Games · Game audio study
Nightmare Wizard
Rami Al-Balawi
Dec 15, 2024
Top-down 3D action
Sound designer · Composer · Mixing engineer · Wwise implementation · Unity implementation
Nightmare Wizard is a whimsical yet eerie action game set inside a child’s twisted dream world.
Game audio reelProject overview
The audio for Nightmare Wizard walks the line between playful and unsettling, capturing the surreal tone of a child’s nightmare. I designed and implemented a full suite of sound effects and music cues to support the game’s whimsical but eerie tone.
Read about the process
The music blends orchestral and synthetic elements to build tension and atmosphere across different game states. Using pizzicato strings, creepy organ lines, timpani, and subtle synth textures, the soundtrack supports everything from quiet exploration to chaotic combat , all while maintaining a dreamlike, off-kilter feel.
Sound design includes varied enemy death sounds for Zombears, Zombunnies, and Heliphants, as well as magical wand blasts, ambient creaks, distant growls, a ticking clock, and player damage and death cues. A dynamic heartbeat system triggers at low health, filtering the mix and tightening the sonic focus to enhance tension.
I designed and composed all audio assets in Pro Tools and implemented them into Unity using Wwise.
Roles
- Sound designer
- Composer
- Mixing engineer
- Wwise implementation
- Unity implementation
Technical skills
- signal flow understanding
- audio cleanup
- balancing
- equalization
- compression & limiting
- automation
- critical listening skills
- Wwise
- Unity
- C#
Creative skills
- composition
- instrumental arrangement
- sound synthesis
- modulation
- effect processing
- adaptability based on visual source
Outcome and impact
Nightmare Wizard gave me the opportunity to work within a pre-existing game and focus fully on crafting immersive, reactive audio. The use of Wwise pushed me to approach implementation more deliberately, using systems that respond to player states in real time.
More about the experience
This project also strengthened my creative sound design and mixing skills, from vocal layering and foley to ambient world-building. It was a technically demanding but rewarding experience, and a key step in developing my understanding of interactive audio pipelines and middleware integration.
Stealth Game
Games · Rami Al-Balawi
Let’s make something worth hearing.
Feel free to get in touch. I'm always open to collaborating on projects of all kinds.
ramialbalawi@gmail.com