Postmortems - Game Jams

C0medy 101 (Global Game Jam 2024)

This was my first game jam and I learned a lot about the process and in particular how crucial sound design is in selling the experience. I focused a lot on creating a lush world through vast soundscapes and heavy synths, which while it worked in a vacuum, I think ultimately it pulls away a bit from the rest of the game (especially given the theming which was comedy-focused.) However, I am very happy with the sound interactions with enemies and environmental objects and it taught me a ton in terms of how to do sound design for post-industrial environments like this one.

Help Wanted (Calgary Arcade Jam 2024)

This was my first entirely remote jam and I worked with some of the teammates from GGJ 2024 on this one. My composition this time around tried to lean more into the aesthetics of rock, EDM, and heavy grooves and rhythms. In hindsight, this compositional approach worked better for this game than the lush ambiences worked for Global Game Jam, but I still think that the music is a little distracting from the themes once again. I also had not considered how my music might have sounded through the arcade speakers, and thinking in terms of environments and local acoustics was a huge learning experience. If I were to redo this jam, I would focus on developing a more comprehensive sonic palette beforehand that doesn’t lean as much into the dance and electronic elements but instead takes more liberty in terms of the carnival and cartoon aesthetics.

Starlit Catch (Gamerella 2024)

This was my first Gamerella jam and I really enjoyed the format and environment set up for jammers. I did not know my teammates prior to this, and I found I really excelled in working with foley for small jams. For several of the sound effects, particularly the sound design for the water interactions, I used a nearby pond at Concordia’s Grey Nuns residence, and the quality of my own recorded samples made it really easy to sift through afterwards and focus on implementation. If we had more time, I would have prioritized implementing a middleware like FMOD or Wwise so that we could create some more unique timbral experiences with things like footsteps, but that had to be cut to save time. I was perfectly comfortable with utilizing the engine’s built-in audio handler and was able to work with the programmer on implementation. The biggest thing that I would change if I was doing this jam again would be recording more samples with the rest of the team – I’ve found in subsequent jams that doing foley recording with the other team members gives us all a level of insight that is invaluable when it comes time for implementation. This was also the first game jam where I really felt like I was able to write a theme that complements the rest of the gameplay and the visuals, which was hugely satisfying for me as a composer. 

Ice Melters Incorporated (Godot Wild 2024)

This jam was done entirely remotely with a team of people I have known for a while. I was given the task of doing the title screen and sound design for this project, and I was quite happy with the way it reinforced the visual themes of the game. I really enjoyed using a rhodes digital piano for this project, and I think it conveyed a lot of the ironically warm city night vibes that we were trying to sell. If I were to do this project again, I would try to have a better understanding of how audio implementation works in Godot, as I was not able to help out nearly as much as other game jams because of my lack of experience with it.

Void of Art (Creative Jam 25e)

This was my second Creative Jam and I am proud to have had Ubisoft employees come by and be impressed by my music for the first time! In all seriousness, it was very funny seeing their reaction to the number of tracks I wrote (4) for this as well as the elegance and dynamic nature of each of them. For this game jam, I really focused on trying to make the tracks for each level have a certain emotional intensity and vision that would be clearly distinct between them, and I am really happy with how things turned out. If I were to do this game jam again, I would focus on equalizing the amount of time that I spent writing each track, as some received more time and attention than others and I feel that in hindsight that conveys itself quite clearly when playing the game. 

Recipe for Friendship (GAMERella 2025)

This was the most successful game jam I’ve done and I was really happy to work on this project! The upright bass and hand-recorded foley (done on site thanks to the Gamerella audio mentor who set up a SM57 for us to use) was a really fun restriction I put on myself that I think really sold the themes of the game. Were I to redo this jam, I would have focused on FMOD implementation earlier, as we did have some issues at the end because of my computer not liking the FMOD build I had downloaded, which took precious time away from uploading. I was not able to foresee those issues in advance though, so it probably would have happened that way regardless.