Game Audio Network Guild

From what I can see on the forums, Toronto has a fun group of GANG members. It also has, as you may have read in my last post, a burgeoning and active indie game development community.

Probably one of the most spectacular testaments to the creativity of this community is the annual Toronto Independent Game Development Jam (fondly dubbed TOJam). For those of you in or near the GTA, it's a can't miss.

What is it? Basically it is a public game making event. Local game makers come out for a crazy 3-day, around-the-clock game making binge. Participants have from 3:00pm Friday to 11:00pm Sunday to complete a good, small game.

This year's event brought out 180 jammers, with 25 additional people working remotely. I was one of four audio designers that attended.

It was interesting to see how other local designers approached the trade. We were all very different in our focus. There was one focused only on SFX, a film musician, a techno/hip-hop composer, and I represented the single-stop, full-spectrum game audio design side of things.

 

 

Just to give you a taste of what an Audio Designer can expect there, over the three days my work included sounds/music for six different games:

1. Macabre Mystery Game

• 45s of spooky and suspenseful intro music.
• 90s of chilling ambient game-play music
• 30s of excited revelation music as the mystery unwinds.
• 60s of hilarious 80s sitcom music, muffled through the headphones of a serial killer - and once again in full clarity for the end credits.
• 25 Gory and spooky sounds.

2. Scrolling Shooter Puzzle Game

• 120s of high-energy racing rock music
• 16 Sci-Fi explosive sounds.

3. Psychedelic Deterioration of Your Senses Game

or "The Particle of Infinite Wonder"

• 120s of hippie trance music
• 20s of intro tripping-out ambient soundscape

4. Redneck Missing Fish in a Barrel Game

• 80s Banjo music, deliverance style
• 90s Hillbilly ‘check out my gun' music

5. Hungry Hungry Cats, Nomnomnomnom

• VO endless terrible cat noises

6. Film Noir Game

• 40s Dark and stormy jazz music
• 90s Suspenseful detective jazz music
• 60s Ambient background jazz-fusion drums

 A total of ~15 minutes of music, 40+ SFX and a handful of voice recordings.

As you can see, not only is it a great exercise in speed-audio-design, but it's a chance to work in a wide variety of styles all in one weekend.

This is my first GANG blog, but I’ve been trying my hand at blogging elsewhere for a few years now. I’ll be short on my introduction, but if you’re interested in checking out the blogspace that I use to share news about my games and other career-related things, you can check it out here.

My name is Harry Mack and I love indie game culture. That is not to disparage the bigger, shinier, 3Der mission of the mainstream industry. However, I definitely belong where the hands-on passion, interesting games, and unique industry visionaries are.

I have been in the industry for about ten years, a fifty-fifty split between in-house and out-house (or freelance if that’s too lavatoryesque). I’ve been a pianist for twice that time, with a formal background in music and a little game design education for bonus marks. 

This year’s GDC brought me a fun blast from the past. I’d like to take a moment to use it to highlight some of the stepping stones that originally led me into the indie game world.

Those of you in attendance at the GDC this year may have caught a great little panel titled “What you Need to Know About Casual Games 2010 .” Speakers Nick Fortugno and Juan Gril did an excellent job rapidly reviewing some of the innovative and dominant trends in casual game space over the last year.

Just to clarify, from Nick and Juan’s perspective ‘casual’ game really means ‘super-awesome indie’ game. They shared a lot of insight and perspective into experimental design choices, and it was also a source for leads on some new games to try out.

I enjoyed it so much, that I decided to do some looking back into their presentations at past GDCs. I got quite the surprise when I found out that examples chosen for two of four of the 2009 categories were games that I worked on. Corpse Craft was selected to highlight new themes and mechanics in multiplayer games. To show a trend in the evolution of arcade games they recognized Braid ’s innovation and brilliant level design. 

Even if it took place a year ago, it was nice to see these very creative games getting recognition. If you’re interested in checking  out the session transcript, it is still posted on Gamasutra. 

For me it was a chance to reflect on some of the excellent memories that began my serious love affair with indie games. I mean we flirted before, but those games were the moment where it became really serious. Now that I am completely immersed, I look constantly forward to being one of a sea of participants playing a role in creatively shaping the indie community, both locally and globally.

It would be great to hear from any other game audio designers out there with a similar focus.

Music for Sky Invader (french video game) under development

Work in progress (your opinion is welcome).

The playlist

 

 

...Of diligently trying to purchase EWQL Symphonic Choirs, only to have to put it aside for a more immediate money problem, I finally bought it (and at a price that I can afford)! Thank you NAMM deal! Only half a month in, and this year's already looking up!

 

 ~Bryan J

Yeah my first blog entry so far but I wanted to share something. The Kulturforum (Culture Forum) in Halle just established an exposition called "Schöpfung Digital - Die Historie und Kunst im Computerspiel" (Genesis Digital - The History and Art in a Computer Game". Within this exposition visitors can explore the history of gaming beginning with Pong to several other milestones in history of gaming. You can play with old consoles and also get to know famous VG characters. A local radio station provided some information about it, too. They also mentioned one of my favourite VG characters besides the already well known PacMan and Super Mario: Guybrush Threepwood, Mighty Pirate™�. It never happened that I heard that name in a radiostation before in combination with legendary VG characters. Must've been a fanboy or something. For those who understand the German language (or know how to use website translation tools properly), go check this out

Kunstforum

So that's about the exposition. I didn't visit it myself yet, I had no time for it, but I will do for sure. If you read your way through the whole explanation, you'll notice a word, for what even you wouldn't need a dictionary for. Double U Ey Arca(de) shop... yeah it's "workshop", sorry my spelling's not the best. This workshop today was more a theoretical introduction of how game development works in a large game studio. I was pretty amazed by the paperwork the project manager of Radon Labs presented. Such a bureaucracy, really. Isn't that typically German? Ohh wait, I know the reason: Game Industry. She said:"There're no two guys programming games in their cellar anymore." Now you have an amzing amount of people. Today there was even a programmer and some testers in the studio. They played during the presentation in another room and you heard wepaon shots and explosions all through the hallway.

It was also surprising how many people were joining each of the four groups "Programming" "Level Design" "Graphics Character and Story Design" and last but not least "Sound Development"... ohh wait... it is the least... the least chosen group. Only 3 out of 26(?) people joined that workshop group but 3 students will join the group later on as they study Media and Communication Science. The other groups always had 6 and more people joining.

It's astonishing that there's not that much interest in music and sound. It expresses so much more than animations do. Am I wrong with that assumption?

As written above all of this huge blog entry, you can read "Part 1". "What about Part 2?" you may ask. That's what I'm going to experience next weekend. Maybe this part gets some additional sounds.

 

Best regards

 AndyBundy

 

Hi!

 Just wanted to share a trailer.  It´s from a small game we´re  doing all audio for, thought would be cool because it´s very fun and it´s Hallowen!  ;-)

Cheers,

J & G

 

Pro Zombie Soccer Trailer 1

Music Teaser 1

Music Teaser 2

MCV PR Note

To lovers of all things audio and video games,

My name is Nazer Lagrimas, and I'm currently finishing up my last year at Berklee College of Music in Boston.  I just thought it'd be fun to document my last moments as a student up here, and hopefully this will work as a resource for more individuals like myself, who classify themselves as a fish out of water when looking at the world we all love, the world of video game audio.

A bit of background information.  Growing up as a musician in San Diego, CA, I eventually found myself at Berklee.  Here, after taking in the advice of so many of my peers, I went for passion over practicality (typical Asian family says Doctor or Engineer, take your pick) and pursued my love for Film Scoring.  A year in, a club emerged at Berklee called the Video Game Music Club (VGMC), whose intent was to bring more awareness to this revolutionary industry at the college.  Being a huge fan of games myself, I immediately found myself at the weekly meetings, learning as much as I could from club leader Filippo Beck-Peccoz, and numerous faculty members and guest speakers.  As time went by, I found myself in the Secretary position at the club, and now as the new President.

Now starting my last year, I'm currently planning out meeting ideas for the club.  The club has over 200 members, and over 40 new students have shown interest this Fall, and the meetings haven't even started yet.  It should be a fun and exciting year, and I'm hoping to learn a lot, as well as give guidance and assistance to those who were just like myself, new students in a new city latching onto something familiar.

I've had the pleasure of meeting many G.A.N.G. members, both at Berklee and at GDC this past year.  The VGMC also performed at the G.A.N.G. Awards this year as the VGMC Band, and that was definitely a blast.  It's going to be a good year, and I just wanted to say thanks again to everyone at G.A.N.G. who has been so helpful, till next time.

- Nazer Lagrimas Jr.

 

[video:http://vimeo.com/5620902 400x230] 

 

On July 9th - I attended the GANG/GRAMMY summer summit at Pyramind in San Francisco.

It was an amazing and VERY inspiring event.   As I work to learn about the intricacies of Game Audio I'm constantly seeking advice from industry pros.  This event did not disappoint.   

One thing nearly everyone I spoke with suggested I do - create demo material for critique/feedback - and eventually, for gigs.  

So - to start - I pulled a minute of gameplay from the EA game -Dead Space and re-did all the audio.  

All the sound is "designed" - so there's no direct rips from library stuff.   I recorded a large amount of the raw material myself.  

I recorded small appliance like coffee bean grinder, a cuisinart (which has an amazingly warm hum) a blender, spice choppers, microwave, the creaky oven door from outside and inside the oven, a wood stove (outside and inside), a garage door opener from various perspectives, a metal file cabinet opening and closing from outside and inside and dragging it across the  concrete floor of the garage from inside and outside.  And on and on.  

The result is the video demo linked to below.  

I'm passing it around to people I respect for feedback and critique.  I would really appreciate any thoughts or advice game sound pros would be willing to share.  

 

Here's the 50 mb QT file movie.

http://jeff-schmidt.com/noize/DS_TITLE_01_04.mov

Any good constructive criticism is appreciated! 

thanks much

--jeff

 

UPDATE: 7/21/09

 

Based on the advice given here, and a few others I contacted personally, I remixed the demo.  

 

[video:http://vimeo.com/5737377 400x230]  

 

I changed many small things - but the large issues were to tighten up the verbs, rebalance the elements and increase the dynamic range.

 

Thanks guys!   

Hi guys, I'm working on a weird stuff right now: a Role Playing Game.

 

I mean, not a VIDEO game, just a BOOK RPG... It's cool! RPG's author asked me to create a soundtrack for any single chapter... players will listen to it in loop, till the end of chapter sequence...

 

The theme is about Cthulhu, Ancients, and so on... it's exciting... 

Game Audio Survey's 2009 Game Audio Marketplace Survey is Launched
 
http://www.gameaudiosurvey.com/
 
Game Audio Survey is a not-for-profit organization run by Dan Reynolds which intends to inform our Industry with analyses of data collected through surveys.
 
As professionals in an industry driven by an unregulated freelance marketplace, it is in our best interest to inform ourselves about our own industry.
Market power is about having control of that marketplace and the people who have the control have it because they have the most information when making a decision.
You can help us all take back that market power by participating in this 5 minute survey.
There are many surveys conducted by organizations which collect data on compensation for in-house employees.  These invaluable reports offer insight into the financial side of the games industry.  However, freelance audio services are thoroughly and unfortunately neglected.
The freelance marketplace is a diversified and volatile market that can, at times, seem impossible to understand.  Most of our dealings are done in private emails and rates are rarely publicized.
However, when we have an objective perspective of the marketplace as a whole, we can begin to see where we, as contractors, stand in the marketplace.  This is important as a litmus test for the pure economics of our industry, of course, but it is also important as an index or reference for beginning and intermediate professionals who lack the resources to even understand what could be considered fair pricing in our industry.
My preliminary research has already suggested that intermediate and beginning professionals with fewer than 3 years experience have no clue how much they should and can be charging.  Many think they are even over-charging for their services when their rates suggest that they sit on the low-end of the spectrum.
This survey is simple and anonymous.
This survey is meant for the following Game Audio Professionals:
In-House Audio
Freelance Composer
Freelance Sound-Designer
Freelance Music-Sequencer
 
It is also meant for people who provide audio services for free or paid, credited or uncredited.
 
The data will be subjected to cross-sectional analyses which will be published in a report and made public later this year.  This report will discuss the various angles of pricing and experience in our industry and how those prices change depending on the profile of the project and the profile of the audio professional.
The report will also explore suppositions conclusions and aberrations in the data and encourage an informed discussion on this most important topic.
Again, the survey is completely anonymous.
If you have already taken the survey, thank you for your support, but please do not take it again.
The survey can be found here:
http://www.gameaudiosurvey.com/
 
Inquiries are welcome.
 
Finally, thanks for helping us help ourselves.
 
Sincerely,
- Dan Reynolds
 
PS: Since it's been asked, data will be handled by myself and Anthony Hannagan who has a Bachelors in Economics from the University of Colorado, additionally, outside consultants will occasionally be employed for discussion of the data set.