Galactic Ruler
Roles
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Junior Developer (Official Title)
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Sound Design
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Planet Generation
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Planet Design
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Planet Composition
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Planet Balancing
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QA Testing
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Website Design
Become the Next Galactic Ruler!
I had an internship at BattleGoat Studios during the summer of 2023. During this time, I worked on their title Galactic Ruler which released in August during my time there. My main priorities consisted of creating and updating most of the sounds in the game, as well as be in charge of all of the planets that are procedurally generated. This included the appearance, composition, and resource balancing of every possible planet that could generate in the multitude of galaxies.
Old Building SFX
My New Building SFX
In Space, Everyone can hear you Scream
While not originally hired for the purpose of sound design, it was something I felt that Galactic Ruler needed improvements on and therefore volunteered to improve upon the sound effects present in the game. Despite the game being set in space, many of the current sound effects at the time were reused from previous games the studio put out. These sound effects, while fine on their own, represented a more modern-war aesthetic such as machine gun fire, military radio sounds, and morse code. While I was excited to mix up the sound effects for the space ships and lasers, there was one sound in particular that I needed to prioritize.
This prioritized sound effect was the one played when building a facility. This was one of the only sounds present in the game that I actually didn't like. While the sound effect itself wasn't terrible, in context it could be pretty grating. This is because not only was it a very messy and long sound effect, but it also started with a harsh hammer- a big problem when the player spammed the build button to build several facilities. My approach to making a new build sound involved making it sound similar to the old sound in tone, but also get rid of all of the pain points in the original sound effect. My plan involved making the sound shorter, come in more softly due to sound spam, and add a little bit of a "sci-fi edge" to it. I believe I achieved my goal with the track listed below:
Designing and Crafting Entire Galaxies
My main task while working on Galactic Ruler was to be in charge of the planets. This included how many generated per solar system, what they looked like both from space and at the ground level, their composition (land types, tree levels, air quality, etc.), and resource balancing. Since the planets were all procedurally generated, the design process would not involve being precise with numbers or planet composition. Instead, the engine required me to set other values such as sea value, humidity, altitude thresholds, and atmosphere type. Toying with the values enough for each planet let me generate the kinds of planets I wanted to see in the galaxy consistently. While a specific planet will never generate the same twice, the planet ID's composition values will always be similar. In this way, it was easier to balance how the galaxies generated.
During this process, I used Google Sheets extensively. Since I was coming aboard an in-progress project, there were many issues with the planets and their generation that I had to get accustomed to. Using telemetry of the generated galaxy, I would sort the planets into a massive spread sheet and search over every possible planet ID. I would make improvements to planets I deemed that needed them, then I would repeat this cycle. Needed improvements could range from the planet's surface not looking like the planet from space, the atmosphere type being incorrect, or a really poor and consistent generation. Below are some screenshots of finished planets from the game: