I worked as a Sound & Systems Designer for this game. Some of my main roles was working alongside the Lead Sound Designer in order to compose the soundtrack for the game, I worked on a song for the Satellite Graveyard level in the Mars rally for multiple weeks, as well as a song for the "kiosk mode", the demo reel that plays when the game has been idle for a while. I composed and mixed both songs within FL Studio. I also created several sound effects, both used and unused, using both FL Studio's tools as well as foley. Taking on this role as a Sound Designer lifted off a lot of the pressure off the Lead Sound Designer's shoulders, allowing him to make more music, and allowing us to expand the soundtrack beyond what we thought it would be.  

I also used the pre-existing systems created by the programmers in the previous semester in order to set up the flyovers that play before each level. This was a task that allowed me to get much more comfortable with Cinemachine in Unity, a plugin that I had only dabbled in previously, as previous projects didn't really require it. Creating these flyovers required me to go back and edit them multiple times based on feedback from other team members and changes to the levels. 

Finally, I created a level for the title screen flyover, dubbed the "kiosk mode" that the game goes to when idle. This was a requirement for the project so I was able to pick up the slack and create the level. I created it based on a pre-existing work in progress level, so that allowed me to have a base to go off of while also making it my own. While designing, I kept in mind that the level wouldn't be driven on, so I designed around that and around what the camera would see. 

From working with a dedicated Sound Designer, I learned a lot more about music composition. I learned that I wasn't as skilled as I thought I was at the time, and there was always more to learn, and more ways that I could improve my music. More than anything, I learned a lot more about mixing, how to mix appropriately so sounds don't overlap, as well as general rules of thumb for panning and the like. I learned a lot more about effects such as EQ, Compressors, and what each one did, which I hadn't done as much of in previous projects. From the feedback received from my peers, especially the producer and Lead Sound Designer, I pushed my music skills to new heights, and I got a much better ear for fine-tuning music when it comes to mixing. This really pushed my career as a music composer to new heights and allowed me to do more, making a much more polished song. 

I did concept and try to greybox a playable level, but the level I created ended up going unused. However, in doing so, I learned about spline systems, which is something else I hadn't messed with at all in Unity before. This project taught me more about Unity's engine and allowed me to understand it that much more. 

Finally, working on this game taught me a lot more about how larger teams function and how to communicate between teams. This was the largest team I'd ever been a part of, so we started implementing different types of project planning mechanisms like scrum of scrum, Kanban, and more. This was my first introduction to these methods of project planning, and having multiple different teams within a larger team was a new experience that I was learning about through this project. It made communication a lot more difficult than in previous projects at first, but as the project went on, everyone started to hit their stride and we became a lot more efficient. This helped prepare me for the industry, where teams will be even larger, and thus, will rely on having multiple different groups in which I must create efficient ways of communicating between. This project really helped me prepare for that and learn ways to deal with a larger, less connected team.