Most players never think about the music in a game until it does something right. The fight kicks off and the score leans in. You solve the puzzle and it resolves with you. That responsiveness has a name, interactive music, and it’s the subject of OGDA’s next Level Up Talk.
On Thursday, July 2, composer and sound designer James Watkins joins us to talk about how game music stops being a fixed loop and starts reacting to play.
All music styles can be written as interactive music and implemented using middleware.
About the Speaker
James Watkins runs WatkinSoundMusic and has spent years making audio for shipped games.
At Ratloop Games Canada he was the sole sound designer and VO director on Lemnis Gate, the strategy FPS that earned an Edge magazine cover. His other credits include Klei Entertainment’s Don’t Starve: Shipwrecked, Wintermoor Tactics Club (named Best Strategy RPG by RPGFan), and Let Them Come.
He trained at Vancouver Film School and studied under composers Penka Kouneva and Leonard J Paul. His work runs across sound design, voice direction, and the interactive music systems that are the focus of this talk.
What the Talk Covers
This is a hands-on session, not a lecture on music theory. James will walk through three things:
- Interactive scoring in Wwise. The middleware techniques that let a track shift with gameplay, with examples you can actually hear.
- Building a music system in Unreal. A simple, live build that shows how the pieces connect.
- Clips from recent work. Moments from real games where the score responds to what’s happening on screen.
Whether you’re a composer, a programmer wiring up audio, or a solo dev wearing every hat, you’ll leave with a clearer picture of how living scores get made.
How to Attend
Thursday, July 2, 7:00 PM to 8:00 PM at the Kelowna Innovation Centre (460 Doyle Ave, Kelowna). In person or online, both welcome.
More from OGDA
Catch up on June’s Level Up Talk, where Barbara Dawson talked about building the career you want from the job you already have. Read the recap on ogda.ca. And if you want to swap notes with other local devs between events, join the conversation on OGDA’s Discord.