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Video Showcase
During one semester at University, we had a collaboration module where all of us had to collaborate on a game. This was a way for us to get accustomed to working in teams when we eventually move over to industry.
In C.R.A.B my main role was sound designer. Since I loved working with audio I was a pretty good fit as I had a lot of ideas for what I wanted to do with the audio. There was even a lot of cut content that I wish I had time to include ; such as a metasound patch which creates a radio distortion effect. This would of been used for the radio since we had an idea for a narrator to talk to the player at the beginning of the game.
Other than the audio, I also worked on a pickup mechanic, the actual post-processing, a damage system and the actual logic behind how the crab mech moves since it does so via a spline.
Development-Behind The Scenes
As mentioned previously, I worked on a variety of aspects within this project. From audio, vfx, a pickup system as well as post processing...there was quite an array of elements that I had my hand in. Even so, this didn't stop me from focusing primarily on audio. I even helped teach some of my teammates how to use MetaSound so we had more sound effects.
In this section, I'll talk about the mechanics I worked on in more depth. These mechanics in particular will be the damage system, other contributions I did as well as the sound design.
Damage System
The damage system in C.R.A.B was a system I am extremely proud of. It took quite a lot of time to get it to work as it had a lot of moving parts. The idea for this system is that each time the mech takes damage, there's a chance for cracks to form. These will cause more oxygen to leave your mech and if you're not careful you can run out of oxygen and die. To fix these cracks, simply walk up to the cracks and repair them.
To create this mechanic, I started by creating a crack actor. This crack actor would spawn a crack decal which will only disappear if the player repairs it. The crack actor does this by checking if the player is nearby with a sphere collider. If it does find the player, it will allow them to repair the crack. If done successfully, it will destroy the actor.
Next, I created an array of spawners in the mech which would spawn these cracks in if notified. Once a crack is spawned, it'll be appended to an array. The oxygen depletion rate is then affected by the length of this array. The more items in the array would therefore cause the oxygen to deplete faster; once again enforcing modular design into the mechanic.
Other than working on the crack mechanic, I also helped work on other smaller mechanics. I first of all created some post-processing to create more atmosphere. I also added blue fog so the environment felt more like it was underwater.
Next, I worked on the actual mech itself. I programmed it to move via a spline and also created some oxygen as well as energy paramaters. I then linked these values with a widget which would display these values and worked on the pickup system.
This pickup system worked by creating a line trace. The item will then be attached to the line traces position and it would then be fired multiple times by a timer. Once the player wants to drop the item. the timer will end and the object will no longer be following the position of the players line trace,
Other Contributions
Sound Design
For the sound design of this game, I wanted to go for a particular theme and that was loneliness and isolation. This is because the ocean itself is one of the most isolated places on Earth and because of that I wanted to make the sound design as immersive as possible.
Whenever the machine moved, I would add a stomp sound which would move from the left ear to the right ear. I also added slight creaking sounds whenever the crab claw moved to re-enforce the idea that you're in a massive crab mech. All of these sounds were also passed through a metasound patch so they would sound muffled through a low-pass filter. Because of this filter, I was able to re-purpose a sound effect for the mech damage sound effect by making the patch morph the sound into something completely different.
For the actual underwater environment, I utilised noise generators to create the sound of water. I used a noise generator to randomise the ambient sounds as well as randomly play a sample of bubbles. Even when the claw moves, I would multiply a noise generator with a AD envelope to make the claw sound like it's struggling to move through the amount of pressure it would receive being underwater.
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