The Game Audio/Dev Hangout

I had great fun in this episode chatting with Ben who, as well as being an artistic theatre director, is a singer instrumentalist, artist and game developer. He is currently working on Dreamloop the game, a looping music puzzle game with a fascinating approach to incorporating music into the gameplay and a beautiful aesthetic. You can check out Ben and his work at: http://www.dream-loop.com/ https://www.instagram.com/dreamloopthegame/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/1800670/Dream_Loop/

In this episode of the Audio/Dev Hangout I talk all things UI/UX and graphic design with Lynda McDonald. Lynda has a background in visual communication and graphic design and is a freelance UI/UX designer living in Malta. We chatted about how she came to do what she does, her love of gaming and also how UI/UX designers are in relative short supply. You can find out more about Lynda here: https://www.instagram.com/lynda_design/ https://www.instagram.com/loudeyes_/ https://lyndamcdonald.com/

Kieran Palmer is a multitalented artist with skills in environment design, concept art and 3D modelling to name just a few of his specialisms! It was great to chat with him and find out exactly how he works and to see the game creation process from an artists point of view! So, if you want to find out how artists get their work into games, how they approach their creative process and what similarities and differences there are between art and the audio world then this is the episode for you! ...we even briefly covered the topic of beer and whisky......! You can find out more about Kieran and his work using the links below: https://www.instagram.com/kieranpalmerart/ https://www.kieranpalmerart.co.uk/

Jordan is Studio Director at Astrodreamer Studio and is a man with a big bold ten year plan! We catch up with him here at an exciting point with a cool new open-world exploration sci-fi game in the latter part of development and with Astrodreamer Studio going from strength to strength. It was great to chat about how he has been working with Sam, the studio's composer and how their creative collaboration is developing as well as how the music is being integrated into the game engine. Amongst other things we also talked about creativity, the power of collaboration and how sometimes it's good to be a bit weird to stand out from the crowd (but not too weird!) You can find out more about Astrodreamer Studios and follow their progress using the links below: https://www.instagram.com/astrodreamerstudio/ https://www.facebook.com/astrodreamerstudio/ https://twitter.com/astrodreamer_

Bobby has been a 3D and full time game developer for 8 years as well as a digital marketing specialist for 3 years. His personal brand as Mystive Dev is on a mission to provide Indie game devs with great value content to power up their marketing, release the game of their dreams and become full time game devs. We had a great chat full of gems of marketing wisdom and covered the main principles of marketing which all game devs should follow, how to build a brand and how important it is to develop a marketing strategy from the very beginning of the game development process. You can find out more about Bobby and Mystive Dev below: https://www.instagram.com/mystivedev/ https://twitter.com/MystiveDev https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtgBVdFTAObPO0SAHpzytDQ

In this episode of the Audio/Dev Hangout I had the opportunity to chat to Anton, the lead programmer and Paul SFX, ambience and sound design who are working on Gazelle In a Winter Coat. Having the two disciplines together made for a really interesting discussion and I love the slightly surreal nature of their game as well! We talked about online and offline collaborative working, communication skills between disciplines as well as delving into how a programmer and a sound designer work together to create a cohesive whole. You can find out more about Paul and Anton and their studio A Box of Mushrooms using the links below: https://www.instagram.com/gazellegame/ https://gazelleinawintercoat.com/ https://twitter.com/BoxOfMushrooms

Today my guest is Andy Mitchell from Corefun Studios. As well as being a game developer Andy is a composer and classical guitarist and he is currently creating Solar Echoes – a visual novel with RPG elements for which he is also composing all of the music. Andy has a really interesting angle on music in games as he is approaching it from both the game developer's side and also as the composer. Amongst other things we talked about how he has approached writing large quantities of music for his game, using or not using music theory, the importance of reference tracks and why playing the game you are working on is so important for a composer. You can find out more about Andy and his work here: https://www.instagram.com/solarechoesrpg/ https://www.starlegation.com/ https://andymitchellguitar.com/

Robin and Simon are creating a beautiful game and we started off by talking about their journey into game dev and how their complementary skill sets make them such a strong team. We moved on to chatting about how to get the most from the relationship with your composer....how feeling a real connection with their music, giving them freedom to create and trusting their vision makes for a great working in partnership. You can find out more about The Weko project here: https://www.wekoproject.com/ https://www.instagram.com/wekoproject/

In this episode I had the pleasure of chatting with Greg Watson from Boudron Studios – Greg studied as a composer before starting to develop games and so has a unique perspective on the composer/developer relationship. We chatted about finding your way as a composer, getting early game composing work and also how important it is to understand how to communicate in non musical technical ways with other creatives. You can find Greg at: https://www.instagram.com/baudronsstudios https://linktr.ee/baudronsstudios

Just a quick episode today to let you know what's happening with the podcast going forward!! Looking forward to seeing you in Season 2 which will follow in a few weeks time!

My guests today have just released the alpha test of their game Fusion Relics. We had a great chat about their vision for the game, just what it's like creating a game between 9PM and 2AM three or more nights a week and how it's their creative passion and shared enthusiasm that keeps them going. We also talked about their vision for sound and music for Fusion Relics and what it has been like being approached by composers keen to work on the game. There are some really valuable insights here as to how indie devs approach finding and working with composers and we also how devs see the role of music and SFX in their games. I particularly appreciated chatting with Tracy about her approach to the beautiful artwork for the game as well!  You can find out more about Cinderwing Games here  https://www.instagram.com/cinderwinggames/ and also on the Fusion Relics website here   https://fusionrelics.com/

This episode of the Audio/Dev Hangout features a fun conversation with Ines and Robin who together form Crabby Collaby Games. Once I had worked out how to pronounce their studio's title (!) we chatted about their deliberately imperfect approach to making games, music packs and how composers can make them more useful to game devs, how they view the role of music and sound in their games as well as cats and Vikings! You can find out more at https://www.instagram.com/crabbycollaby_games/     twitter.com/ccollaby   and  https://soundcloud.com/robingerndt/sets/favorites

For this episode of The Audio/Dev hangout I'm joined by Alyshia and Justin from Games With Geebs! We chatted about their current project the 2020 Trail, how they have gone about getting music for their game, marketing for small indie developers as well as what it's like to work together on a game as a married couple! Of course, there was some cat chat as well as Geebs the cat is their studio mascot! You can find out more about Alyshia and Justin's work at www.gameswithgeebs.com and follow on Instagram @gameswithgeebs.

In this episode of the Audio/Dev Hangout I'm chatting with Brad Moore of Iblackpen Studios. Brad is currently about to release his second game and it was interesting to chat about what he did differently second time and how his creative process has developed. We also talked about how he went about finding music for his games and what it was like, as a beginner musician, to start writing music himself. You can find out more about Brad and Iblackpen Studios here https://smart.bio/iblackpen_studio/

In this episode of the Audio/Dev Hangout I chat with Romain - AKA The French Dev. We had a great discussion about the relationship between science and art, what it's like to create a game from scratch as a solo developer and also what it was about his approach to Kickstarter that made the funding for his game such a huge success. Romain is in the interesting position of having worked with an outside composer for part of Aveliana's soundtrack as well as creating his own dynamic music in-house. We talked about implementation, how to create dynamic music and SFX as well as his experience in terms of finding and renumerating composers. 

Hi there and welcome to The Audio/Dev Hangout! In this episode, I had a great chat with Evan from Fly Pig Games. Evan has a truly inspirational story behind how he got to where he is today and a powerful motivation and purpose behind his mission. We also talked about using social media and getting your work seen by others. Evan had some great advice about composers slowing down and some great insights into how composers and sound designers can become indispensable to game devs!

Welcome to the Audio/Dev Hangout! In today's episode, I had a great chat with Aaron StPierre of Sinking Saint Games. We talked about his relatively new journey as a solo indie dev, how he chooses music for games, some perceptions that game devs might have about composers (and vice versa!), common ground between devs and composers, and also what it's like to create a game from start to finish in a week!

In today's episode, I chat to solo game dev Sam Claydon about his current project Breaching the Unknown, find out what Voxel art is, learn about how composers can be more useful to devs, how Sam's creative process works, and what it's like to be a solo game developer.

In this episode I chat to game developer, programmer and musician Trever Mock. We talked about his approach to music and audio in his current project The Path of Ren and also about using middleware and implementation skills needed by composers and sound designers. It was also very interesting to find out about how he is collaborating with the composer for the game and how their joint creative process works.

The Game Audio/Dev hangout is a podcast dedicated to helping video game composers and sound designers come to grips with the Indie Game World through chat and hanging out with game devs and other industry professionals in the know.