Clean Beats | Dirty Work

Intro

When planning the audio vision for Dirty Work, crafting a dynamic music system was my main push. So many of my favorite games have music that will react or change to the player's action or environment, and my goal was to include a similar system in the project using Wwise's music switch container.

Tutorial

The best showcase of Dirty Work's Adaptive music is the tutorial level. I took inspiration from Splatoon 2 and Splatoon 3's tutorials, where the music evolved and got more chaotic/intense as you made your way through the level.

Tutorial Wwise Transitions

I made 9 custom transitions in Wwise that were activated upon entering the room's respective transition trigger in Unity. The melody of the area remains the same, but changes in instrumentation and harmony depending on the location.

Room 1	Most sparse, only electric piano and synth
Room 2	Drums are added upon unlocking the hammer ability
Room 3	Bass is added to compliment the introduction to sludge in the level
Room 4	Melody layered with unstable synth as the drums become more frantic during your first combat engagement
Room 5	Guitars are layered into the Room 4 loop, matching the increased danger
Bathroom	Piece is transposed to C-Major to offer a calmer mood and provide relief in the safe zone

Tutorial Live Demo

The Hub

After a few demos to get the hone in on the tone of the game's music, the first area I wrote music for was the Hub. This space is the main base of operations for the player, and is a much more relaxed environment than the combat arenas. Channeling the atmosphere of a city corner, I wrote a laid back piece with a few bursts of energy. Here's a quick listen:

Wwise Hub Sample

The music playlist container is broken into an intro and loop. The intro plays once on load in, and segues into the infinitely looping main section of the piece.

Hub Intro and Loop

Within the loop segment, I have sub-tracks to add further randomization to the looping audio. The total loop of the track is 2:16, but to add an extra layer of variation, I exported a second version of the core loop without layered piano and a different drum pattern.

Hub Loop Variation

I also exported the record-scratch track and water droplet SFX as separate .wavs to offer more randomization in whether they'd play in the loop or not. Their presence or absence gives the music an entirely different feeling.

Hub Record Scratch and Water Droplet

Here's and example of potential randomization within Wwise:

Hub Randomization Potential

And *spoilers,* there is a time when you revisit the Hub after it's destruction. To match the new, hollow atmosphere, I arranged a sparse rendition of the piece to pair with the story beat.

Hub In Game

Room Shuffling

Dirty Work is a rouge-like, with random rooms spawning during your playthrough in each level. Internally, the scenes were titled "RoomShuffling," which became the name of the piece.

Room Shuffling follows a traditional adaptive model, where a combat variant of the track fades in as you engage in combat.

Room Shuffling Wwise Transitions

I added an extra layer to this, where as you approach your final level, a more intense version of the combat music plays. This signifies to the player they've almost completed the stage, but also more intense combat encounters await.

Room Shuffling Wwise States

Below is a live demonstration of how these tracks sound in game:

Room Shuffling Live Demo

Low Health

Quick addition, I had a global health state that checked for if you were below a certain threshold. When you are low health, a lowpass effect applies to all sounds in the game, and a heartbeat begins to play.

Low Health Wwise

Here is how this looks in game:

Low Health Live Demo

Stain

The last major design to highlight is the music for the main boss of this chapter: Stain. I wrote Stain's pre-battle theme to make the player slightly uncomfortable and edge them on before the confrontation. The bass plays as a distorted heartbeat, enveloped by murky chords luring the player in.

I used a similar transition structure to the tutorial level, where the music evolves semi-linearly through the stage.

Notably, I wrote and implemented a portion of the track that plays whenever the boss was in a weakened state. I took inspiration from Breath of the Wild's Molduga theme, where after you feed the big fish a bomb, the music will shift to let you know it's damageable.