Behind is a 2-4 player fighting game, with the twist being that you can only kill your opponents from behind. This was my first time making a game as part of a team, and while everyone chipped in on different things, my main job on this team was the audio designer.

behind

Working as part of a team

Behind was made as part of a Second year group project for university, but we had the opportunity to work on it more when we submitted it to DARE Academy, and made the finals.

While the whole team was fairly inexperienced at the time, the game was fun and had an interesting concept, which we capitalised on by adding as much juice as possible.

This was especially important when creating the music and sound effects.

The game was a 2D platform fighter and gameplay was chaotic, which lent well to crunchy sound effects, so I opted for bitcrushed voicelines for each of the characters, adding in hints of leaves being crushed and lava splurges for each that needed it.

The aim of the music was to make players feel powerful and mystical, so I made two main themes. One was a choir/orchestra song with a loud, grand, warhorn. The other was an electric guitar heavy song with organs in the back, to ride the line of cool and majestic.

Listen to the Behind Soundtrack on my YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@DjacksGames

Our team reached the finals of DARE Academy 2023, and we were able to present our game at EGX 2023!

Despite coming 3rd overall, we gained a lot of awesome connections with really talented people, and even featured on a mirror article as one of their favourite games at the conference: https://www.mirror.co.uk/gaming/best-indie-games-played-egx-31184200

This was my first time as an audio designer, and my first time making a game as part of team, and it was an amazing experience!

I've kept in touch with the people who I made this with, and made other games with some of them as well.

Even though we only managed Third place, as the first second years to make the finals of DARE Academy, I count it as one of the games I'm prudest to have been a part of making.