// Catherine Bevan

Music Composition

// reel_music.mp4

Games that inspire my music…

Coming from a Master's degree in Composition, I am the winner of multiple music-related awards and contests. My music is highly versatile, poignant, and perhaps just a touch dramatic. I am particularly experienced with non-linear, interactive, and adaptive approaches to musical structure, using middleware tools like FMOD and Wwise to craft living and breathing soundtracks during gameplay.

While my stylistic versatility is one of my greatest strengths, I get particularly excited when working in styles adjacent to Drum and Bass, IDM, Synthwave, Lo-Fi, or even some good ol' solo piano. And if you happen to have ambitions of music which breaks expectations and does something truly creative and weird... I would LOVE the opportunity to flex my expertise in experimental music :)

// selected_works

Swim Like Hell

GAME:Don't Look Too Deep YEAR:2023

Exhilarating Chase Electronic

Completed in a week with a team of 8 creatives and programmers, Don't Look Too Deep has the player take control of a curious diver determined to see what lies at the bottom of a very, very deep trench.

Swim Like Hell is heard during the final sequence of the game, where the player upsets an enormous Lovecraftian horror and must frantically swim their way back to the surface with the creature hot on their heels. The track's roaring bass is created from the same bass sound heard occassionally near the bottom of the trench, functioning as a narrative "revealing": once muted and distant, the bass is now heard in its overpowering entirety. Watery synths and occassional low-pass filters help invoke a marine environment, while epic choral stabs give cinematic weight to the Lovecraftian pursuer.

Check out the game here!

Don't Look Too Deep: Adaptive Music

GAME:Don't Look Too Deep ENGINE:Unity MIDDLEWARE:FMOD YEAR:2023

FMOD Adaptive Music RTPC

Completed in a week with a team of 8 creatives and programmers, Don't Look Too Deep has the player take control of a curious diver determined to see what lies at the bottom of a very, very deep trench.

Given that it can take the player as long as 15 minutes to find their way to the bottom and that environmental changes are gradual rather than discrete, I set to composing and implementing the music to maximize gradual change and randomized musical events to keep things from getting repetitive. Using the player's current depth to drive musical development and transitions, the music shifts smoothly from relaxed and unassuming, to alien and tense.

A Brighter Summer Day

GAME:My Shady Friend YEAR:2025

Upbeat Fun Groovy

Winner of the 3rd Alberta Slow Jam, My Shady Friend was created in 2 weeks with game developer Teddy "Kaboom" Edwards and artist Lisa Bourque. Following the story of a bee with an old "shady" friend (a tree) trying to get his girlfriend out on bail, My Shady Friend is a silly game in which the player flies around collecting and depositing pollen on their tree friend in an attempt to grow enough high-value fruit before time runs out.

As the daytime gameplay theme, A Brighter Summer Day was composed to support the game's lighthearted tone, provide a bit of daytime 'groove', and feel at home next to the game's gorgeous visual style.

Check out the game here!

Acceptance

GAME:For Aspen YEAR:2023

Bittersweet Emotional Poignant

Created with developer "Applepiesleth" and artist Julia Yang, For Aspen has the player character exploring their own mindscape in a gorgeous and meditative environment as they grapple with the five stages of grief.

Heard only during the final scene, Acceptance plays while the player has their last conversation with the personifications of grief and the memory of their lost partner. It's a delicate and heartwrenching moment, requiring a careful touch with the music. As such, I went with a bittersweet solo piano piece with subtle shifting harmonies and a human, improvised-like quality. Painstaking care was put into the precise timing of each note to achieve an expressive, organic rhythmic cadence.

Check out the game here!

Who Gave These Children Recorders?!

GAME:Everfall YEAR:2022

Humourous Cozy Fun

Nearing 10,000 plays on Itch, Everfall is a cozy narrative game where you play as a fox returning to their childhood home for the annual Autumn Festival. In a twist of events all too relatable, the player is quickly put to work with cleaning up the town with their trusty Leaf-Sucker! At least you get to meet some colourful characters across town...

Who Gave These Children Recorders?! is the character theme for a pair of annoying young twins who - you guessed it - own recorders. To emulate the chaos that is children playing recorders "together", I first captured myself playing the melody as poorly as I could, then muted that track while capturing the second part. A little bit of pitch shifting automation for that wonderful out-of-tune quality, and I had a pretty convincing faux performance of two kids playing recorder. The acoustic bass and finger snaps serve as the musical "adults" - but even adults can get thrown off when the kids are performing...

Check out the game here!

The Fatemaster

GAME:Warp Speed and Witchcraft: Disastrous Dating Sim YEAR:2025

Mysterious Ephemeral

From the creator of a webcomic with over 7 million reads and counting, Warp Speed and Witchcraft: Disastrous Dating Sim is an upcoming Steam game which brings the beloved universe, characters, and hijinks to a minigame-packed visual novel.

One of two tracks I have composed for this game, The Fatemaster is the character theme for a beautiful, benevolent, and mysterious spirit who manipulates time and weaves the threads of those destined to be together. Time-related motifs like reversed plucks and the tick-tock of a clock are interspersed through the ephemeral track, while elements of the instrumentation were chosen to support the Chinese-inspired character design of the Fatemaster.

Check out the Steam page here!

Before the Run

GAME:Scalerunner 20XX YEAR:2024

Apprehensive Calm Electronic

Scalerunner 20XX was made by a team of five over a 1-week span for the 2024 GameMaker's Toolkit game jam. Featuring a cyber-augmented gecko with a grappling hook, the player is tasked with finding their way out of a dark, dangerous experimentation facility, avoiding enemies and finding upgrades as they go.

Before the Run is heard in the safe rooms found before and during a run where the player can choose and collect power-ups. As the soundtrack to the player's moment of respite from the tension, my aim was to keep the music low intensity, but to maintain a sense of apprehension for the events to follow. Atmospheric synths, noncommittal harmonies, and delicate patters of synthetic percussion give this track its cyberpunk vibe.

Check out the game here!