oni station

Original Score, Sound Design & Full FMOD Implementation — Crit42 Studio

Oni Station is a first-person horror game with roguelike and arcade elements, developed by Crit42 Studio and released on Steam in October 2023. The player wakes alone on a moving train, fuel slowly draining, with the dread of something chasing them through the dark. Survival depends on which stations you risk stopping at, and how long you can stretch your resources before whatever is hunting you catches up. I handled the full audio production: original soundtrack, sound design, mixing, and complete implementation in FMOD.

The Challenge

Horror is one of the hardest genres to score well. The mix is constantly shifting between long stretches of dread — where silence and ambience do most of the heavy lifting — and sudden bursts of intensity when something goes wrong. On top of that, Oni Station is a roguelike: every run is procedurally different, so the audio couldn't rely on scripted moments or fixed timing. The score had to read as cohesive and atmospheric across long play sessions, while still being able to respond in real time to whatever the player chose to do.

My Approach

Instead of writing closed, repeating tracks, I built the music in layers — small instrumentation changes reflect state changes without restarting the cue underneath. The player never hears the music "switch"; the texture just thickens or thins as the threat grows or recedes. Ambient design works the same way: a base bed of room tone and train movement, with detail layers that come and go to add depth without cluttering the gameplay.

For the high-pressure moments, snapshot-based mix control lets the audio focus narrow on what matters — UI-heavy moments stay clean and readable, action-heavy moments push the score and impact SFX forward. Across the whole game, loudness and frequency balance are tuned for long play sessions, so the audio doesn't fatigue the player before the monster does.

What i Did

• Composed the original score — loopable cues and stems designed for interactive layering rather than fixed playback.

• Designed the full SFX package — UI, world ambience, train mechanics, and combat feedback, with consistent loudness and clean asset management.

• Mixed music and SFX together — tuned for clarity under gameplay density and comfortable long-session listening.

• Implemented all audio in FMOD — built event structures that were easy for the Crit42 team to iterate and expand on.

Audio Highlights

• Layered music approach — small instrumentation changes reflect state changes without restarting cues, so the music shifts intensity without ever sounding like it "cuts."

• Ambient beds with detail layers — depth and atmosphere without clutter, leaving room for the gameplay feedback to land.

• Snapshot-based mix control — automatically refocuses the mix when the moment calls for it, whether that's a tense UI screen or a sudden monster encounter.

• Consistent loudness and frequency balance — built for long play sessions where audio fatigue is a real concern.

The Result

Oni Station shipped in October 2023 and has held a Positive review rating on Steam since launch, with players highlighting the atmosphere among what makes the game work. The audio system was handed off cleanly to Crit42, with documented event structures the team could keep iterating on. The game is available now on Steam.