STINGOUT Beta is launched!
So far, STINGOUT seems to be destined to become a rare gem of a game for iOS. Quite some time ago, we provided a luxurious amount (for an iOS game) of audio for this game, a fact which is underlined by a forthcoming soundtrack CD! Developer screendepartment was very careful to make sure every part of audio was perfect for the game, really whipped us to a stellar performance. A lot of time and care went into polishing all the rest to a very bright lustre, too, and NOW you can be part of the final polishing, as the beta has launched.
If you are interested, check out this video, or head over to their facebook page or their beta page to read all about joining the beta.
(still beta, e.g. not the final audio mix of the game)
“DARK” is out for Xbox 360 and PC!
“DARK” (Realmforge / Kalypso) is a 3rd person vampire stealth game, and it’s out today/tomorrow (depending on where you are) for Xbox 360 and PC (incl. Steam)! An important release for us, as it is a game we Knights have spent a long time on. We made music & sounds for the prototype, debut trailer and the full game. We also integrated sounds and music via FMOD, for which I was present at the developer’s office an average day a week over 10 months! (plus 1-2 days per week from my studio) A wonderful experience.
While I fiddled with the sound effects, fellow Knight Dominik handled most of the music in DARK. We processed and mixed all audio for the cutscenes with help by external partner Till Wollenweber, put some effects on dialogues, tested… It was a really intense and XP-heavy time with my friends at Realmforge, for which I am very grateful!
But this is not all: For the club scenes, I wrote a special song and had the pleasure to record the voice of wonderful Sonja Kraushofer (of L’âme Immortelle, Persephone and Coma Divine fame), engineered by Martin Höfert. We got to know Sonja when our old rock band played two nightliner tours as support of L’âme Immortelle, one of the most successful goth acts from the German-speaking countries.
DARK pic of Sonja and me in studio
Main man in L’âme Immortelle is of course Thomas Rainer, who is also very successful with his provocative Industrial band NACHTMAHR. So, I am glad to add that he also got involved by providing a wonderful Nachtmahr remix to the club song, which you can hear in the game and in this latest (and best!) DARK trailer!
Clubsong & Remix are still available as bonus material to those who buy the game on Amazon.de today or tomorrow. How else you will be available to get them, I am not sure at this point but will update you as soon as I find out…
And a shoutout to Mila Masu, who provided additional female vocals for the soundtrack. That should be it! Sorry if this got long, cheesy and namedroppy, but this seriously feels like I worked a full year there… Thanks to everyone involved! – Daniel
Smash’n’Bash is out for iOS devices!
New iOS app by Wynto / Headup Games! “Smash’n’Bash” has hit the App Store today, it’s a runner (and basher) with a Viking flair, personally reminds me a little of good old Golden Axe…
We provided sound effects, some viking voices and music in various layers for the game (from folky accordeon and tuba to full Viking rock). They took some of the music and used them for this trailer, too, check it out:
The game is planned to appear on PC, WindowsPhone8 and Android devices, too!
Grab the game and support young vikings ehhh developers!
“Ambulance Simulator 2014” trailer is up
“Ambulance Simulator 2014” (by Z-Software/astragon) will be released later this year. It features our music, sound effects and dynamic sound integration using FMOD.
This new trailer features music that is a little bit different to what you have heard from us before. 😉 Check it out.
Forge of Empires reaches 10 Million players
Forge of Empires, by wonderful InnoGames, has reached another milestone: 10 million players, played in 200 countries, in 25 language versions! We are happy to mention again that we provided (and continue to provide) music & sounds for this award-winning online hit! 🙂
Hoppetee is out for iOS
Fast and colorful runner by Birgit Stock/Chimera Entertainment featuring a little grasshopper called Hoppetee, with our music (by Dominik), sounds (by me) and voices for the grasshopper (by my son) 🙂 Check it out…
– Daniel
Memoria Trailer
Check out this trailer for the forthcoming adventure game “Memoria” by Daedalic/Koch Media, sequel to “The Dark Eye – Chains of Satinav”. For both games, we enjoyed providing music and sound effects. 🙂 “Memoria is scheduled to be available for PC and Mac by the end of August 2013 via Steam and GOG.” says Daedalic’s Youtube channel. More info on the game on the Memoria website.
(Trailer music by Dominik, trailer sounds by Daniel)
Here are some official screenshots that show the once again wonderful artwork in “Memoria”:
“Die Letzte Grenze” on German TV tomorrow
The wonderful short movie “Die Letzte Grenze”, for which I have done sound design together with Simon Osterhold, has its TV premier tomorrow from 22:45 on German TV (channel BR) , together with 3 other short movies. Talented young director Daniel Butterworth, whom I know from one of my first steps into the game audio world (Broken Sword 2.5), will also be interviewed. Check it out if you have access to it. – Daniel
Computerspielpreis: 3 awards for games we worked on
( Sorry for the long silence, we were knee-deep in deadlines. We will post more news in the next days! )
Starting with the Deutscher Computerspielpreis (~German Video Game Awards), where “we” were quite lucky: In each of the 3 categories, in which games we helped with were no
minated, one of those very games has won!
Word Wonders – The Tower of Babel: Best Mobile Game 2013
Forge of Empires: Best Browser Game 2013
(jury statement: “…pleasant background music…”)
GroundPlay: Best Student Concept 2013
(jury statement: “…exceptional soundtrack…”)
Congrats to them, thanks for letting us help a bit, but also to the other winners and nominees, especially “Skylancer – Battle for Horizon”, a game we also provided audio for and that was nominated for Best Browswer Game.
So, we all learned a valuable lesson: Work with us, and you win awards. 😉
Best Soundtrack 2012 Award by AdventureCorner
AdventureCorner , a leading adventure game site, polled their audience to vote for the Best Games of 2012. The best soundtrack award went to your beloved Knights of Soundtrack 🙂 for our soundtrack to The Dark Eye: Chains of Satinav. It was a quiet, a different soundtrack, dark fairy tale style with live harp, live violin and female vocals… We really enjoyed working on that lovely game’s soundtrack…
New DARK trailer
Latest trailer for DARK, the vampire stealth game on which Dominik and I have been working for 10 months now… Trailer shows the non-final graphics and bits of our music, including my song “Dark Inside”, featuring the wonderfully talented Sonja Kraushofer (of L’Âme Immortelle, Persephone and Coma Divine fame). Coming soon to Xbox 360 and PC!
Doomsday!
Today’s the day! For last minute preparations, we recommend “Doomsday” by Wynto/astragon, with our music and sound effects… It’s an apocalypse tycoon, making fun of yet another doomsday scare, and one of these rare instances when my job’s and my band’s interests overlap…
Word Wonders is out for iOS & PC
Word Wonders by our friends at Chimera / RCP / Dreamfab is now out for iOS devices and PC (with our music and sounds): It’s a combat word puzzle game in an Arabian Nights setting. We worked on a prototype for that one 2 years ago, too, good to see it finally come to fruition – and it’s fun! Check it out:
http://www.chimera-entertainment.de/en/products/word-wonders
12 nominations for games we worked on at Deutscher Entwicklerpreis
The biggest industry award in Germany – Deutscher Entwicklerpreis (German Developer Awards) – announced their nominations, 12 of them go to games we were involved with, including indirectly Best Sound for Risen 2, for which Dominik and Daniel were asked by Dynamedion to provide a few songs. The other games are: Wimmelburg, The Dark Eye – Chains of Satinav, Forge of Empires, Skylancer and Happy Hills. We wish all our partners and friends best of luck, see you there on the 12th of December in Düsseldorf.
Interview in “Musikmarkt” magazine
We were interviewed for “Musikmarkt” for their game music special. “Musikmarkt” is a big and serious German music magazine, among other things home of the official media control charts. Check out the August issue for the 4 pages interview, in which we also battle it out with the collecting society GEMA. 😉
That’s tiny us, on the upper right.
The German interview is also readable online, but sadly not for free.
Origamigore available for Iphone
Origamigore is now available on the app store. We provided sound effects and voices for this crazy Japanese game show style madness by the Skunk Brothers.. Check out the trailer below… 🙂 Big thanks to Rieke Werner and Zeis for their brilliant voice performances…
Warcraft III Campaign “Blackrock and Roll”
Once again I participated as a voice actor in a project by Eredalis. After 2 award-winning free campaigns for Starcraft – Broodwar (with a big story, full synchronisation and additional music), I was again asked to voice a role in his (German) campaign for Warcraft III. The first part is up now.
We are working on “DARK” (Realmforge/Kalypso)
A new game we are working on: Kalypso and Realmforge just announced “DARK”, a stealth-action game in a modern vampire setting, to be released 1st quarter of 2013 for PC and console. What is BEST is that I am working closely with the developer, being in their offices once a week throughout the development process, doing sound design and integrating it! (a bit of a dream come true)
I am a big fan of the vampire setting, and I get along very well with Realmforge (we provided audio for their game “Dungeons”), so I couldn’t be happier.
But that won’t be the last surprise for this year, stay tuned… 😉 – Daniel
Risen 2 is out (with our additional music)
Risen 2 is out now (Piranha Bytes / Deep Silver), and we are happy to announce that we (Daniel & Dominik) were asked to compose some additional tracks for Dynamedion, who provided the soundtrack.
We have delivered 9 tracks (including variations) for this cool game. Check it out!
Lecture at the University of Vienna
Tomorrow I’ll give a lecture at the University of Vienna, Austria. I’ll talk about music for games with student composers… Vienna is beautiful and I am glad that I was invited. It’s the 4th educational facility I am doing this at, and it’s always a pleasure and an interesting change to my normal routine…
– Daniel
Wimmelburg is released for Iphone / Ipad
Check out this beautiful children’s game for Iphone/Ipad! It’s a sort of Hidden Object Game meets fairy tale picture book, for 2-6 years old kids, parents and grandparents… It contains our music (wonderful bard song by our very own Dominik), a lot of cute sounds (dozens of mini-cutscenes) and voices (8 voice actors total).
It’s doing quite good in the charts, getting good user feedback. Appgefahren.de loved it’s “great soundscape”.
Get it for Ipad: http://itunes.apple.com/de/app/wimmelburg-hd/id509514469?ls=1&mt=8
Or Iphone: http://itunes.apple.com/de/app/wimmelburg/id509537638?mt=8
Skylancer – Battle for Horizon
Skylancer – Battle for Horizon Closed Beta has started! This fantasy browser game by Chimera Entertainment and ProSiebenSat.1 Digital comes with our sounds, voices and jingles… Flying ships, all kinds of cool creatures… Check it out:
http://skylancer.browsergames.de/
Looking back at 2011 – Statistics!
So, it’s finally time for our look back at the year 2011.
Right to the hard numbers. We were even busier than last year apparently, having composed 155 tracks with a combined length of 214 minutes for 34 games and 4 other projects. Insane. We provided 3092 sound effects for 19 games and 3 other projects. We have silently skated over the 100 projects line, but the 100th game will be celebrated in style, hopefully this year…
The year started with the release of Dungeons, one of the bigger games we have worked on so far, that went on to hit #1 charts position in Germany and #6 in the UK, how awesome is that? It came with a cool soundtrack CD, we love that.
Then followed the releases of A Knights Dawn and Demolition Dash for iOS devices, the latter of which later received the Best Handheld Game award at the German Developer Awards (Entwicklerpreis). The betas of Bigpoint’s Ramacity (thanks for that big chance guys) and Ravenburger’s Memory® World Tour started.
After a rather calm summer, my article in Making Games magazine was released right on time for my favourite Gamescom so far… I had so many good chats there, so many chances, some of them wild and surprising… This year’s Gamescom will hopefully be as much fun…
I held my first lecture at SAE/Quantm Institute, making it the 3rd school I gave a lecture at. The 4th will follow this year!
The rest of the year saw the releases of Happy Hills, Triple Trouble, Dungeons – The Dark Lord , Rettungswagen Simulator and Sengoku (by the Swedish publisher Paradox). A totally new kind of job was the sound design for the music video by the band Nachtmahr.
We were also asked to help our friends at Games Academy with audio for the games Gargoyles, Nocturne and Call of Carlos. Anytime guys!
Very happy we are for the cooperation with our friends at Dynamedion, who were so kind to take us on board for a few projects which are mostly unannounced – yet!
And lastly, greetings to the games we worked on in 2011 that are still unannounced (many they are), to those we are working on (hello Asylum, The Dark Eye: Chains of Satinav and Forge of Empires) and to those that will come out in 2012 (we have some big surprises in store), and to those sad few ones whose future is a bit dark at the moment…
A BIG THANK YOU to our friends, clients & contacts for the great games you create, for allowing us to help making them, and for your general existence 🙂 Wish you all a great year and who knows – maybe we’ll work together on a project in 2012?
Cheers,
Daniel, with best wishes of Dominik, Heike and Simon
Music and Sounds for Forge of Empires
It was about time I finally mention that we provide music and sounds for Forge of Empires, a new strategy online game by the awesome folks at InnoGames. It’s a browser strategy game with a few twists…
Check out the trailer below, or go to the website to play the beta.
Knights Of Soundtrack 