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!