Goal Setting : My Personal Roadmap to Becoming a Hired Game Audio Designer
So I want to become a Game Audio Designer. That’s my goal. That’s it. (Thanks for reading).
But first of all what exactly does it mean?
There are many facets of game audio, like:
Composer or Sound Designer (or both)?
Indie or AAA (or inbetween) ?
In house of freelance ?
What type of things do I want to specialise in designing (Do I want to focus on vehicle sound design, gunplay, stylized sounds , UI,audio programing, integration,synthesis, procedural audio etc.)
Mobile, Console/PC or VR?
(More on these choices in other articles)
It may not seem like it, but these are questions I have to ask myself in setting this goal for myself. Why? Because otherwise I’m just doing things aimlessly and not dedicating my time to the things that aren’t really important. I need focus. In addition, if I don’t define these things for myself, then I could get into a role that’s not a good fit for my skills or I find out thar I don’t really enjoy it.
So in terms of personally :
I want to be both a Music Composer and a Sound designer with the whole banner of Audio Designer.
I also would love to do either indie or AAA (or between) however if I had to choose it would be AAA.
At first I really was set on being in house but due to how my life has been set up and other aspirations I really think freelance work would suit me.
My specialisation well if I’m honest I have found that yet. I don’t know exactly which area I like best or what type of sound designer I am but I’m open to finding that out. In addition I feel like even though we specialise I should still be able to be versatile in my sound design and composition abilities.
I know I do not want to work on mobile games. I wouldn’t mind working on VR but haven’t had any experience with it, I’m open to looking into it though. I think console is so far the medium I’ve settled on.
In addition to the specific of what type of audio design do I want to get into well how long before I want to see myself doing this full time?
Alot of people have an unrealistic time period of like a couple months when they are just starting out (haven’t done anything audio design related) which can leave people being let down and discouraged from doing this all together. Of course there are some people who pick things up quicker but I am very much a believer of there needs to be time dedicated to honing your craft (putting in those 10000 hours).
For me as an individual being thar I want to make sure all my skills are cream of the crop and want to make sure I have proper development in alot of facets of sound design then I’ve given myself 5 years from now to achieve that. I know sounds like a long time. It could be shorter it could even be longer. I’m OK with that. But I feel like thar give me a good amount of time to get all things I want to get done in terms of being employable.
So lastly what do I plan to do when to get there? What am I going to spend these 5 years doing working towards these goals.
Well I’m glad you asked here’s my current roadmap.
Years 1–2
Developing My Sound Design Chops
-How to make things sound good in general
-Story telling and feedback with audio (the bigger picture). How to make things sound good in context.
-Using my Daw and various plugins
-Principles and Foundations of Sound design, Music and Synthesis.
How do I plan on developing these skills. Well by doing redesigns. Redesigns Are a great way to not only develop as a sound designer but they show employers what type of games you might be passionate on working on and how you might style the audio for that type of game.
So more specifically:
Year 1 — Indie Redesigns
-Implement the sound
-Implement the ambience
-Implement the music
-Make sure it all works together in the mix.
-Get the project out there in the world for feedback and share it with the world.
-Reflect and do thr next project
Year 2- AAA Redesigns
Same process of before of design, share content and get feedback and reflect.
Year 3
-Develop Implementation Skills
-Learn how to utilise middleware and game engines
How will I do this
-Do all the demos available for FMOD and Wwise on both unity and unreal
-Develop unfinished game projects — I have certain collab projects that are in various finished states and I have access to the builds. I would like to see them come to life.
-Develop my own game
Now I understand this seems like alot for a year however I don’t mind this. I think being more realistic I should spend year 3 just doing Fmod and Wwise Demos and develop my own creations later, however we’ll have to see how it all shakes out.
Year 4- Get Involved in the Community
I want to get involved more in the game development and game audio community and in a sense “network” and get my name put there.
Don’t worry I’m not gonna just take a million business cards and do nothing with them. I plan to do this by:
-Attending Game Development Careers related events in my area and talk to alot of the people mostly wanting to gleam advice and figuring out what they have worked on.
-Do game audio competitions. There are so many discord communities and YouTube (blipsounds, game audio analysis etc.) Who run redesign competitions very regularly and I can’t wait to get involved.
-Do game jams. I think this is a great way to get my hands dirty and produced some shipped titles as well as collab with other game devs.
Year 5 — Finalising
I basically want to be doing everything I can to get hired here.
This includes for me:
- Polishing redesign clips I’ve done to make sure it’s represent of my skills at that point.
-Making sure my brand is up and that I have a website with everything.
-Making my official reel/reels
-Editing my CV to make sure it’s audio design focused
-Apply for positions
-Keep making sounds in some capacity whether that’s redesigns or my own game.
So this is my roadmap it sounds ike a long road ahead but for me An exciting one and I can’t wait to dive in starting tomorrow Jan 1st, 2023. I already starting the groudwork for my first redesign (look out for that hopefully in a couple of months).
We’ll see where I am in a couple of years (ideally 2028… crazy). Either way have a good New Year to all and hope you can make progress in achieving your goals.
