When?

Are you handling the sound design and music yourselves or have you outsourced?
Will this be local & online multiplayer?
What do you think of the local multiplayer market at the moment? Games like Towerfall, Toto Temple, Samurai Gunn, Speedrunner (which has online but i've played it mostly locally), etc.
And are those games listed above the main focus for your inspiration?

Hyperduck just nailed it. Personally, I would add to the first point people that you can meet in person.

It's the simplest and the most efficient way to get paid game audio gig in my experience. Attend game jams, game events, game dev beer parties or whatever is available in your area. Game jams are the most important here, at least if you're starting. Apart from meeting people you can do some actual work for them, talk, joke, sweat together before a deadline. And being an introvert is not an excuse since quite many of those people are too.

Great point! I can 100% say that for Dan & I, we don't see many of the developers/clients we work with, and having gone to GDC for the past 3 or 4 years, the amount of new people, friendships, projects, that we've been apart of directly because of those, is a LOT.

In fact it's advice that I need to take on myself, we don't go to GDC as much (it's pricey to travel across the world for a week+!) but look in your own city, it's something we need to consider doing more often for sure. Good shout Dawid!

Lots of stuff covered here already, I'll not go into feedback on the tune from a musical standpoint, but just really say a) great track and b) as a rule of thumb, you want to give every single project you start, shit loads of headroom, because as you add more and more, that headroom will decrease, it's just how it can tend to go.

I personally set each instrument in a new project to about -10dB, making it my new 0, and I may even push it all further back, because I can make all that headroom back again when it comes to the end and I'm mixing it down, slapping a limiter/maximizer on the master while you work and pumping it to 10 dB to hear how it would sound at at louder volume is fine, if you're wanting to A/B it, but yeah.. plenty of headroom, just make it a standard thing, because as your mix gets more complex with more instruments and sounds, you don't want to find yourself looking through your instruments, trying to bring stuff down and ultimately deconstructing the mix you were building up because it's clipping.

Great work anyway! Lovely string sounds.

1. Right here, well not right HERE.. but in the devlogs, in the #screenshotsaturday part of the twitterverse, in the art threads, in the playtesting threads, just hunt and interact and support, encourage.. remember it's not all about you when you're looking to join a project, it's what you can bring to that developers game that is gonna make them happier.

2. Fair pricing, you'll never get quotes out of any musicians on here, or most places, but I can tell you now, it's all relative. You need to know your developers audio budget, and their workload.. timeframe as well, also helps. You can charge per minute of music, you can charge per sound effect, you can do a flat rate for both that just lumps XX minutes and XX sound effects into one lump sum of £XXX.. or £XXXX (always preferable, but I never found well paying jobs when I first started for over 2 years). You can give them a reduced rate, or a reduced flat rate, and side it with a % share of the revenue for the game. Or you can go full revenue and get a good cut, if the game feels like it could make that sacrifice back for you in the end. This is easily the most risk strat, and if you go this rough, usually you're looking at 12-20%, if you do it with a rate on the side (reduced or not reduced, how you negotiate it is up to you) you may see anything from 1% to 8% or so.. not saying this is cut and dry, and how it WILL work.. it's just from my own experience I'm speaking here.

3. You should consider joining Audio G.A.N.G for a while, they have good contract templates and while the numbers are even now.. still wildly above what I'd dream of charging, the contracts themselves can be watered down and made accessible by any client you hand one to. Make sure the contract is clear to read, legally safe (this is the trickier part but there are internet articles that can help you with writing up a good contract for a composer out there, important clauses you need in your contract, etc), and supports both you and the developer, so it doesn't look like you're just covering your own butt, it's a bad way to start a working relationship, be open about it, any questions/requests they want to address, they can and they should, you'll tell them this.

I think you need a 4. which is, what is the most important thing about getting into a work relationship with a developer? And that is be caring, be authentic, be enthusiastic about what they're making, and be genuine about it. Yes you need to be talented and listen to them, on both the positive and constructive feedback they give about your music/sound you're making, but the above points in 4. all factor into that situation. Care about it, be a nice person, and work your butt off obviously. Most importantly, know how far outside your own means you are willing to work; do not let a project become a major financial gamble for you if you are not confident it'll pay off. There will always be another project, and as long as you follow those points, particularly in 4, you will get somewhere, 100% sure of that.

Only speaking from an audio standpoint, but you need to consider music & sound design budgets.

Many musicians on TIGforums, lucky for you, will offer sound design as well as bespoke music compostion. It may be first nature to them, but a lot of the time, it will be second nature, so make sure you get good examples, maybe a trial run (if they accept, if they don't, they don't), but most preferably a sound reel of some of their capabilities.

In terms of how they may charge, it could be per minute of music (approximated), per sound effect, and most musicians will offer revisions to a certain extent with each of these rates, 2 or 3, which is good! They could offer you a bulk deal with a flat rate for all the music and sound you're looking, either way, you're gonna need a good approximation of how much music and how much sound you're going to need.

Some might offer a reduced rate if you consider the possibility of a revenue split with the composer, anything between 1% to 20% depending on how you adjust the paying rate can be considered, some might just work purely for a % cut, no rate at all. No matter what though, as I said, you need to give them a good idea of the workload for an accurate quote, and a timeframe is always appreciated as well.

I've got some mails from interested composers, but it's too early for me to decide anything yet. I do have an idea for how I want the soundscape to be though. Realistic and ambient with melodies coming from street musicians, open windows, radios etc.

First thing that comes to mind when hearing this is Sunset (if you haven't listened, check out the OST). The main goal behind the soundtrack was for the music to play through "records" that the player put on that were in the house.

I had the pleasure of writing with Austin Wintory for that OST, really interesting approach to the OST on a whole, and def worth checking out for inspiration.

EDIT: Removed my previous post so it doesn't look all hyperspammy in here, really love the colour choices in this.

Thank you That's understandable, however it IS the post-apocalyptic adventures of an escaped amputee and his amputee dog soooo.. to give him feet would have been wrong 

Love the colour palettes in each environment, and the fluidity of the cape as your protagonist moves around, can't wait to see more!

Can't wait for you guys to release more from the EP!

By next week we'll have completed a third track, and are aiming to do a few more for the final release, excited to get on to the next one!

Incredible landscapes, the lighting is unreal.. and that character art style is beaut 

Big love to you guys...

Back at ya buddy <3

Beautiful stuff guys. Was out at the bar tonight with a friend, and we had a long conversation about the Northern Lights. After seeing this, the smile just won't leave my face; you guys make great music 

What a lovely comment Thanks Kyle, really appreciate it, sounds like you had a good evening 

Consider me teased, this looks great, LOVED that TR teaser from your old film as well.

really gorgeous artstyle, love it!

Sounds wonderful, Chris! I'm particularly struck with how the vocals have been mixed in. Beats on the foreground works well, and the guitar strums do wonders. Well done, love it!

Thanks very much Barendhoff, from both of us! (And Katharine, she was awesome). Dan handled the mix, he did a crackin' job with the vocals n all. Shame he doesn't come on these boards but i'll throw a pint in his face when I see him on your behalf.

Well, I think I've fully looked at every image and animated preview, at least, a dozen times over, on every available site you have. Consider me thoroughly hooked to this game! Power to the little studios!

Yep, that's a lord of the rings reference, right there, you got me.

We've been working on it for a while, an EP not attached to any particular game, in between working on music very much attached to very particular games; it's quite hard to leave it alone and move on, but we're enjoying it all the same. We released an animated music video for the first single from the EP last year on our youtube channel; we're very proud of it and the team we were graced to work with, you can see it over here:





I never share things in here, I mainly lurk in the devlogs, which is weird since.. I'm a musician for gords sake! Anyway, hope you enjoy, and will post when we've got more EP content coming, within this post, for suresies.

Love from Ireland-land.
Chris.

It's been over 120 days.. I'm not sorry, but I am sorry.

We've been doing a lot, and I've personally strayed away from the TIGForums and very much into exciting chapters of my offline life! We're doing well, and we're actually working on a few soundtracks, AND a HyperDuck EP: we released the video of it last March, but I never thought to throw it here, anyways, check it out, hope you enjoy!





And here is our latest blog entry! http://hyperduck.co.uk/blog

This looks and sounds (both musically and foley-wise) incredible, really great work.