Ever thought about joining a Game Jam?

A few weeks ago, I had the chance to jump in as a Music Composer for the Indie Game Developer Association of San Diego’s Summer Game Jam 2024.

Right from the start, it was such a well-organized and enjoyable experience. The organizers were super attentive, answering every question on Discord, whether it was before, during, or after the jam. It really made the whole process smooth and fun.

The event was open to both online and in-person participants. The online team was especially great—they set up channels to help people form teams and were active in making sure everyone had a group to work with.

The theme we worked with was "Fool me once..." and the modifiers were "Words have power," "I've been here before," and "Goats, Stoats, and Axolotls."

Honestly, I wasn’t too sure what the modifiers were at first, but I quickly figured it out by chatting with others and asking questions. One thing I’ve learned—people at jams are always ready to help!

As a Music Composer, I hopped into the "form a team" channel and offered to contribute. A couple of developers reached out to me with their projects.

One of them had this really cool concept with an axolotl as the main character. The game involved the axolotl escaping to lower levels of a tank as the water levels dropped.

They played with the "Fool me once" theme by introducing some tricky mechanics—like inverted controls that could easily catch players off guard, but with a chance to avoid being fooled a second time.

The developers wanted the music to have that underwater vibe, so I took inspiration from the classic Mario Bros. underwater themes. I went with a 3/4 waltz feel, adding a bass line to create a flowing sensation.

This gave me room to introduce a slower, more mysterious melody that added a bit of unpredictability while letting the visuals shine.

For the sound design:

Bass: I used two triangle waves with a touch of smear and squeeze to add some grit. Then, I layered in a sine wave to round out the sound and controlled the low-pass filter cutoff with an envelope that had a 2.3-second decay.

At 212 BPM, the envelope retriggered quickly, keeping the high frequencies subtle and in check.

Melody Pluck: I combined two oscillators. The first had a sine wave that went through a Formant AOIE filter, giving it a watery texture.

The second oscillator, also a sine wave, went through a comb: low-high flange filter, with some movement added by an LFO in envelope mode, moving at an eighth-note speed to give the melody a dynamic, fluid quality.

Being part of this game jam was such a rewarding experience, and I got to collaborate with some really passionate developers. If you’ve ever been on the fence about joining a game jam, I highly recommend giving it a try—it’s a blast!