It’s been quiet on the public Frozenbyte front but things have been happening behind the scenes. To get this blog back into action again, I wanted to share something about our upcoming game – a story of how we came up with an easter egg for the game. Yeah, no real information about the game – I wish I could talk about the game itself but at least this is related!

Here’s the story: We were having a little party celebrating some new contracts and other good things that have happened here lately, and of course, what would a party be without a few beers? So we had a barrel full of beer cans and ice to keep it cold (this is the cheap version of hey lets go out to the bar). Someone put in a pineapple next to the beers, saying that the party was too boring – hey, I disagree! But that’s when this story really started. It gave a lot of laughs and spiraled off in multiple directions – it was the talk of the party from that point onwards.

There was so much discussion about it, even to philosophical lengths, that the general opinion was that the pineapple has to be included in our next game. Tons of ideas spouted out in a splitsecond, all wilder than the next. The problem with most ideas, and this applies to easter eggs in general, is that the development team has its own sense of humor that may not be as funny to gamers who haven’t been exposed to the whole process.

For example, one of the animators once had a task called “chest opening animation” (to open a chest/box/container). The animator was a bit confused with the task, and it turned out that he had totally misunderstood the idea. He thought it was supposed to be like in the picture below. It’s hilariously funny to us but maybe not so much to the general public. This was an instant “Hansoft Classic” to us (Hansoft is the project management software we use – easily recommended by the way!).

So in conclusion, let’s see if you find the Mighty Pineapple as funny as we do once the game is released. But remember – it will strike when you least expect it!

The ideal candidate is someone who is at least somewhat familiar with game development & is an experienced digital artist – there is a lot happening here at the moment, so we’d prefer a candidate who can start working full-steam as quickly as possible.

Playtesting

We’re also looking for people to play our games and tell us what they think. Simply fill out the application form and you’ll be contacted when we arrange a testing session.

One of the games you’ll be testing will be released later this year, and will naturally be the media event of the year in Finland. So here’s your chance to get something to brag about.

I’m the Audio & Music Director here at Frozenbyte Inc. I compose and produce music but I also design, produce, edit and mix all of our audio assets.

Good audio design and music is critical to reach those top 10/10 review scores, but sometimes I feel that game audio doesn’t get the respect it deserves. Reviews sometimes don’t even mention audio at all, or just make a general comment without any details. I wish there’d be more critique, positive or negative – constructive criticism always helps, and positive comments make it all worth it. When I read how much people have enjoyed the audio in our Shadowgrounds games, it makes me very happy, because that is the ultimate goal: to make gamers totally immersed in the game world and enhance their emotions and create memorable moments during gameplay.

For me, I like what I do and that’s how I get the best results. However, I still have to make things work IN THE GAME, I can’t just do whatever I want. Everything must sound fitting within the sonic boundaries of the game design and the virtual world. Unfortunately, budget and time constraints always play a role in music and audio decisions – and like it or not, you really can’t underestimate the impact of other people either.

IT’S A DOUBLE-BARRELED ROLE

Making audio assets and music are really, really different things. They require a different mindset and I need to separate these areas to be able to focus on one at a time. Usually an Audio Director doesn’t compose much because he/she is mainly responsible for the audio design and assets – or making sure the juniors do what they’re supposed to do.

But I on the other hand have a double job. It’s a whole different ball game when you make the entire game soundtrack and still manage to accomplish good, working audio design. It takes a little bit of extra days and cold beers, but it’s good for my sanity.
I enjoy making music more than sound work, because music is a more creative process, whereas creating sound effects and integrating them into the game is a bit more technical. It’s not all fun and games!

In addition to that, there are times when I need to focus on vocal outsourcing and managing other people like trainees. Managing is surprisingly tough sometimes but if it’s done efficiently and with care, [insert cliché here].

ENLIGHTENING

We have regular meetings and it’s my job to be active and participate in the overall development of the game world. It really helps when I see some concept art and other visual things where I can draw inspiration from. It’s important to be on the same page as everyone else, and to have a clear vision (or even a clue) about the game that you are making. I also like to walk around the office from time to time. It gives my ears some well-earned rest and I can keep track of the projects and see what everyone else is doing. My walkabouts are also a way to tell (and hear) stupid jokes every day. Luckily the jokes are getting better.

I love my work.

It’s not something I wanted to do. We’re working on some very cool stuff at the moment, and I’d love to tell everyone about it. But I can’t. Let me explain.

“What’s so secret about your work, Mr. Big Shot Game Developer Guy?”

Ever since I started at Frozenbyte, I’ve been constantly running into this question. Let’s assume I’m talking to a nice lady at a bar (for argument’s sake…) The conversation could go something like this:

• Her: Oh, you’re SO funny! Are you like a professional comedian or something?
• Me: Actually, I make games.
• Her: *blank stare*
• Me: You know, Xbox and PlayStation and such.
• Her: Oh, cool! So what kind of games are you working on?
• Me: Umm, I can’t really tell you.

…and it’s all downhill from there. So why can’t I brag about the work our team is doing, in order to take the nice lady home and impress her with my limited edition Big Daddy figurine?

NDA

NDA stands for “Non-Disclosure Agreement”, and most people in our industry have signed several of them. Most people in any industry are familiar with them, so if you don’t know what I’m talking about, let Wikipedia educate you.

I have an NDA with Frozenbyte, and Frozenbyte has tons of NDAs with publishers, contractors, middleware companies, etc. So there’s a lot not to disclose. But talking about our products – games – especially, why can’t I tell what we’re working on?

Marketing

To over-simplify how things work for traditional third-party developers like us, this is the model we use:

1. We make a game
2. A publisher sells the game
3. Profit!

Making a game is certainly a delicate process. But marketing (and eventually selling it) is just as delicate, and a good marketing campaign is very well planned in advance and carefully timed to gain maximum visibility for the product.

So let’s say I announce on this blog that we’re making a game where you’ll be able to shoot at mutant cannibal hippopotamuses with a gerbil-powered laser weapon shaped like an Ibanez axe and take a look at what this would mean for us in two different scenarios (we’ll ignore the scenario where Ibanez sues us for trademark infringement for now…)

Scenario 1: Unsigned game

In this scenario, we haven’t actually signed the game with a publisher yet. This means we’ll first have to convince a publisher that our idea will make them billions of euros (or dollars, but then we’d need to be making gazillions…) Even if the product acquisition guy at the publisher’s end doesn’t go umm, this doesn’t really fit into our portfolio…, their marketing department might still have some doubts about their ability to sell this game to the buying public. I’d rather like to have a conversation with them (ok, how about we make the laser hamster-powered instead…) than lose out on a publishing deal because of a silly blog post.

Scenario 2: Signed game

As I said, our job is to make the games, and the publisher’s job is to sell them. I assume they do their job, and let me do mine. We have detailed plans and schedules, as do they. Sometimes they’ll come up with silly ideas that they think would really help sell the game – but I hope they ask us before announcing them to the public. The same goes for us – we might think it’s a great idea to announce Hippo Killer 3000 two years before the launch date, but they might think we just destroyed their marketing plan. And maybe we did. Oops.

Maybe I’ll just let them do the marketing – and hope they come up with a better name than Hippo Killer 3000.

And other reasons…

Besides marketing, there’s plenty of other reasons to stay tight-lipped about projects that aren’t near completion. There’s still innovation in the game business, and where there’s innovation, there’s idea theft. A publisher might hear about our idea and put one of their own teams working on a very similar game, even when we’re still looking for a publisher (oh wait, did that already happen…?)

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So, the point I’m making is this: games media is where you can read about our games (ok, of course we’ll also tell something about them here). But if you’re interested in how they’re made (and by whom!), then you might just have come to the right place. Welcome!