Meet the Team: Sound Designers

Welcome, Tamers, to the third Meet the Team segment we’ve done, where you get to know more about the devs working on Temtem and Temtem: Swarm! We plan to hold these little segments from time to time, so everyone can become more familiar with the Crema devs, and get to see the people that are behind the game.

On this occasion we sit with the Audio team, notably composed of Damián Sánchez, Audio Director and composer, and Pablo Velasco, Sound Designer, to chat about their day to day, their favorite work of theirs, their road in Crema, and some quirky questions so we can get a deeper look into who they are. Let’s begin!

 

Damián Sánchez

• Tell us a bit about yourself and your background! How long have you been at Crema? Have you worked in a similar role before?

Hi there! I’m Damián Sánchez, 37, and I’m the composer and Audio Director at Crema. I’ve been in this role for 4 years and a half, but before that I had been assisting with Crema’s silly ideas as a freelancer, even as early as 2015!

I started to work in the video game industry around 2011, and I’ve been lucky enough to be part of awesome projects like Blues and Bullets, Rise & Shine, Immortal Redneck and The Knight Witch, amongst others.

• What were your goals when you joined Crema? Have they changed with time, or do they remain?

After a long while working on a lot of different projects I started feeling the need to fully focus on one creative path, and to be able to really squeeze my brain out in one direction only.
After Temtem’s Early Access launch, the opportunity for that arose. Even if it was an important decision to make, I didn’t give it much thought: it was exactly what I was after. I the joined Crema team full time.

My original goal at Crema is fulfilled because the team offers me both the time and resources I need to fully express my creativity, so I have a new goal of maintaining this artistic direction coherent throughout all the projects we’re working on in the Temtem IP.

• If you were a Temtem, which Tem would you be? Why?

During the Kickstarter campaign someone from the team chose Osuchi as the Tem I was more alike to, out of those that existed at the moment.
And I’m not quite sure why, but it has always felt like a very accurate decision.

• What is the most valuable lesson you’ve learned while working at Crema?

So the lesson would be that making video games —or anything else as absorbing as creative processes—, are not incompatible with having a healthy work-life balance, and prioritizing your time outside of work.

• If you could trade places with anyone else at Crema for a day, who would it be and why?

I greatly admire the work they do in the 2D art department. The brutal importance and level of responsibility that it entails being the first to go from nothing to something concrete amazes, and they do such an awesome job with the concepts, which then the rest of us adjust to, but also mold a bit, in each of our departments.
That said, even if I could magically make up for my lack of drawing skills, I’m not sure I’d have the courage to put myself in the shoes of my 2D colleagues in this type of task.

• Are there any important people that inspire you in the work that you do?

On the interactive audio side, I’d say I’m really more drawn to projects that come under my radar and have a puzzling factor, in a sense, than to specific games or people. I’m very impressed when I can identify a sound result or complexity that I wouldn’t initially know how to apply to our games.

On the musical end of things I’m more or less the same. Any project from other composers where I can infer a difficulty I myself cannot create, anything that goes beyond what I know I’m capable of, that’s what inspires me. Things like a sound, production or artistic result that make me question myself and my abilities, that’s what pushes me to improve and develop the most.

• What are the best and the worst parts of your job, to you?

The best part is certainly when I have already established the creative line for a project, and have time to enjoy the process knowing that I’m going in the right direction. I also really enjoy contributing my own recordings to the music of our games, and the process of putting all the pieces together, mixing the tracks and hearing the coveted final result.

The worst has got to be the technical side. When there is some game element that takes you a long time and many iterations to test, solve, polish and put in place. Whether they are bugs or situations that are complex to reproduce, they’re very time-consuming.

• What makes all the hard work worth it?

I’d definitely say it’s seeing others enjoy my work.
Every time I read someone say our games have great sound, when someone writes to me to tell me they love my music, or even the positive feedback I get internally from my Crema colleagues when I share a concept of mockup of one of our songs… that really is the cherry on top to any creative process, no matter how tough it’s been.

Something special about my work is that I get to share it with my family, especially with my son, who’s a big Crema fan for as long as I can remember (“wow, this is so cool, take that Weryt! Br br br br!”), and with whom I’ve played all of our games, even completing Temtem in co-op with him!

• If you had not pursued a career in music, what do you think you’d have chosen?

No question that it would still be something creative or design related. Creating or building things, whether physical or digital, has always appealed to me.

• What are your hobbies outside of work?

I LOVE spending time with my family. We try to travel as much as possible, and we also like to eat, play video games and some couch time watching series to close off the day.
Apart from this, I’ve always practiced swimming sports, so nowadays I try to set some time aside to practice swimming several times a week.

• If you were a vegetable, which vegetable would you be and why?

An avocado. I think it’s considered a fruit, but since it’s mostly green we can really count this in, no? I can’t think of anything cooler than an avocado: you can find avocado keychains, avocado pajamas, avocado clothing… There’s so much avocado merchandising in general. It’s tasty, it’s considered healthy, and I’m sure there’s at least one avocado videogame.

• What’s your favorite sound or piece of music you’ve created?

“Temtem Up!”, without a doubt!

You cannot imagine the levels of stress and fear that particular creative process caused in me, especially because it brought a lot of first times for me, like deciding the style of the song, writing the lyrics in English, setting the tone for the game… I was offered the choice to outsource it, supervising it if I so desired, but I wanted to do it all myself and that put a lot of pressure on me, naturally.

Having to match the animation work that Studio Sunshine was doing, which was amazing, and being aware of the kind of exposition the trailer was going to get, it was a situation where nothing could go wrong. It couldn’t even go so-so, it HAD to be perfect.

Truth be said, the result was fantastic, even more so in terms of reception: people loved it! To this day I think it’s still a very important part of the Temtem universe. Players, especially those who were with us at that time, still consider it a banger and, why be shy, it’s the track with the most views and exposure of all my career to date.

 

Pablo Velasco

• Tell us a bit about yourself and your background! How long have you been at Crema? Have you worked in a similar role before?

Hi there! I’m Pablo, I’m 32 and I’ve been at Crema for a little over a year and a half. Before Crema, I was working on two different projects as an Audio Artist (Star Wars Jedi: Survivor and the Dead Space remake), but I had already been working for like 8 years as a sound engineer, editor and sound designer on audiovisual projects for TV, streaming platforms and film.

• What were your goals when you joined Crema? Have they changed with time, or do they remain?

When I joined Crema a year and a half ago, my main goal was to keep learning about sound in videogames and the million creative ways there are to implement it. Crema seemed to be the perfect place for me and it still is, plus I am given a lot of freedom to test and experiment with processes for the creation of assets.

• If you were a Temtem, which Tem would you be? Why?

I think this is the hardest question of all.
I think I’d be Adoroboros out of sheer contrast; I’m a very active and antsy person, so Adoroboros conveys peace and calm, even a bit of deference (but I think that happens to all mental Tems).
I honestly think I’d be more like Smazee or the electrifying Ganki, Tems that are way more lively and restless, but if I could choose who to be, I’d want to be Adoroboros.

• What is the most valuable lesson you’ve learned while working at Crema?

Since joining Crema I’ve started prioritizing quality a lot more, over quantity or speed. I think the general approach in Crema (and I think I speak for all depts.) is to put a lot of love and care into everything that goes out.
I also think this comes from a healthy work environment where our free time is super respected. Me, coming from freelance work, appreciate this a whole lot more.

• If you could trade places with anyone else at Crema for a day, who would it be and why?

I’d probably trade places with any of the pets that are usually in the office: they live better than any of us and are adorable (and some of them even dress up very stylishly!).

Being for real, I’ve always been fascinated by programming work. If I knew the slightest bit about coding, I’d probably, hypothetically, trade places with any of our programmers. I think it’s a department that combines logic and creativity in a very unique way. For me it has this touch of magic, the way they transform ideas into “real” experiences.

• Are there any important people that inspire you in the work that you do?

Oh boy! I’ve been following two amazing sound designers for the longest time: one being Mark Mangini, sound engineer for films like Dune, or the Blade Runner remake; and the other being Ben Burtt, sound designer for Star Wars, Indiana Jones, and one of my fave animated movies ever, WALL-E, which I think has a sound design that’s out of this world.

If we’re talking games, I’d rather name titles than all the designers that’ve worked into them, because I’m sure I’d accidentally leave someone out:
TLOZ: Breath of the Wild is a game that continues to inspire me day after day. I’ve saved a million audio captures to look into how they do it and try to emulate it.
To name a game on the indier side, I finished Jusant a couple of weeks ago and it is a delicacy of sound.

• What are the best and the worst parts of your job, to you?

The best part of my job is probably the total absence of monotony, every day is a new adventure here. Our work depends largely on the assets we have to create for that day, so the workflow is going to be completely different, sometimes even totally opposed to, from the day before. It’s going to depend on the kind of asset it is, the type that asset is associated with, etc.

Another fun part of my job would be all the problem-solving we usually conduct when applying sounds from libraries until we find something that fits. Sometimes we grab our recorder and turn to record any object we might have close by: from balloons exploding, to clothing noises that simulate movement (this we call Foley internally), or even dropping by the mountain to record ambient sounds if it’s necessary. As a last resort, we often generate the sounds ourselves using synthesizers.

Everything that sounds excellent on paper does have a bad side to it, though. Sometimes inspiration is slow to hit, but the good part is that it always ends up reaching!

• What makes all the hard work worth it?

One of the greatest satisfactions is seeing how the work of so many hours takes shape, and achieves sound continuity. It also motivates me to contribute to the joint effort of the other art departments, whose work inspires us a lot!
And it goes without saying but it’s very gratifying that players can listen to it, enjoy it and appreciate it the way they do

• If you had not pursued a career in music, what do you think you’d have chosen?

Probably any job related to computer engineering. I really enjoy tinkering with pieces and putting computers together to make them work.
But I wouldn’t rule carpentry out either!

• What are your hobbies outside of work?

I play the synthesizer and the bass in a band with my longtime friends, with no professional intent nor any kind of pretensions, just playing and having a good time with it.
I also enjoy running and taking walks in the mountains

• If you were a vegetable, which vegetable would you be and why?

I’d be a carrot because I love carrots, simple as that. They also make tomato sauce less sour, so that’s an extra in their favor.

• What’s your favorite piece of music that you’ve created?

This is another tough question to answer because I tend to be very critical with everything I produce. For Temtem and Temtem: Swarm I’ve created tons of assets and sound effects that I’m really happy with and proud of. To mention some, all of which were done together with Damián, the User Interface sound effects in Swarm. I think all of them are pretty cohesive and satisfactory to the ear (or so I think).
If I had to choose only ONE sound effect, I’d choose the Galios cinematic in Temtem, from patch 1.5.

 

This is it from the Audio peeps! Thank you everyone for tuning in today with us and our Audio Team, and see you next time with another department! Which department would you like to see next?

Have fun and Temtem up!