Oregon Road ‘83

The Project:

Oregon Road ‘83 is a post-apocalyptic, resource-management road-trip game being developed by nuclear historian Dr. Alex Wellerstein. The game is based on 1971 text-parser game The Oregon Trail, with the player traveling from Missouri to Oregon, but takes place in an alternate reality where nuclear war erupts in 1983, devastating the United States. I joined Oregon Road ‘83 in the summer of 2024. My role is Music Coordinator, as my knowledge of both sound design, middleware implementation, and programming allows me to oversee and handle the overall audio development process.

FMOD Implementation:

When I initially joined, there was no audio in the game, nor any system for implementing it. After advising Dr. Wellerstein on the benefits of using audio middleware, I was able to implement the FMOD API into the game’s environment, establishing a simplified system to generate and refine dynamic music and sound effects. I taught the other members of the audio team about how FMOD works, and how to create events that can be called in-game.

Sample of the FMOD Implementation Code:

FMOD Event and Programming Example:

The gameplay of Oregon Road ‘83 is split into two parts: a “city” section, where the player is in a city and can interact with the locals and scavenge for resources, and a “travel” section, where they move between points of interest on the road, with various events occurring as they travel.

To begin implementing sound for the “travel” section, I created a simple FMOD event for each kind of vehicle engine (small, medium, and large), taking into account various transitions that can occur when travelling (engine stopping, engine breaking down, and brake squealing during a crash). I made these transitions into FMOD markers, with a Stop Event between the sounds, and fades between the transitions. Each marker has a respective parameter that is exposed in the game’s code, and once it is set to “1”, the event seamlessly transitions to the new section.

To implement this event, I created a function that starts the sound, with a switch case that selects the correct engine event by passing in the current vehicle.

Then, I created a set of functions which can be called anywhere in the game’s code to activate transitions in the playing FMOD event.