10: Hello, 2022! (I'm back!)
Happy new year, friends! It's been awhile. (My last letter was exactly one year ago!)
Honestly, I didn't intend to take such a long break from this newsletter, which is why I never officially announced a hiatus. It just happened - I always kept this little project and all of you in my thoughts, but juggling all the changes in my life in the past year proved to be a lot more difficult than I imagined, and I couldn't keep up. I'm really sorry that it's been so long! I'm slowly learning to maintain balance and build better habits, so I'm hoping that this year I can return to a more regular schedule of sending out letters.
Let's catch up a little bit first, though!
When I last wrote at the end of January 2021, I had just accepted a fellowship from Schell Games as my first in-house game audio role - exciting!!! After that, by the end of February, I successfully moved from California to Pennsylvania (in the middle of the pandemic, at a time when no vaccines were publicly available - 0/10 would not recommend), and officially started my fellowship. This move was my first time moving at all, my first time moving out of my parents' house, my first time living outside of California, my first time getting an apartment, and my first time living on my own - which, as you can imagine, combined with my job change, meant a lot of new experiences. It was really difficult and stressful, honestly, and the better part of 2021 had me barely keeping my head above water. Even at work, I lost confidence in myself and ended up burning out a couple times, and I was often overwhelmed with anxiety at the possibility of not being hired full-time. Being alone in a new city, with work communications being entirely online, really didn't help.
Eventually, I did get into the groove of things, and the year got better! I got vaccinated; I started to make friends at work that I hung out with occasionally outside of work; and I started becoming more comfortable, more vocal, and better integrated with my teams. I also recovered that confidence (huzzah!) and created work on two VR game projects throughout the course of the year that I'm really proud of. I even got to design sparkly, magical sounds like I've been hoping to! & thankfully, in October, Schell converted me to full-time employment - making me a permanent full-time sound designer at last.
There are still times that I struggle with taking care of myself, and times when I question if I know anything about game audio - hah, good to know that impostor syndrome never really goes away, eh? - but things feel a little bit better now. Pittsburgh feels a bit more like a home and much less lonely than it did a year ago, and I'm learning how to balance myself in better ways and how to reach out to people. Hopefully, 2022 sees me surviving and thriving.
Other little updates
- Lost Recipes shipped on January 27, 2022!!! This is my first shipped game and first game audio credit hehe. I worked on this project for Schell Games in October and though my time on the project was short, I'm super proud of the work that the audio team did together and so excited that it shipped <3 It's actually one of the few times that we've all gotten to work on the same project, which makes it feel even more special. Anyway, I'll try to share some of the work that I did on the game soon!
- In November 2021, I attended GameSoundCon 2021... as a speaker! Masha Lepire, Marisa Ewing-Moody, Sandra "Maxi" Molina, Bryan Higa, and I gave a panel talk on being LGBTQ+ in game audio, and it was a huge honor to speak alongside them about what we've all experienced as LGBTQ+ individuals in the game industry. It was also super heartwarming to see that the audience resonated with our talk and gave people a safe space to share a bit of their experiences as well, and I'm just really happy and thankful that I got to be part of that. (Thanks to Joe Bretz for bringing us all together!)
- Sadly, the contract work that I performed for Backyard didn't ship. The team was quite happy with the audio assets that I delivered, but because of the nature of the platform and the need to accommodate players who would not be using earphones while playing the game, they made the decision to forgo most audio to prevent constant echo. After some time, Ubiquity6 ended up selling Backyard to Discord, who now maintains a server in which Discord users can play games in various room channels. I don't think I'll ever be allowed to share the work I did because of my NDA, but it was a great experience nonetheless, and the sounds I made were pretty cute!
- As part of my congratulations-on-FTE gift to myself, I ended up purchasing Arturia Pigments. I'm still trying to learn everything about it, but I don't think I've ever been more in love with a piece of software in my life <3
- In moving out and learning how to fend for myself, I've learned that I have a love of cooking, baking, and building flatpack furniture.
- Purchased my first 40s keyboards - LazyDesigners' Dimple and DimplePlus - and I don't think I could ever go back to bigger keyboards! My small hands have been super grateful for the shorter travel distances, haha.
- My baby nephew was born on July 14, 2021! He is the cutest, most precious bean and I love him with all my heart.
- Alex and I celebrated our four-year anniversary on the 28th! We're still going strong in long distance, but now that he has graduated from university and received his Bachelor's, we hope to close the gap this year. Hopefully he'll be able to find work that's fulfilling for him, and/or I'll be able to transition to full-time remote work in this or another role.
- Media consumption: A lot; Genshin Impact, Animal Crossing: New Horizons, Wotakoi, My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom!, Nice to Meet You, Great British Baking Show, Violet Evergarden: The Movie, Encanto
& That's all for now! Thank you so much for reading, and be well.
Stay cozy,
Amerlyn