Side Quests Galore
I’m still working my full-time gig at Unbroken Studios and loving it. I feel quite lucky to have a job as this time, last year, I was still hunting for an in-house role while freelancing literally as much as humanly possible. It was a grind but, thankfully, we made it through! Plenty of people are still struggling, hurting and grinding and that makes me sad. So many studio closures, cancelled projects and laid off folks. If you can help out a game dev in your circle, please consider ways to do so… even if it’s just a friendly call or taking over a home cooked meal. While I can’t show anything from my day job, I have several things I can share from my freelance.
Oh and as a quick pro tip – when possible, I highly suggest working on side quests, even if they’re your own projects. It’s the best way to diversify, grow and hedge yourself against times of uncertainty.
The Subminer was one such side gig that I’ve been working on over the 8 months or so. For this project, I created loads and loads of sound effects supporting creatures, weapons, UI, ambient drones, weather and even voice over elements. It’s a really neat mining and exploration game and I love the concept of it. Check out the trailer and be on the look out for its release.
Inwigo is a spooky, VR exploration and extraction game being developed by Dirty Pearl Studios. The game is still in Early Access and you can check it out on the Meta Quest. For Inwigo, I’ve been creating creature sound design, ambient and animation driven sounds and designing audio systems all in Unreal 5. This is one of my first VR projects to work on and it’s been such a blast! My son loves VR but I still tend to get a bit seasick. 😛 I’m getting better at it, though. Slowly!
Finally, Verminsteel has some new music that’s been released: Doth Thou Bard? This track was a complete blast to compose and produce. I’d never written in the bard style before and am not a guitarist (not really). So there was a learning curve but I think it all came together quite nicely. Getting live musicians to cover 80% of the parts also really helps! 🙂
I couldn’t have put this track together without the help of several talented folks and here’s who did what on this song:
Yuri Villar – Flute (Musiversal)
Maurice ‘Mori’ Liu – Classical Guitar (Resonera Studio LLC)
Nuno Silva, Hammered Dulcimer (Musiversal)
Bruno Mglairi – Double Bass (Musiversal)
Joao Paulo Drumond – Percussion (Musiversal)
Nathan Scott Madsen – Composition, Production, Editing, MIDI Programming, Mixing and Mastering
School’s Out for Summer
And boy do my kiddos LOVE summer. Each day is filled with crafts, video games, swimming, wrestling (LOTS of wrestling) and eating yummy snacks. Ah, to be a kid again… I love having the boys around all summer but it does bring a certain level of chaos, noise, giggles and playtime with it! And we’ll be back in the land of wake up alarms, rushed mornings and the hustle of school soon enough! What are some of your favorite things to do during the summer?
BIO
Nate Madsen is an established composer, sound designer, and implementer with 20 years of experience and over 1,100 credits. He’s worked in-house at FUNimation Entertainment, NetDevil, Bee Cave Games, SciPlay, and is the Lead Audio Designer at Unbroken Studios. His recent side quests include Virballs, Harry Potter Magic Caster Wand, Great Wolf Lodge’s Magiquest, and Glass Bottom Game’s SkateBIRD. Nate also teaches Interactive Game Audio at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. He lives in Austin, Texas, loves craft beer, and dreams of queso. He’s also scheming how to pull off the world’s largest Thin Mints heist. Be sure to reach out to Nathan with any audio needs you may have!