Meet the Audio Lead on ROUTINE
[p]Hello again![/p][p][/p][p]Karen Hernández here, Community Manager at Raw Fury. Today, I would like to introduce N. J. Apostol, the wizard behind much of the amazing audio you will get to hear in ROUTINE, launching on December 4th.[/p][p][/p][p]NJ was kind enough to sit down with me and answer a few burning questions I had about the sound of ROUTINE.[/p][p][/p][p][dynamiclink][/dynamiclink] [c]Why don’t you tab the song and listen to it while you read the interview? [/p][p][/p][p] ►[/p][p][/p][p]Q: Could you please introduce yourself?[/p][p][/p][p]Hi, my name is NJ. I'm the lead audio designer on Routine. [/p][p]My full-time role is lead audio and composer at White Paper Games. My previous works include Ether One, Project Zomboid, The Occupation, Dahlia View, as well as a few others.[/p][p]
[/p][p]Q: How does sound affect the atmosphere and tension in Routine, and how do you approach designing it?[/p][p][/p][p]To begin to answer this question, I need to go back to around 2012, when Aaron showed me a draft of the first trailer for Routine. We were at a game show, and he sat me down, put some headphones on my head, and I can honestly say the first time I heard Mick Gordon's sound design, it fundamentally changed me as a sound designer. We had just released Ether One at that time and were moving on to our next game, The Occupation. There is a clear jump in not only quality but tone between those two titles, and that is largely down to Mick Gordon’s influence on me as a sound designer.[/p][p][/p][p]I absolutely fell in love with the intimacy of the sounds, and all these years later, getting to work on Routine and doing just as much of the sound on it as I have has been a beautiful learning experience and a crash course into the world that Mick had helped to establish.[/p][p][/p][p]I've always said that with any media, such as films, television, or games, music and sound are exactly 50% of the audiovisual experience, and everyone at Lunar made atmosphere through audio a priority from the moment I stepped onto the project to the moment I put my pen down.[/p][p][/p][p]As a designer, you know every moment of tension that will arise in the game and every moment where the player is in immediate danger or has room to breathe. But for players, blurring those lines is how you keep tension alive.[/p][p][/p][p]A great example of this is with the Type-05 that's been shown in the trailers - the sounds are mechanical and functional and feel grounded in the technology and world that they belong in. So with that in mind, I put an emphasis on the world also sharing some similar tonal qualities in key areas. There are moments in the game where, as I’ve been testing it, I have tried to hide from the Type-05 and felt safe for a moment. As I stood there listening to whether the Type-05 was coming around the corner to find me, I had the idea of clouding some of these safe havens with sound that was either similar in nature to how the Type-05 would sound in the distance or so distracting that listening for the Type-05 became that much harder. That example is one of many ways the tension is kept, and I know that from playtesting feedback, there have been moments where a player thought they were safe and then had the rug pulled out from under them by the world answering back.[/p][p][/p][p]From a purely atmosphere-driven point of view, Mick had established such a beautiful tone already, and my job was to honour that and make sure that what I created fit with the style and story of the game. Reverb plays a huge part in Routine's atmosphere, and although there is a lot of world-building and life in the environments, there is also a feeling of loneliness and emptiness. At times, it can feel like a liminal space where the large and echoey spaces feel overwhelmingly silent. My hope is that you, as the player, feel as though the world is alive with emptiness. You feel as though this place was once bustling with energy and character, and if the player stands still in any space, the game has movement from an audio perspective. There are boilers that have been running for so many years that they are broken and trying to restart. There are speakers that have been looping music for so long that the cones of the speakers are worn out, and the tape the song was playing on has been stretched thin.[/p][p][/p][p]The place creaks as it expands and contracts, and believable world ambience is always on the periphery, leaving space for the player to fill in the missing piece of the audio puzzle.[/p][p][/p][p]I feel like I've rambled on and could honestly talk about this forever, as not only has it been the inspiration to become the audio designer that I am today, but it is also a world that fully immersed me, and I can't wait for others to be immersed in it. [/p][p][/p][p]![]()
[/p][p][/p][p]Q: Are there any particular sounds or audio moments you're especially proud of, or that players might not immediately notice?
[/p][p]There are several sounds that stand out to me for various reasons. One of them is near the very start of the game, in arguably the second level you reach, where there are monitors above your head, and one of the monitors is glitching. I don't think I could recreate this sound again if you paid me, because it was an exploration and a complete accident to have found it. [/p][p][/p][p]Sometimes when you have a sound wave, there are gaps between sounds, and it's easy to write those off as empty space, but as anybody who's seen the Hubble Deep Field images knows, sometimes the space between spaces is the most interesting. I created this sound by boosting the volume and heavily compressing several times in a space between a sound, and what I found in there was more detailed than I could have imagined. With a small amount of chorus and a very tight, roomy reverb, and more boosting and over-compression, a sound appeared that I instantly fell in love with, and it actually found its way to be used several times during the game. The reason I bring this one up is because sometimes you can spend so long on a sound that by the time you're finished with it, it ticks a box and does its job, and you move on to the next. But some sounds are so surprising that you get to view them over and over again the way a player or listener will, and the sounds that surprised the person who made them can be the most beautiful sounds and stick with you. The irony is that most players will probably walk past this sound and just think, "Yeah, that works, that sounds like a broken monitor," but now you know the secret behind the sound.[/p][p][/p][p]There is a really cool valve sound that blends in perfectly with another sound that Mick created later on in the sewers that are shown in the trailer, and the scene works so beautifully and seamlessly that it makes me proud every time I turn the valve. And again, most players will just think, "The valve turned, it made a sound, job done. How the hell do I get out of here without being killed?" But when I see those scenes, it brings a smile to my face.[/p][p][/p][p]I'll also give a little mention to the music of Routine. Music is my first love, and so getting the opportunity to create most of the diegetic music in the world was a dream come true. There is music that Mick had done that served as a great template for how I should approach the sound of the music in the game, but getting to put my stamp on it was a moment of pride, and I think players will enjoy the life it brings to those areas as they imagine who was in the world before.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]Q: How do you collaborate with the team to ensure gameplay visuals and audio work seamlessly together?[/p][p][/p][p]I've been on the project for close to a year, and in that time, I've built up a great relationship with everyone at Lunar Software. Although my home is at White Paper Games, I feel as though I've become an honorary member at Lunar.[/p][p][/p][p]I speak with them daily, and they share inspirations and tonal ideas with me constantly. This game existed long before I came on the scene, and there was such a strong atmosphere and idea of how this game should feel that I already had my work cut out for me when I joined. For me, getting the gameplay visuals and audio to work seamlessly together was to honor where the project had come from and make sure that I wasn't changing that formula too much. That being said, Lunar were always telling me that I had free rein to create and to interpret areas, so I never felt as though I was ticking boxes. There were moments where I would bring something to the table and Aaron (Art and Design Lead) would say something like, "That is not the way I imagined that at all, but the way you've done it is how it should be because I can't imagine another way now, and I love it." Other times, I might try an exploration, and Aaron would say, "I like what you've tried to do, but the vision is this, and it needs to adhere to the vision," and that would only help me to channel what I was working on to help that vision come to life. So, we were in constant collaboration, and it always felt like a creative back and forth.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]Q: Favourite movie and game?[/p][p][/p][p]Sorry for cheating, but I couldn't boil my love of films down to just one, but if I were pressed, then a top 5 would be something like…[/p][p][/p][p]• Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade[/p][p]• Vanilla Sky[/p][p]• The Shawshank Redemption[/p][p]• No Country For Old Men[/p][p]• The Green Mile[/p][p]And my favourite two games in the whole world are Chess and Dishonored.[/p][p][/p][p] ▼[/p][p][/p][p]That’s it for now. Thanks for joining me, NJ![/p][p][/p][p]Don’t miss ROUTINE on December 4th, as you’ll get to hear the incredible work NJ has poured into the game.[/p][p][/p][p]K[/p]
[/p][p]Q: How does sound affect the atmosphere and tension in Routine, and how do you approach designing it?[/p][p][/p][p]To begin to answer this question, I need to go back to around 2012, when Aaron showed me a draft of the first trailer for Routine. We were at a game show, and he sat me down, put some headphones on my head, and I can honestly say the first time I heard Mick Gordon's sound design, it fundamentally changed me as a sound designer. We had just released Ether One at that time and were moving on to our next game, The Occupation. There is a clear jump in not only quality but tone between those two titles, and that is largely down to Mick Gordon’s influence on me as a sound designer.[/p][p][/p][p]I absolutely fell in love with the intimacy of the sounds, and all these years later, getting to work on Routine and doing just as much of the sound on it as I have has been a beautiful learning experience and a crash course into the world that Mick had helped to establish.[/p][p][/p][p]I've always said that with any media, such as films, television, or games, music and sound are exactly 50% of the audiovisual experience, and everyone at Lunar made atmosphere through audio a priority from the moment I stepped onto the project to the moment I put my pen down.[/p][p][/p][p]As a designer, you know every moment of tension that will arise in the game and every moment where the player is in immediate danger or has room to breathe. But for players, blurring those lines is how you keep tension alive.[/p][p][/p][p]A great example of this is with the Type-05 that's been shown in the trailers - the sounds are mechanical and functional and feel grounded in the technology and world that they belong in. So with that in mind, I put an emphasis on the world also sharing some similar tonal qualities in key areas. There are moments in the game where, as I’ve been testing it, I have tried to hide from the Type-05 and felt safe for a moment. As I stood there listening to whether the Type-05 was coming around the corner to find me, I had the idea of clouding some of these safe havens with sound that was either similar in nature to how the Type-05 would sound in the distance or so distracting that listening for the Type-05 became that much harder. That example is one of many ways the tension is kept, and I know that from playtesting feedback, there have been moments where a player thought they were safe and then had the rug pulled out from under them by the world answering back.[/p][p][/p][p]From a purely atmosphere-driven point of view, Mick had established such a beautiful tone already, and my job was to honour that and make sure that what I created fit with the style and story of the game. Reverb plays a huge part in Routine's atmosphere, and although there is a lot of world-building and life in the environments, there is also a feeling of loneliness and emptiness. At times, it can feel like a liminal space where the large and echoey spaces feel overwhelmingly silent. My hope is that you, as the player, feel as though the world is alive with emptiness. You feel as though this place was once bustling with energy and character, and if the player stands still in any space, the game has movement from an audio perspective. There are boilers that have been running for so many years that they are broken and trying to restart. There are speakers that have been looping music for so long that the cones of the speakers are worn out, and the tape the song was playing on has been stretched thin.[/p][p][/p][p]The place creaks as it expands and contracts, and believable world ambience is always on the periphery, leaving space for the player to fill in the missing piece of the audio puzzle.[/p][p][/p][p]I feel like I've rambled on and could honestly talk about this forever, as not only has it been the inspiration to become the audio designer that I am today, but it is also a world that fully immersed me, and I can't wait for others to be immersed in it. [/p][p][/p][p]
[/p][p]There are several sounds that stand out to me for various reasons. One of them is near the very start of the game, in arguably the second level you reach, where there are monitors above your head, and one of the monitors is glitching. I don't think I could recreate this sound again if you paid me, because it was an exploration and a complete accident to have found it. [/p][p][/p][p]Sometimes when you have a sound wave, there are gaps between sounds, and it's easy to write those off as empty space, but as anybody who's seen the Hubble Deep Field images knows, sometimes the space between spaces is the most interesting. I created this sound by boosting the volume and heavily compressing several times in a space between a sound, and what I found in there was more detailed than I could have imagined. With a small amount of chorus and a very tight, roomy reverb, and more boosting and over-compression, a sound appeared that I instantly fell in love with, and it actually found its way to be used several times during the game. The reason I bring this one up is because sometimes you can spend so long on a sound that by the time you're finished with it, it ticks a box and does its job, and you move on to the next. But some sounds are so surprising that you get to view them over and over again the way a player or listener will, and the sounds that surprised the person who made them can be the most beautiful sounds and stick with you. The irony is that most players will probably walk past this sound and just think, "Yeah, that works, that sounds like a broken monitor," but now you know the secret behind the sound.[/p][p][/p][p]There is a really cool valve sound that blends in perfectly with another sound that Mick created later on in the sewers that are shown in the trailer, and the scene works so beautifully and seamlessly that it makes me proud every time I turn the valve. And again, most players will just think, "The valve turned, it made a sound, job done. How the hell do I get out of here without being killed?" But when I see those scenes, it brings a smile to my face.[/p][p][/p][p]I'll also give a little mention to the music of Routine. Music is my first love, and so getting the opportunity to create most of the diegetic music in the world was a dream come true. There is music that Mick had done that served as a great template for how I should approach the sound of the music in the game, but getting to put my stamp on it was a moment of pride, and I think players will enjoy the life it brings to those areas as they imagine who was in the world before.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]Q: How do you collaborate with the team to ensure gameplay visuals and audio work seamlessly together?[/p][p][/p][p]I've been on the project for close to a year, and in that time, I've built up a great relationship with everyone at Lunar Software. Although my home is at White Paper Games, I feel as though I've become an honorary member at Lunar.[/p][p][/p][p]I speak with them daily, and they share inspirations and tonal ideas with me constantly. This game existed long before I came on the scene, and there was such a strong atmosphere and idea of how this game should feel that I already had my work cut out for me when I joined. For me, getting the gameplay visuals and audio to work seamlessly together was to honor where the project had come from and make sure that I wasn't changing that formula too much. That being said, Lunar were always telling me that I had free rein to create and to interpret areas, so I never felt as though I was ticking boxes. There were moments where I would bring something to the table and Aaron (Art and Design Lead) would say something like, "That is not the way I imagined that at all, but the way you've done it is how it should be because I can't imagine another way now, and I love it." Other times, I might try an exploration, and Aaron would say, "I like what you've tried to do, but the vision is this, and it needs to adhere to the vision," and that would only help me to channel what I was working on to help that vision come to life. So, we were in constant collaboration, and it always felt like a creative back and forth.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]Q: Favourite movie and game?[/p][p][/p][p]Sorry for cheating, but I couldn't boil my love of films down to just one, but if I were pressed, then a top 5 would be something like…[/p][p][/p][p]• Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade[/p][p]• Vanilla Sky[/p][p]• The Shawshank Redemption[/p][p]• No Country For Old Men[/p][p]• The Green Mile[/p][p]And my favourite two games in the whole world are Chess and Dishonored.[/p][p][/p][p] ▼[/p][p][/p][p]That’s it for now. Thanks for joining me, NJ![/p][p][/p][p]Don’t miss ROUTINE on December 4th, as you’ll get to hear the incredible work NJ has poured into the game.[/p][p][/p][p]K[/p]