Game audio is an area of Grads In Games that we’re looking to improve our activity in, so it’s a great pleasure to be working with the University of Hertfordshire to help address this. As a companion to our core Search For A Star challenges, students at the university were given a short gameplay video of snowbound wintry scenes and tasked with creating an original game soundtrack for it, including full foley, sound design, music and ambience.

The project was led & assessed by Steven Coltart, who contributes to the University of Hertfordshire as a game audio industry expert and is a professional composer and audio lead with credits including recent PS4 release ‘Planet of the Apes: Last Frontier’. As a first for Grads in Games, Steven teamed up to create a bespoke Search for a Star challenge, exclusive to the third year students in Hertfordshire’s BSc (Hons) Music Composition and Technology for Games course.

Game Project Credits – A University of Hertfordshire Production: Ben MacAuley, Craig Payne and Euen Tan.

We’d also like to give a huge thanks to Steinberg as our prize sponsor, who have generously donated copies of Nuendo, Dorico and WaveLab for the winners.

Steinberg have been providing award-winning music and media production products for musicians and producers since 1984. Today, Steinberg is one of the world’s largest manufacturers of music and audio software and hardware, so it’s fantastic to have their involvement with this initiative.

Well done to everyone who entered, and you can listen below to a showcase of our 2017 winners!

Game Audio Composition Challenge
Winter 2017

1st Place, Dan Farley

“Outstanding from the off, the music and ambiences set the mood with a beautiful, epic feel. It’s a standout piece of work!”

2nd Place, Michael Lane

“The wintry mood has been superbly captured with rich and emotive soundscapes throughout. Great attention to detail and a thoroughly enjoyable listen”. 

3rd Place, Vasilis Natsou

“The background ambience & music capture coldness and isolation. A great submission that highlights excellent game audio creativity”.