The Nautilus-44 is one part of my Honors Thesis project. Working collaboratively with Nicholas Green, a series of 3 unique game environments were created as a tool for both of us to refine our own workflows and a collaborative one. For this project, I was responsible for all of the music and sound design, while Nick was responsible for the physical assets. For the entire project, we had a year. This specific scene was about 3 months of work. 

The concept of this scene was as an underwater research base, with inspiration taken from Subnautica for both the physical and audio design. Unlike the first piece of this project, Gruff Grizzly, I wanted to have one audio file that looped. This scene does not have a diegetic source for the music, so having it be more of a constant ambient track felt like a more natural way to include music in this scene.

When I started this piece, I knew that I wanted it to go through a few different emotions before it looped back on itself. It starts off with a more mysterious tone to it, layering different synths on top of each other in varying rhythmic patterns, never really landing anywhere specific. The low bass synth brings in a hint of a darker tone to the piece early, foreshadowing later sections while playing to some peoples fear of the deep ocean and everything we don't know about it. Lifting the piece back up from that dark spot, the lighter synths take over, along with some acoustic strings to add some life to the piece. Light rhythms running up the scale give the listener some hope and happiness, but it returns back into the mysterious section, slowing the rhythms down and matching the pace and timbre found at the beginning to loop back.