Wwise Projects
Three school projects where I solved real Wwise problems: voice limits, spatial transitions, and Android memory.
Three Projects, Three Problems
Three solo school projects at DAE, 2021-2024. A zombie shooter where I hit the 256 voice limit on day one. A platformer where zone transitions sounded like someone flipping a switch. An Android game that crashed on load because all audio was in memory at once.
None of them shipped, but each one broke something I had to fix: sounds cutting out, transitions that sounded awful, a phone that crashed on load.
Three Games, Three Problems
Boney Boogaloo
Zombie Wave ShooterMy first Wwise project hit a 256-voice playback limit, and in a zombie shooter that fills up fast - every gunshot, spawn, and death scream takes a slot. I used 44 source files total, with key sounds using up to 6 variations, then set priorities so nearby gunshots take priority over a zombie groaning in the distance. Important gunshots stopped disappearing first.
Audio notes
Boney Boogaloo. My first Wwise project hit a 256-voice playback limit, and in a zombie shooter that fills up fast - every gunshot, spawn, and death scream takes a slot. I used 44 source files total, with key sounds using up to 6 variations, then set priorities so nearby gunshots take priority over a zombie groaning in the distance. Important gunshots stopped disappearing first.
Ellen
PlatformerPlatformer where I focused on making spaces sound real. A waterfall stays loud from far away, but footsteps disappear after a few meters because each sound type has its own distance curve. Footsteps change depending on the surface you walk on. The tricky part was zone transitions: walking from forest to cave crossfades over 6.5 seconds, and the reverb changes with it. Big rooms sound big, tight corridors sound tight. No hard cuts.
The original Vimeo embed is no longer public, so this page keeps the implementation notes and project screenshot instead of loading a broken player.
Stomach Aches
FPS Platformer - AndroidFPS platformer set inside a human body, targeting cheap Android phones with 2 GB RAM. The first build crashed because all audio loaded at once. I split it so only the current zone stays in memory: Brain takes 670 KB, Mouth 384 KB, Stomach 2.8 MB. For quiet moments I replaced real audio files with generated silence, which cut memory use by 80%. The waterfall has 3 layers that change based on how far you are, so it sounds different at 5 meters than it does at 30.
Audio notes
Stomach Aches. FPS platformer set inside a human body, targeting cheap Android phones with 2 GB RAM. The first build crashed because all audio loaded at once. I split it so only the current zone stays in memory: Brain takes 670 KB, Mouth 384 KB, Stomach 2.8 MB. For quiet moments I replaced real audio files with generated silence, which cut memory use by 80%. The waterfall has 3 layers that change based on how far you are, so it...
What Broke & How I Fixed It
256 Voices Wasn't Enough
What Was HardSounds were cutting out mid-play. Gunshots would just vanish. I had no idea voice limits were even a thing before this. Took me an hour of debugging to realize the problem wasn't my code, it was Wwise running out of voices to assign.
What I DidGunshots need to play. A zombie grunt 30 meters away does not. I set priorities so close, loud sounds win voice allocation. The other fix was trimming silence off files because sounds were holding their slot open on dead air. Not every sound needs to play; some can be dropped without hurting combat readability.
What HappenedThe important gunshots stopped disappearing, and the mix stayed readable because distant low-priority sounds could safely lose their voices first.
Zone Transitions That Don't Sound Like a Hard Cut
What Was HardWalking between areas sounded awful. Forest to cave, silence to waterfall. It felt like someone flipped a switch instead of the player actually moving through a space. A 2-second fade wasn't enough either - it just sounded like a bad DJ crossfade.
What I DidA 6.5-second crossfade gave the transition enough time without making the player wait. Shorter felt rushed, longer felt laggy. But the crossfade alone wasn't enough - the reverb also had to change. Walk from a big cave into a tight corridor and you hear it shrink around you. Once the reverb matched the room, it actually felt like walking through a real place instead of hearing two tracks crossfade.
What HappenedThe room change became legible instead of abrupt: ambience and reverb moved together, so the player heard the space narrow or open up during traversal.
2 GB RAM and Tight Audio Budgets
What Was HardThe first build crashed on load. All audio in memory at once - the phone just gave up. I had to rethink the entire loading strategy. You cannot treat a 2 GB Android phone like a PC with 16 GB.
What I DidBiggest win: replacing quiet placeholder audio files with Wwise Silence, which cut those assets by 80% in one move. Then I split audio into zones so only the current area stays loaded. Walk into a new zone, the old one unloads. The waterfall needed 3 distance layers so it sounds right both up close and far away. The listed zones stayed under 3 MB each.
What HappenedThe Android build stayed within a 3 MB audio budget per zone, and the 80% placeholder reduction removed the worst memory waste without changing gameplay audio coverage.