Background


Starting with 2 years of Game Design bachelor at the IIM Digital School (Institute of Internet and Multimedia), i had the opportunity to familiarize myself with the video game making pipeline as a whole (game art, development, game design, management).

In parallel, i taught myself how to record, sound design and compose for video games and other mediums ; this hobby quickly became my career path. Shortly after that, i had the chance to work on various projects as a freelance sound designer and composer, wich taught me some valuable and necessary human and business skills.

Then, i choosed to sharpen my audio skills by enrolling in the University of Toulon pro license program, called “New Technologies of Sound” ; it was the occasion to create, along with talented audio people and dancers, a 10 minutes audiovisual and interactive choregraphy. This process taught me a lot about sound design and art direction, while forcing me to adopt an out-of-the-box approach with interactivity, by using the movement of dancers as the primary sound modulator. I then followed by an internship with the french composer, co-designer of the Essence FM synthesizer and dear friend of mine Masami Komuro, who taught me about video game sound design, composition, and the use of hardware synthesizers.

During this time, i fell into the writing of a memoire titled “The Relationship between Sound and Flow in Video Games”, for wich i was lucky to interview reknown composer and sound designers, such as Paul Weir (No Man’s Sky), Christophe Heral (Rayman Legends, Beyond Good and Evil 2), Bjorn Jacobsen (DARQ, Cyberpunk 2077, Hitman), and Joonas Turner (Nuclear Throne, Scourge Bringer, Noita, Cult of the Lamb) and Arnaud Roy (Endless Space 2, Humankind). They all helped tremendously to the writing process, and it was an honor to talk with them : i will also use this opportunity to thank them, once again.

Funny enough, i ended up working at the same time for the unnanounced project of my previous Game Design teacher, Fabrice Tembrun. This video game fps project was code named “Dark Sense”, and i had the pleasure to spend 1 year designing interactive music systems and powerful sound effects for it, in parallel of my studies. You will find some of this work inside of my current demo reel.

Finally, i suceeded the 6 month competition to join the CNAM Enjmin, one of the best video game school in Europe, in the Sound Conception program. Throughout my first year at the Enjmin, i had the immense luck to be surrounded with highly qualified professionnals and talented student. With some of them, we ended up making a 3 month game project named Kite Kid, wich had the particularity of being played with an alternative controller, emulating the use of a real kite. For it, i had the chance to compose and record with the help of the highly talented sound designer and instrumentalist Alex Bobe, a highly interactive game soundtrack composed of various flutes (Duduk, Traditional Flute, Low Whistle). This experience and the result that we, as a team, managed to put out in such a little time, remains dear to my heart : on my end, the task constituted a level of challenge, both on the human and technical side, that i never faced before. And, based on the reception, i’m happy to say that i managed to meet the high expectations that were given to me ; however, this would have never been possible without the talent and hard work of the 8 team members. Finally, seeing the reactions (and cries !) of the hundreds of players that we had the chance to have on the Kite Kid’s booth, achieved to engrave on stone my will and dedication towards the video game industry. By the association of images, sound and interactivity, the video game medium is able to impact the life of people on a scale that is unprecedented, and i can’t wait to learn even more about the craft, so that i can repeat the process ; only better !

To finish my 1st year Master Degree, i jumped on the opportunity to write an other memoire, this time called “The Inflation of Sound in Video Games”, and based on the works of Rob Bridgett (Leading With Sound), as well as Daniel Deshays (Pour Une Ecriture du Son). In it, i try to reflect, from the height of my few experiences, on the yet challenged position that audio still has in the video game making process ; i then search for some answers, basing myself on top class examples such as Inside (Playdead), TLOZ : Breath of the Wild (Nintendo), or Marvel’s Spiderman (Insomniac Games). This process allowed me to reflect on my own past decisions, evaluate the flaws of it, and learn further more, while receiving a lesson of humility by facing how far a lot of audio designers go in order to ensure the best possible experience for the players.

As of know, i’m delighted to work for my 2nd year Master Degree project, an action adventure game named Spike, in wich the player follows the footsteps of a tiny mutant headgehog, facing a supersized world both mysterious and dangerous. Since the game needed a unique art direction based on the opposition of nature and waste, this was the occasion to create 13 DIY instruments and percussions, inspired by the works of Nicolas Brass. More to come about all of this !