By Winifred Phillips | Contact | Follow

So happy you’ve joined us! I’m game composer Winifred Phillips, and one of my latest projects is the music of the bestselling game Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord: the 3d remake of the classic 1981 dungeon-crawler! (listen and download the award-winning soundtrack for free). I’d like to welcome you to the sixth and final installment of my article series based on the lecture I gave at the Game Developers Conference 2024!  In my lecture, “Dial Up the Diegetics: Musical Sound Effects,” I explored how the audio assets and techniques of expert sound designers can be applied to our work as game composers.  Considering that not all of us would be able to attend GDC that year, I arranged the content of my 2024 GDC lecture into this six-part article series.  These articles have shared the entire substance of my lecture, along with all the audio and video examples and a large assortment of the images I used during my GDC talk.  In case you haven’t read the previous installments of this series, you can find them here:

1. GDC 2024 Dial Up the Diegetics: Musical Sound Effects
2. GDC 2024 Dial Up the Diegetics: Sounds of Nature
3. GDC 2024 Dial Up the Diegetics: The Animal Kingdom
4. GDC 2024 Dial Up the Diegetics: Science and Technology
5. GDC 2024 Dial Up the Diegetics: Industry and Mechanics

In part five of this series, we examined the sounds of machines and technology, exploring some of the best ways these sound design assets can be put to use within our music.  So now let’s return to the top of our full list of audio assets that we’ve been considering over the course of this article series:

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By Winifred Phillips | Contact | Follow

Hey there! I’m video game composer Winifred Phillips, and I’m excited to announce that I’ll be presenting a lecture this March at the Game Developers Conference 2025 about my Grammy Award-winning score to Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord!  “A Score for Wizardry: World-Building Through Music” will explore both the historical research and creative process that went into the composition of this Medieval and Renaissance-style score. So excited to share what I learned composing the score for the game Kotaku named one of the Best RPGs of the Year!

In the meantime, let’s now turn our attention to my continuing series of articles presenting the lecture I delivered at last year’s Game Developer’s Conference.  In my 2024 GDC presentation,“Dial Up the Diegetics: Musical Sound Effects,” I discussed how game composers can adopt the tools and strategies of expert sound designers when composing evocative music for games.  Since not all of us would be able to travel to San Francisco to attend the Game Developers Conference, I’ve gone ahead now and included the entire content of my GDC presentation in this article series.  This article series also includes all of the videos, audio files and images that I used during my talk. In case you haven’t read the previous installments of this series, you can find them here:

1. GDC 2024 Dial Up the Diegetics: Musical Sound Effects
2. GDC 2024 Dial Up the Diegetics: Sounds of Nature
3. GDC 2024 Dial Up the Diegetics: The Animal Kingdom
4. GDC 2024 Dial Up the Diegetics: Science and Technology

Continue reading →

By Winifred Phillips | Contact | Follow

Hi there! I’m video game composer Winifred Phillips – my most recent game release is the music of Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord: the smash-hit 3D remake of the classic 1981 dungeon-crawler (listen and download my award-winning soundtrack for free).  Welcome to part three of my article series presenting the content of my talk from the Game Developers Conference 2024!  My presentation, “Dial Up the Diegetics: Musical Sound Effects,” discussed the ways in which game composers can repurpose the tools and assets normally within the province of sound design experts.  In order to best make my GDC discussions as widely accessible as possible, I’m now sharing the content of my GDC lectures every year in an article series that includes the full lectures, supplemented by most of the videos and many illustrations from my GDC talks.

In case you haven’t read the previous installments of this series, you can find them here:

1. GDC 2024 Dial Up the Diegetics: Musical Sound Effects
2. GDC 2024 Dial Up the Diegetics: Sounds of Nature

In part two of my GDC 2024 article series, I discussed how using appropriate animal vocalizations can provide game composers with awesome sonic tools for adding evocative character to game music.

As an example, we discussed how adding seagulls to the music of an ocean-themed gameplay level can help the environment blend more seamlessly with the music supporting it.  So let’s now check out another example of an animal sound that’s used less literally than seagulls at the ocean – and more in a figurative way.

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