CNTLSHIFT - Co-Op Tactical Stealth
Sound Designer, Composer, Audio Implementer (Unreal Blueprint)
CntlShift was an ambitious local Co-Op VR Stealth game developed in Unreal (4.17) by graduate students at UC Santa Cruz's Games and Playable Media program. It was designed to be played by two players simultaneously: the Agent wearing the HTC Vive and the Hacker ready at the keyboard with an on-screen UI to assist them.
The main objective of the game was to successfully infiltrate an 80s Retro-inspired dystopian facility patrolled by mind-controlled drones on patrol. If the Agent was discovered and the drones were able to catch the Agent, the game would be over. However, if the Agent and Hacker were able to successfully evade the drones and reach the mainframe without detection.
As Audio Lead and Composer, I collaborated closely with the gameplay programmer, Dylan, and wrote a Horizontal Adaptive Music score that'd switch between three intensity levels (Safe, Searching, Discovered) depending on the Agent's state and the player's current position. Each state had a defined transition period that'd have a corresponding sound cue. E.g. - when the player was in sight by a drone, an ominous and suspenseful loop would play to warn them that they were about to be discovered.
CntlShift competed in the Intel University Games Expo at GDC 2018 against 15 other game development schools from around the US including USC, Digipen, Carnegie Melon and many others and won the GDC 2018 Innovation Award!