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Time Breacher

A super soldier finds a mysterious mining facility is causing rifts in our Space-time continuum. Exploring the abandoned premises, he makes his way to the tower to restore tranquility in our dimension.

Full playthrough at the bottom of this page

This Unreal Engine-project takes the player through the level while alternating between traversing the peaceful past and post-apocalyptic present with the use of timeshifting - a mechanic that is heavily inspired by Titanfall 2.

I have aimed to make the soundscape enhance and add nuance to the differences between the two worlds, while seamlessly immersing the player in both.

The design and implementation of sounds and audio volumes is done with game engine scripting in Unreal Engine blueprints without middleware. The game- and level design is a personal project by Simon Isacsson Andersen, currently working as level designer at Respawn Entertainment, who was kind enough let me use his game prototype as a personal sound design project of my own.

As this is not a game that is available to the public I made the decision not to include any music in order to fully focus on improving and diversifying my skills as a sound designer.

More of Simon Isacsson Andersens level design work:
https://www.simon-ia.com/

A high-tech approach

Taking inspiration from Titanfall 2 and the mining facility buildings under construction in the level, I wanted the sound effects to feel high-tech with a heavy focus on machinery. A slightly less "sci-fi" aesthetic than something like Star Wars, but the way I tried to make the soundscape make sense in its own game world is similar. It's not realistic, but it's not magic - it's advanced technology.

Seekerdroid Idle
00:00 / 00:24
Seekerdroid Death
00:00 / 00:04
Gunshot
00:00 / 00:02
Button Press
00:00 / 00:04
Laser Barrier
00:00 / 00:39
Lever Pull
00:00 / 00:04

I'm especially happy with the sound effects when the player activates their time shifting device. They use almost identical base sound material - however, using the time shift to travel to the past uses a tape stop effect to give the sensation of going backwards while shifting back to the present uses the tape effect at the beginning of the sound, making it sound like you're fast forwarding to the real timeline. They're also punchy and feel satisfying to use in quick succession, which is required in some parts of the level.

Creating a sense of jumping back and forth in this way is somewhat inspired by the subtle differences in dashing to the left and right in Celeste.

Time Shift A
00:00 / 00:02
Time Shift B
00:00 / 00:02
timeshifttrigger.png

Player sound effects

Unlike their high-tech surroundings, the player character is human. This does not mean that they're not complex however - in fact, the player sound effects use more variations and intricate systems than any other sound in the game.

Voice

For the voice of the player character, I recorded myself making grunts for jumping and landing, and heavy breaths for sprinting.

These sound effects were implemented using animation events. Running breaths are timed to almost sound like a loop, but will play a random breath sound file (out of 10 variations) once every loop of the sprinting animation.

Jump Grunt 1
00:00 / 00:01
Landing Grunt 1
00:00 / 00:01
Sprinting Breath 2
00:00 / 00:01
Jump Grunt 4
00:00 / 00:01
Landing Grunt 5
00:00 / 00:01
Sprinting Breath 8
00:00 / 00:01

Walking, running and wallrunning

I put great effort into footsteps and foley sounds. I learned how to add custom physics materials in Unreal, use a line trace to detect what type of surface is under the player, and use that information to play different categories of footstep sounds - dirt, stone/concrete, glass and metal. Different footsteps are used for walking and running, and they both have many variations for every material. Just like the player voice, these sounds were implemented using animation events.

Wallrunning, however, had a slightly more complicated implementation process.

d63e43784be4722c7c52eac6ad14229a-png.jpeg

Running on walls is another mechanic inspired by Titanfall 2, and it wasn't possible implementing the sounds for it using the same method as regular running; partly because it's not the surface below the player that matters, and partly because it doesn't use an animation at all meaning animation events wasn't an option.

Wallrun Concrete 2
00:00 / 00:05
Wallrun Metal 1
00:00 / 00:06

To solve the animation event issue, I made loops out of the wallrunning sounds instead. This includes both footstep sounds and foley. The loops still have variations, even if they are less varied than regular running.

To detect the physics material of the wall the player is running on i flipped the line trace sideways. At first this caused an issue making some walls where wallrunning was not possible trigger the sound regardless, but I soon realized that Auto Activate had accidentally been turned on meaning that the sound would trigger when the line trace connected with anything even when not wallrunning.

I recorded clothes, jackets, keys and similar things to create foley sound effects for walking, running and wallrunning. Sounds like these are great to bring life and realism, but I also had the goal of telling the player something about the character that is never shown - their movements and their equipment. Because the game is a first person shooter you never get to see what the character looks like or is wearing, so in this way the sound design works as storytelling!

Walking Foley 8
00:00 / 00:00
Running Foley 1
00:00 / 00:01
b4305e9230c0a6524201b9869dfe6559.png

The foley sounds are triggered separately from footstep sounds, but at the same time. This makes new combinations of footstep + foley variations for every step you take, which makes the system very dynamic.

Audio volumes

This project being my introduction to Unreal Engine, I found working with audio volumes very interesting and useful. By shaping them exactly like the different parts of the level - all kinds spaces from open outdoors areas or big factory halls to narrow pathways - I could make specific ambience for specific areas and simultaneously design reverbs specifically for every room regardless of size or shape.

This had the combined effects of making every part of the game sound natural and realistic as well as nuancing the differences in atmosphere between the past and present worlds.

99f5e24a-2ca2-46a3-b883-d06b8df47057.png
Large Hall (present world)
00:00 / 00:38
Open Outdoors Area (past world)
00:00 / 00:17

Full playthrough

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