Hello again, Adam here with another Astral Flux devlog! (Hi Rybek!)

Sound On

As you may or may not be aware, I'm doing all of the audio for Astral Flux; it's something of a passion of mine. As such, it's important to me that we get it right. Nathan did a great job with sound in the early prototype, but it was created using Unity's built-in audio engine. While there's nothing wrong with this per se, it's not as robust nor as flexible as a proper audio engine, so it was important to me that we addressed this early on.

We chose FMOD, for a few reasons: its indie-friendly license agreement, its ease of integration with Unity, and my prior experience with it. (If you don't know, FMOD has been used on a ton of great games, including Bloodborne, Spelunky 2, Bioshock, and many, many more.)

What I love about FMOD is that it allows me to focus on sound design separately from game design/development: it gives me tools that are much closer to what I use when designing sounds, as well as ways to easily interact with things that happen in the game world. For example, if the player is low on health, this can be shared with FMOD and used to manipulate or alter certain sound effects dynamically.

Let's dissect one of the more detailed sounds: the sound of the jelly alien dying.

First off, you can see there are several layers to this sound:

• Ripping flesh
  
• Popping sac
  
• Gore impact
  
• Vocalization
  
• Splash
  

Each one of these is picked from a random set of at least two variations, and several of them are also randomized in some way (pitch, volume, etc.). The result is that, no matter how many times the sound is played, it's always slightly different. This is a big part of what makes audio engaging and keeps the player from getting bored or annoyed of hearing the same sound over and over. I also have a blast making these kinds of randomized, dynamic sound effects.

Face the Music

Let's take a look at another aspect of Astral Flux's audio: the music. At its core, I will be approaching Astral Flux's music in the same way I have my past few games: as part of the world, rather than something that plays on top of it. By that I mean the music will be as important as the sound effects and atmosphere, and should never compete with it. As with the levels, the music will be semi-randomized: we'll be picking random music at different key moments in the game, thus making each run slightly different both in terms of how it plays and how it sounds.

As is largely the trend these days, I'm creating most of the music using software: a combination of Ableton Live and Bitwig Studio. (Side note: I was a long-time Ableton Live user until recently, but I've been gradually migrating to Bitwig Studio.)

Although I've not yet settled on a signature sound, I'll likely be leaning heavily into synthesized and digital sounds, as these generally tend to fit better with a sci-fi/futuristic theme. But where I can, I'm trying to incorporate real instruments as well, be it piano, guitar, external synthesizers, etc.

Here's a taste of something I've been working on, which you'll likely hear featured in the ice world:

Early Bird Special

Last but not least, I thought I'd end with some big news: Astral Flux is now available in early access via itch.io! We're offering the game at a discount for anyone who wants to check it out early, and we'll be using your feedback to help shape the final experience. (Cosmocat patrons will also get automatic access to the early access version.) If early access isn't your thing, we'll be running another playtest as we get closer to release. If either of these sound interesting to you, I would encourage you to join the Cosmocat Discord or mailing list.

That just about does it for now, see you again in a month!
Adam/The Cosmocat