"I've worked with James on multiple projects and can't recommend him enough as a versatile creator and audio technician. From writing original music, creating impactful sound effects to voice acting, he's the complete package." - Klemen Lozar, Tuatara Games
"James Watkins is a top-notch music and sound designer. His creative and high-quality audio contributions are exceptional. He's easy to work with, professional, and a positive team player. I highly recommend him." - Matthew Wellman, Animating surpervisor and founder IXION Studios
"James is an incredibly talented musician, and he did a fantastic job designing the soundtracks for my games Zombox and Jungle Moose. When I would explain the feel of the music I wanted, he was able to effortlessly translate those descriptions into high-quality orchestral pieces. His efficiency made for quick turnaround times on the finished tracks, and the whole process was seamless. Highly recommended!" - Tyson Ibele
"James helped us take Wintermoor Tactics Club from sounding like a dull, silent film to a rich and dynamic experience. He was genuinely invested in helping us make the best game possible. He was responsive and his work was timely, a producer's favorite qualities in a colleague. More importantly, he took the entire team's feedback and was always striving to enhance and communicate our vision for the game. His help sourcing and directing/recording VO artists was invaluable as we had little experience working with VO artists." - Jackie Kreitzberg, Producer
- On the left is weapon sound design for Lemnis Gate, Ratloop Games Canada, I also directed these voice actors and conducted the session. On the right is Interactive Music written for in-game scenarios, triggered by the player in-game. All music styles on here can be written as interactive music and implemented using middleware.
Music, Sound Effects, Voice Acting and Direction
Complete Game Audio Demonstration
I make procedural ambient music under the name "Joyk". Sounds that are designed and programmed and then randomly triggered to play within certain parameters e.g. scale, register, speed, patterns, layering etc. They're made as ambient background waves, melodies and textures designed for drawing, programming, sleeping, zoning out, whatever. https://joykambient.bandcamp.c...
This is a short blog I wrote about creature design in video games and how I approach it. This was done for Ratloop Games Canada while working on No Love Lost. https://ratloopgamescanada.com...
- For the following videos James wrote the music for #s 1, 3 and 6. Sound Design and all Voice Acting for #s 2 and 4. Sound Design and Voice Over Direction for #5.
Interactive Music Demo
Biography
James Watkins is a composer, sound effect artist, voice over director and voice actor (represented by Connekt Creative) based in British Columbia, Canada. A versatile "total audio" expert, James worked at Ratloop Games Canada for over four years as their sole sound designer, in-house voice actor and VO director. He created the sound for the fan favourite strategy FPS "Lemnis Gate", which was featured on the cover of Europe's largest video game magazine "Edge". He also worked on the creature infested "No Love Lost" voicing the main narrator "Watto" and designing the bombastic sci-fi sound effects for all creatures, weapons, ships, bleeps and bloops and everything else in-game.
Known for his musical creativity and adventurousness, James wrote the game music for "Jungle Moose", as well as "Zombox", developed by revered animator, VFX artist and TyFlow developer, Tyson Ibele. James also created the alien sound effects, voices, and additional music for Tuatara Games' indie cult fan favourite "Let Them Come", and earlier had worked on the whimsical and surreal sound world of Klei Entertainment's million-selling smash hit "Don't Starve" franchise for "Don't Starve Shipwrecked".
With publisher Versus Evil, James created the sound design, voice acted, and directed the voice actors for the hit indie RPG "Wintermoor Tactics Club", winner of "Best Strategy RPG" at RPGfan and "Biggest Surprise" at RPGamer. James also wrote a banjo and jawharp-infused musical romp that ended up being called "Redneck Rush" from Wizard Games. Other scoring credits include the meditative puzzle game "Domino Stones" from YesLogic, and Nexus Media's "Monster Hunter Adventure".
In addition to his video game projects, James wrote the logo theme music for Geena Davis' Bentonville Film Festival 2019. He's also been audio lead running live media press conferences for the Vancouver Whitecaps (2017/18, 2018/19), Team Canada Soccer, Rugby 7s, and other major entertainment and political events. James studied film/game music composition under Penka Kouneva (Dragon Age: Absolution, Prince Of Persia, League Of Legends et al) and film scoring under Michael Whittaker (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, New Addams Family etc). He also studied under Leonard J Paul (SoVGA) for Game Audio Implementation, and graduated from Vancouver Film School studying Sound Design for Visual Media. James grew up in Vancouver, Canada playing live music from a tender age which included playing in establishments he shouldn't have been in legally at that age (*shhhhh, probably not uncommon). He also enjoys and experiments with a myriad of music and sound types, sketches, cooks all sorts of specialties and sauces, as well as escaping for camping trips in the Okanagan Valley as frequently as possible. With his sweetie "P" they're the parents of one boy, Zephyr Leif Ruan Watkins.
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