Sai

Nice to be back at #NZGDC. Great solid specific #gameaudio presentations from @vius.bsky.social and #NZSO ‘s Claire Wackrow this morning, and so nice to have those conversations with dev teams and audio friends.

YouTube video by VIUS Studios Per Ardua Ad Astra (Menu Theme) — Feat. The European Recording Orchestra

Haven't gotten to write soaring string melodies like this in a LONG while.

Excited to share my latest piece, written as a one-off menu theme for an unannounced video game currently in development! Huge thanks to the European Recording Orchestra for their stunning performance 🎶

#gameaudio #gamedev

Hans seems to really dig the final edit. Totoro… might need another minute to think about it.

Absolutely stoked with the end result from my recording session with the European Recording Orchestra – full video dropping tomorrow!

#gameaudio

YouTube video by IGN Adaptory - Official Trailer | gamescom 2025

Pretty crazy seeing some of my music make its debut on the official @ign.com YouTube channel this week!!

Check out the latest trailer for #Adaptory here, and go show @stormcloak.games some post-Gamescom love <3

youtu.be/SLBF4bQTdB0

#indiegames #indiegamedev

Adaptory at Gamescom 2025, statistics: 404 games started 14849 tiles dug 6590 buildings built 287 artefacts found 233 meteors 835 diary entries 143 dead explorers 93 distress calls transmitted

Over five days, we had over 400 people play #Adaptory at #Gamescom 2025! And almost a quarter of the crews were saved <3 #indiedev #statistics

Getting to work with the European Recording Orchestra last night was a lot of fun. My very first remote session!

Doing a bit of last-minute proofreading, in preparation for a little recording session 👀

HELL YEAH

Cheers buddy! Still in disbelief hahah

Too true hahahah – tysm!!

A screenshot of the European Recording Orchestra's website, showing the Top 5 picks for the Oceania region. The names on the list are: - James Brew (Australia) - Sean Brown (Australia) - Otto Gibbs (Australia) - Sai Natarajan (New Zealand) - Paul Nicolaou (Australia) Honourable mentions: Matthew Chin from NZ, Jordan Stevenson from NZ, and Arie Madden Welti from Australia.

I was shocked when it made the top 5 list… but OCEANIA WINNER????

WHAT????????

I'm actually screaming.

Also fun fact, the piece I submitted was recorded by the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra just last year. Those recordings should be going up soon, so stay tuned!!

A screenshot of the European Recording Orchestra's Instagram story, reading "Oceania Continental Winner: Sai Natarajan (New Zealand)."

Okay sooo, CRAZY turn of events: Back in March, I stumbled across a global composer competition hosted by the European Recording Orchestra, and submitted one of my pieces on a complete whim. No expectations.

That piece was just announced as the Oceania region winner.

WHAT.

The @shyftrs.com team just dropped a brand new teaser trailer, with some updated music from yours truly! Go show them some love 🔥

#indiegames #gamedev

Promo image for Adaptory, as part of Indie Arena Booth 2025: Play me at Gamescom hall 10.2.

Very excited to share that Adaptory will be at #Gamescom 2025 with #IndieArenaBooth this year!!! Thank you once again, @nz-code.nz <3 Please pop by and say hi if you're there!

(300k+ visitors over a single week: it's gonna be an experience 😅)

stormcloak.games/2025/07/06/g... #gamedev #indiedev

🙌🙌

Sai is an incredibly talented musician and we are very very lucky to get to work with him 💖 can't wait to release this track!! #gamedev

Blue NZ sky with clouds above the blue Pacific ocean. A wooden path leads down through green trees and bush. Someone is walking down the path.

@betkataels.bsky.social and I recently moved home to New Zealand and we are looking for work!

If you have, or know of, a role in NZ or that can be worked remotely from NZ please get in touch.

Adaptory on Steam Deep in uncharted space, your expedition took a challenging turn when your ship crash-landed. Master complex simulations to keep your outspoken explorers alive, face unpredictable challenges, and figu...

Be sure to check this awesome game out here: store.steampowered.com/app/2201620/...

I've always loved trying to find those catchy, expressive melodies that make players' spirits soar at key moments. Here's a little sneak peek at how I've been putting together one such tune for the game Adaptory!

#indiegamedev @stormcloak.games

👀

🙏❤️

Side note, I cannot WAIT to show you some of the music I've been cooking up for this awesome game 🔥

Here's the main pitfall of working on a game like Adaptory: You sometimes sit down to write some music for it, and then you just get sucked into playing the damn game for the whole morning instead.

The Steam demo just got updated, go check it out!! 👇

#PitchYaGame #Indiegames

Partial screenshot of Adaptory's new research tree, and the explorer Arlha working away at the research desk

#Adaptory Alpha 12 is now live and free to play on #Steam! With new world generation, research tree, arm64 builds and more. stormcloak.games/2025/06/04/a... #gamedev #indiedev

First ever conference talk done and dusted. Shout out to the folks at #PBP25 for being the most wholesome, most welcoming audience ever – incredibly stoked by the hugely positive response to my passionate 30-min orchestral game music rant 🧡

While you're here, check out the incredible speaker lineup for this year:
playbyplay.co.nz/speakers/

A promo image for the Play By Play conference featuring the title of my talk: "Giving Your Players Goosebumps: The Game Dev's Guide to the Orchestra."

NZ peeps! Come watch me rant about the state of orchestral music in games at #PlayByPlay2025, where I'll be giving my FIRST EVER conference talk! But more importantly, let's talk about how an *authentic* orchestral soundtrack can give your players goosebumps… and how to land one on an indie budget 😎

YouTube video by VIUS Studios Post-apocalyptic sci-fi opening theme type beat

Some friends of mine randomly started up a group sci-fi / post-apocalyptic worldbuilding project a few months ago. They didn't need a theme tune, but I wrote them one anyway ✍️

youtu.be/Pkq3ec-TK84

A picture of the score for the first page of my latest piece "In This Corner of the World."

Posting this a bit late, but super excited to announce that I'll be going yet another round with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra this year! They'll be recording my latest piece, which was written as a symphonic love letter to my hometown's artistic community ✍️

Went on a hike with some friends over the weekend, and we lit a campfire in the evening. What follows is a succinct summary of events: