Thesis

My time at Savannah College of Art & Design culminated with this thesis. For years, I had loved audio and games, but never thought I could combine the two. Surely it was too complex, I wasn’t a programmer, and I thought I wouldn’t be able to gain the technical know-how to figure out the magic that is interactive audio. This all changed when I took my first game audio class with Professor Matthew Akers. The moment I opened up Unreal and dropped a sound into the game world everything clicked. I saw that, despite a game’s complexity, you could go step-by-step, focus on one problem at a time, and end up with audio that truly makes the game world come to life.

From there on I only saw possibility and potential. I did the Wwise certification and practiced implementation with lots of demo projects. I did Berklee’s game audio class when I was on break and was a teaching assistant for our next game audio class as well as the immersive audio class. I did everything I could to engage with game audio. Sure, there was and is still so much I do not know, but learning in this field is an absolute delight, and I am so grateful to the game audio community for being so open and willing to help and share work so that we can all become better designers.

I recognise that there are many people out there who were like me, folks who love audio and games, but don’t think they could ever combine those passions. I wanted to create something that could inspire those people to give it a go, and possibly discover something they want to be involved with for the rest of their lives as I have.

For my thesis, I created a game, did all the sound design and implementation and explained both general game audio concepts, as well as my thought processes and techniques for my project. I hope people find it useful, and now that I’ve graduated, I’ll keep learning, and keep sharing what I know!

Check out the gameplay and thesis paper below