A night in the woods

matarua

Nice kickstarter game in the works - very cool art style and animation with a relevant story

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1307515311/night-in-the-woods

Tweeted by Derek Yu @mossmouth on twitter creator of Spelunky and more.

Socks

Looks great, the music really makes a difference too, adds loads of atmosphere.

matarua

The guy did music for Offspring Fling and Towerfall too - both great

matarua

@socks I also always thought I would make the music for my games myself but even though I am good at most things on a computer and am also a DJ and really know good music - making it, I seem to be hopeless %-(

So for this mini game I am making I stumbled across some good stuff - kind of like a stock site for things like video footage, animations, models, SFX and of course music.

http://www.pond5.com/

I got a great tune from there that I would have had no chance of making. It's not cheap cheap but for $45 I got something that was awesome in an hour of searching. They are as cheap as $5 tho too.

A lot faster, and due to that, cheaper than learning how to write a whole tune in a certain style with the correct instrument sets and samples and beat loops etc. It's not unique but I think you have the chance to commission unique ones if you want them too. Heaps of game style ones http://www.pond5.com/music/1/adventure-game.html

Socks

So for this mini game I am making I stumbled across some good stuff - kind of like a stock site for things like video footage, animations, models, SFX and of course music.

http://www.pond5.com/

I joined Pond5 back in 2006 (!!!! Can't believe it was over 7 years ago !!!!!) I sell a whole bunch of crap there (video / motion graphics) not uploaded anything in years.

A lot faster, and due to that, cheaper than learning how to write a whole tune in a certain style with the correct instrument sets and samples and beat loops etc. It's not unique but I think you have the chance to commission unique ones if you want them too. Heaps of game style ones http://www.pond5.com/music/1/adventure-game.html

I'm a bit ambivalent about stock sites like Pond5 (there are numerous others), I've tried to get into them but you really don't make much money, I write music for a living (mostly film/TV/advertising) and sites like this have noticeably impacted on the industry, they have sucked up a lot of work from a lot of people, on one hand it's great that people (like yourself) can get a decent piece of production music for $45, but at the same time a lot of people are being put out of business, the musicians (and other contributors to places like Pond5) aren't paid a great deal for their work as the stock sites tend to take most of the income, so money that used to go to writers and musicians is now all being funnelled to a few increasingly powerful corporations who can dictate market price. It's the same for photographers, videographers, illustrators, 3D artists, motion graphics designers (etc), all seeing their income disappear into the pockets of a few dominant players like iStock and Music Network, who've become every rich by turning the creative arts into a production line where the artists get a few dollars for their efforts.

One of the reasons I got into app / game development was because sites like Pond5 have pretty much demolished writing music as a viable career in just a few short years, there's still a market for 'bespoke' music, but even here the culture introduced by these stock sites is bleeding through to all areas of music, I do a lot do stuff for Channel4 in the UK, they use to pay well, but these days they pay . . . . . £0 . . . yep, nothing, you do the work for free and hope you pick up some royalties via PRS payments (which often will amount to . . . . £0), they reason "why should we pay you to write some music when we can grab a piece off iStock for $15 ?"

[/moan over]

matarua

@Socks yep I hear you and it's sad to hear that. I would think the people that normally pay for music production would still do so in the professional arena but it sounds like that is definitely not the case. I am a graphic designer and I do full service which means I do logos for people, packaging, print, design and build websites, design and build web apps and native apps and consult on a variety of projects. I have seen the same cannibalization of business that you see but the results are not the best as there's nothing behind it and there's so many cowboys and idiots out there. Time after time I am fixing up some mess that has been cobbled together in a rush with people who thought they could save money. Then there's factoring work out to India and stuff like that which also harms the business. But add to that you can build your own website with SquareSpace, Virb or Wordpress, that has everything rolled in and looks great is responsive and has a mobile version all wrapped up and hosted for less than an ISP.

But here is the kicker - people don't want to build their own website - so every CMS or framework I have done for clients they never use - only one client ever has in the entire time I have run my own business. Maybe that is because I work with a lot of other business owners and they don't have the time or space to manage it. Also a logo is not a brand and how it translates in to a business is complex thing that needs strong basis of rationale and a proven plan behind it to launch and become successful.

The silver bullet is a bit easier to achieve with music then it seems?

Sorry to hear that it's like that.