As many of our players know, partway through the development of our Woolhaven expansion, our Audio Director and friend Narayana Johnson AKA River Boy passed away.
This was obviously a really difficult time for our team. Massive Monster is a small studio where we all work closely together. And more than that, we’re all friends. Narayana was a vivid, creative, irreplaceable part of our team, and our game, and our lives. We miss him a lot.
After some time off, and a trickled return to work, we began working on Woolhaven again. Preserving and honouring Narayana’s contributions and legacy was incredibly important to us, and something we wanted to do right for our boy. Narayana had done some incredible work already, but there was still a lot left to do, so we wanted to share some insight into our process for those who care as deeply about his work as we do.
Narayana had finished a lot of the new tracks and motifs for Woolhaven before we lost him - the tracks for the new dungeons; one of the new boss tracks and the new miniboss tracks; the spooky Woolhaven town theme; the songs that play in winter in the Cult base. You’ll agree that they’re all certified bangers. He’d recorded and directed a bunch of the new VO and worked on countless other sonic moments that bring a game to life. He worked hard on everything, until it was all as close to perfect as he could make it. We hope that when you hear it, you can hear the love he poured into his music.
But Narayana had already been working with another artist since the start of Woolhaven's development - Ray Vavasis AKA Arrowbird, a Sydney-based singer/songwriter & producer. Narayana had been a fan of Ray’s work already (and Ray had been a fan of Narayana’s, too), and brought her onboard so she could lend her vocals to the music of Woolhaven, and learn the ropes of composing for games. Ray worked with Naryana on the main winter theme (that’s her singing), and some of you might already be familiar with her; she performed with Narayana at our Indoctrinate party at Melbourne International Games Week in 2024. Narayana brought Ray to Massive Monster, and we’re so glad he did.
After Narayana died, it took a village to even try and fill the creative void that he left in his wake. Ray picked up where Narayana had left off, running with the ideas, themes, and motifs he'd begun developing. She scored all the remaining major moments of Woolhaven, designing the soundscape of Yngya (including giving her a voice), most of the new stings (the short musical phrases that give certain interactions that extra punch), and scoring the trailers and cutscenes. She honoured Narayana in everything she did, repurposing samples of his voice, his flute, his old music, and crafting it into something that perfectly mixes the new and the old.
The new minigame has a soundtrack that was created by Narayana’s niece and lifelong collaborator, Kalyani Ellis AKA Local Woman. Kalyani and Narayana together made up electronic music duo Willow Beats, before embarking on their own solo projects. So much of Narayana’s legacy lives on in both Kalyani and Ray.
Craig and his team at Power Up Audio had already been working on a lot of the expansions’ SFX needs; after Narayana’s death, they really stepped up, supporting Ray and all of us in getting everything made and implemented, recording the remaining VO themselves, casting a keen and discerning eye over every detail. Adrian, one of our programmers/designers, also leant his expertise to the task, making sure everything was implemented, making sure it matched the standards that Narayana would have wanted.
And for the last few things we needed, we went through Narayana’s old work - tracks that had been cut from previous updates, or made for other projects, or that had developed into the iconic pieces we know today, and we used those.
So this expansion is a mixtape of his life; old tracks and never-heard-before tracks, tracks he made solo, tracks he made with friends old and new, tracks he’ll never get to hear by artists he loved, tracks that we hope you’ll love too.
We wouldn’t have made it through this without all the people behind the scenes who put so much of their love and effort into making Woolhaven into something Narayana would have been proud of. Thank you for your support.
River Boy is forever. He’ll forever be a part of our game and our journey, and we wanted to give a small nod to the impact he’s had on us by including him in the game as a Follower you can find - to remind us all of his brilliance and the way he saw the world, which we will greatly miss. Take care of him for us.
We love you, Narayana.
Love,
Massive Monster
