Eveline Fischer
Eveline Novakovic is a British video game composer best known for her career at Rare. She contributed music to Donkey Kong Country, composed the vast majority of the soundtrack for Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble!, and provided voice acting and sound effects for other games from the studio. Notably, she voiced the main heroine, Joanna Dark, in the Nintendo 64 game Perfect Dark.
Biography
Born to a mother who was a fan of theatre and ballet, and a father who introduced her to new genres and artists, Novakovic studied piano, church organ, and violin. She first studied music at Durham University, then pursued a Master's in Medieval Music at Newcastle University and a Postgraduate Diploma in Electroacoustic Composition at Bournemouth University.Novakovic joined video game developer Rare in 1993 when the company was transitioning from the NES to Super [Nintendo Entertainment System|SNES]. At that time, the British company had only one composer, David Wise, who worked for the company as a freelancer. As one of only two women working on the development teams at that time, and the only in-house musician, Novakovic described the initial experience as "daunting to begin with," but eventually noted, "what I found though was a genuine camaraderie from the top down."
Her first project for the console was Donkey Kong Country, alongside David Wise and Robin Beanland, where she was responsible for seven tracks, including "Simian Segue", "Treetop Rock", and "Voices of the Temple".
Despite the "overwhelmingly positive" critical reception to Donkey Kong Country soundtrack, Novakovic moved on to work on the soundtrack for Ken [Griffey Jr.'s Winning Run] for the same console. After the success of Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest, Rare greenlit a sequel, and Novakovic was called by Wise to handle most of the soundtrack, including tracks such as "Nuts and Bolts", "Water World", and "Mill Fever".
Following Double Trouble!, Novakovic worked on titles for the Game Boy console. She arranged and implemented Robin Beanland's score for Conker's Pocket Tales for the Game Boy Color and also converted her own Donkey Kong Country 3 soundtrack for the Game Boy remake: Donkey Kong Land III.
After her work on Game Boy, Novakovic began to explore her increasing interest in sound design. She contributed voices to a number of Nintendo 64 games over the next few years, including Perfect Dark, where she voiced the main character Joanna Dark.
In 2005, Novakovic left Rare after completing voice work for Kameo: Elements of Power for the Xbox 360 and eventually retired from the games industry in 2007.