For six months in 2021, I had the absolute pleasure of working with the wonderful folks at Tender Claws to begin putting together the vertical slice demo for Stranger Things VR, their first foray into a licensed IP. As a generalist Unity developer, I contributed to many aspects of the initial project architecture, from migrating core systems for locomotion and interactivity over from their previous titles including the then-in-progress Virtual Virtual Reality 2, to fleshing out some of the initial combat mechanics around telekinesis, to various technical art systems for flocking and combat AI.

Notably, I built a whole concept for procedural music composition using Matt Tytel’s Helm that scored the initial gameplay demo. Hooking into gameplay actions and progression events in the narrative, I wrote about half a dozen tracks inspired by the aesthetics of the existing iconic Stranger Things soundtrack work by SURVIVE, as well as my own period-appropriate influences by folks like Robert Fripp & Brian Eno, Steve Roach and Ryuichi Sakamoto. Pending licensing issues, I hope to be able to prepare this work in a different context and share it with the public soon!