract from a professional production, be it a film or TV series. My choice was various scenes from the first season of The Walking Dead. The project required the complete removal of all audio from the original footage, including sound effects, dialogue and music. All of these had to then be redone, without reference to the original audio. The outcome is an entirely original audio track, all of which was recorded, treated, edited and mixed by me. The final output was two separate mixes in stereo and 5.1 surround. The project can be watched in full below.

The project was a challenge for many reasons, but mainly the lack of access to a Foley studio and all the props that would entail. I did my best however but feel some of the Foley effects such as the footsteps would have been improved otherwise. (There is only so many feet sounds you can make from 3 pairs of shoes!) The surfaces were also a problem, and meant recording all the steps freehand and syncing them later on, an incredibly tedious process I must say. Dialogue was also a bit of a pain, in the sense of not having the original actors to dub themselves - which is the usual method of ADR outside of foreign language dubbing. However the people I worked with were wonderful and given the difficulty in matching professional actors I am happy with the results. (Even the Monty Python-style lady.)

Designing the smaller sounds was very interesting, including the laboratory scene and the hospital movement at the beginning. The fine detail needed to bring those moments to life was a challenge but also produced interesting scenes. Working on the gunshots, the zombies and the huge explosion at the end was the most fun overall, and difficult in the sense that I was unable to go out and record some shotguns or C4. The explosion itself consisted of 34 different tracks, made up of thunder, heavily processed noise, concrete bricks, concrete debris, breaking glass and shreds of paper processed to sound like massive lumps of concrete. An awful lot of work went into that, but as a final climax of the extract I think it was well worth it. Making sound that actually requires breaking stuff is the best bit of being a sound designer!

Overall the piece is pleasing to me, and a good representation of the work put into my final year. The actual grade it received is yet unknown.

CRUX was a final year short film project created by myself and three other Sound for Media students. Given the course, we wanted to give the film a heavy focus on sound, be it designed, recorded, processed or synthesised. The project lasted the whole academic year, with pre-production starting as early as June 2014. The whole film can be seen below.

As a production group this was our second shortfilm production, the first being EPHEMERAL. There are certainly a lot of similarities between the two, primarily that both heavily feature questionable realities. We got a lot of feedback from EPHEMERAL about it being confusing, or overly complicated, but I'm not sure that was really the case. We wanted to encourage the participation of the audience, to make them see the actions on the screen and draw their own conclusions. The best bit as a creator of that film was to see the responses after it had finished; to hear peoples completely different ideas of what happened. And that is the main thing I tried to capture while writing this follow up, while also trying to counter the issues of it being "too complicated". (One response we had to EPHEMERAL was that it was "too complicated to appreciate" which, to be honest, made me want to  write something even more involved. But I was encouraged to not do that in the end.)

The beach of Shoeburyness provided shots for the title sequence. But it was cold. Really cold.

The initial brief stated for CRUX it should be a short film of between 10-15 minutes, which we naturally exceeded a little. That was really the only main restriction, along with the minor ones we had to include for grading purposes such as dialogue, different locations etc. Basically as long as we had things that every film has then we were free to do as we saw fit, which included monsters, rooms of red and special effects. All of these allowed us to be creative and to experiment with the audio as much as possible, which was the main purpose of the film.

The project was tremendously fun to work on, with a cast that was truly a delight to film with on a cold rainy beach in Southend. I'm sure it isn't the last time I work with the crew and cast, and certainly not the last visual work I produce.

More info on CRUX can be found on the website.

Orchestral Invasion is essentially a film soundtrack for a hypothetical film. In other words it is an album in the style of a film soundtrack, but with no film. If there was a film, it would be expensive and have aliens and spaceships and explosions, but there isn't. It's just the music. You get what I mean... The album can be streamed on this page, and also downloaded or purchased through Bandcamp. 

I wanted to write the album as a showcase, to put new skills to use and to attempt to tell a story with music alone. I'm happy with the result, and along with the small story for each track, the music aids the plot in this - admittedly quite short - 12-track album.

The album tells the story of Simon, and his progression during the fictional alien invasion. The story is told in the individual track descriptions, or from the bonus image you get if you download it. The album is free to download, though any form of payment is optional and will greatly appreciated - have to eat, after all! 

I hope you enjoy the album as much as I enjoyed making it. And don't forget to pray for Simon, or something.

Battle Stations was an experiment in cramming as much orchestral action into the music as possible. The result is both short, dramatic and the perfect track for an alarm clock; for if you can arise from bed prepared to battle an entire alien army, Monday morning shall kneel before you.*

This piece also forms part of an album which can be found here. to be released in the new year: an orchestral album designed to accompany a conceptual film about an alien invasion. Each track has it's own story and everything!

*Disclaimer: This piece of music nor the composer does not encourage the fighting of an alien army, especially not on a Monday morning. In fact this is probably the worst time to do so; perhaps a Friday afternoon would be better. I can not be held responsible for any injury caused by fighting aliens.