“The Age of Bhaarat” announced!
The game I am working on as Audio Director has been announced. The Age of Bhaarat, “India’s own AAA game”, with wonderful & impactful people on board like Amish Tripathi (“the fastest-selling author in Indian publishing history”) and Amitabh Bachchan (Wikipedia: “often considered one of the greatest, most accomplished and commercially successful actors in the history of Indian cinema”), not to forget the rest of our global development team, I can’t name them all here… 🙂 Quite exciting project for sure!
Here is the announcement trailer (as these things often go, not much of my audio in there yet, but that’s not what it’s about!), check it out to get a first idea of what we are doing:
Check the website for more info: http://www.theageofbhaarat.com/
Crowns and Pawns: Kingdom of Deceit – Best Audio Design & (huh?) Game of the Decade!
Half a decade ago or so, I had the pleasure to compose a soundtrack for old friends of mine from my earliest times: Šarūnas Ledas, who I know from when we both worked on Broken Sword 2.5 years before I started commercially, and his colleagues at Lithuanian developer Tag of Joy developed and finally released Crowns and Pawns: Kingdom of Deceit in 2022.
The same year, as I learned recently, they actually received (among other awards) the Best Audio Design award (hey, that might be me!) at their local LT Game Awards 2022.
Which would be great enough, but I recently heard, they even received the special award Game of the Decade at the LT Game Awards 2024! Amazing! Congrats! They are a lovely small & tough team, I am looking forward to their future endeavours…
Destroy All Humans! 2 – Reprobed is out
Destroy All Humans! 2 – Reprobed (Black Forest Games/THQ Nordic) was released on August 30th, 2020!
I worked on this game as Head of Audio, which entailed:
- Audio Development in UE4
- Design of custom audio features and systems incl. music system, nested ambiences system, behavior vo system (juggling 65 dynamically weighted situations for NPCs to react to) and the ocean sound system
- Sound Design
- Leading 5 Freelance Sound Designers
- Picking and licensing of 100 production music tracks
- Creation of scripts to batch-process renaming of VO files, creation of folder structures and automatic sorting
Destroy All Humans! is out
Destroy All Humans! (Black Forest Games/THQ Nordic) was released on July, 28th 2020!
I worked on this game as Head of Audio, which entailed:
- Audio Development in UE4
- Design of custom audio features and systems incl. music system, nested ambiences system etc.
- Sound Design
- Restoration of the original game’s voiceover and music
- Creation of scripts to batch-process renaming of VO files, creation of folder structures and automatic sorting
Inhouse Audio Design Project for Ubisoft Bluebyte
August to September 2017, I had the very special honor and duty to help out on-site & fulltime (5 days a week) at Ubisoft Bluebyte as an audio designer, working in the trenches with the audio team of audio director Stefan Randelshofer.
This was beyond helpful & insightful, I learned so many new things & tricks, new perspectives, different ways to work with and think about audio, while being involved with 3 games, both international and national IPs. I mean, I am doing this for a while, but this big picture perspective of a company like Ubisoft, and Stefan’s strife for excellence – this was a great level up for me, for sure.
From the beginning, this was a limited position until the end of September, but we will of course stay in touch and who knows, maybe we will ride into battle again! Big thanks to the team: Stefan, Tino, Felix, Gabs and Arne, and all the other folks at Ubisoft Blue Byte! Thanks for the opportunity!
I hope to be able to shed more light on the specific games I got to work on, but safe to say, I take a lot of new input & energy into 2018!
Head of Audio @ Black Forest Games
Adding this here retroactively, to complete the timeline. 2018 I joined Black Forest Games as Head of Audio.
Dungeons 3 is out now! (PC/Xbox One/PS4)
Happy to say that Dungeons 3 is out now (for PC, Xbox One and PS4)! It was a big honor and fun working on the sound and audio integration for my friends at Realmforge in Munich again. Super happy to see the good reviews coming in, congrats to the team!
Thanks to everyone at Realmforge for allowing me to be part of this development adventure! It was a pleasure!
Lost Earth 2307!
Today, I want to present to you a very special game I have been helping with since 2013. It was finished earlier this year. Sadly, you can’t really test it out, it’s a very special thing:
Lost Earth 2307 is a 4X space game AND a serious game, produced by Fraunhofer Institute for use in education by the German military (“Bundeswehr”). This time, I was involved in many areas: Music, sound design, voice recordings, editing & post-production, on-site audio integration using FMOD, text work, video editing and scripting them using ActionScript!
A BIG thanks to Daniel Atorf and the great team of scientist I had the pleasure to work with! Especially the on-site work was a fresh experience, to work with scientists is a pleasant thing! Thanks to Simon & Linked Dimensions!
Back from Quo Vadis conference
End of last month, I was in Berlin for Quo Vadis conference. This time, I was exhibitor thanks to the efforts of Kai Rosenkranz, who set up a great shared booth for video game composers. Big thanks to him, to my fellow booth partners and to everyone I met at the conference. Still need to write all the mails, but they will come. 😉
Our European Game Composers booth (I’m 3rd from the left)
Photo credits: Uwe Voelkner / FOX
“Dungeons 3” announced
Dungeons 3 (Realmforge/Kalypso) was announced today! Glad to add that I am working on sound design again, and it’s a huge blast! Release on PC, Mac, Linux, Xbox One & PS4 is scheduled for autumn 2017.
( Read more )
Nominated for the German Developer Award for “Best Sound”
Tomorrow is the annual award ceremony of the German Developer Award (Deutscher Entwicklerpreis), and this year a game we helped with is nominated again for its audio: Crookz (Skilltree/Kalypso) is nominated for “Best Sound”. I provided sound design and on-site audio integration for this game.
Best of luck to the other nominated games, too, especially of course those we also worked on: Dungeons 2 (Realmforge/Kalypso), Forge of Empires Mobile & Elvenar. 🙂
We will be there to meet new and old friends, if you happen to see me, say hello! 🙂
Dungeons 2 – A Game of Winter & A Clash of Pumpkins
We were allowed to revisit the world of Dungeons 2 to work on DLC and a big addon. “A Game of Winter” is pretty massive, containing our sfx & additional music this time, too. Check it out @ Steam, everything “Dungeons” is reduced right now due to Halloween sale. Talking of which, there is also some free Halloween DLC:
“Jerry McPartlin – Rebel With A Cause” has been released
Jerry is out! I have followed the course of this game for quite some time now, in different ways. I helped pitch an early version @ Gamescom, provided music for the announcement trailer, and worked on an earlier version of the story. Sound design, proofreading (by fellow Knight Heike) – you name it! 😉
Anyway, it’s a a rock ‘n roll adventure set in the 50ies, humorous but with a mysterious undercurrant – check it out on Steam or Amazon!
“Crooks – The Big Heist” is out now!
“Crookz – The Big Heist” (Skilltree/Kalypso) is out now, featuring my sound design and audio integration.
As I said, I think it turned out quite good, nice stylish and bold game. I had a great time, working closely with the team in Berlin. Therefore, it makes me happy to see that it currently sits at a Metacritic score of 76.
Check it out, as I said earlier, there is also a demo!
Thanks Skilltree & Kalypso for having me 🙂
Mystery of Neuschwanstein is out!
The mysterious and atmospheric Hidden Object Puzzle Adventure “Mystery of Neuschwanstein” (Chimera/astragon) is now available on Steam (PC/MAC) and iOS. Due to the cool mood, I had a blast with the sound design. Check it out 🙂
Best Presentation 2013 for Memoria
Adventuretreff , top German site for adventure games, gave an editor’s choice award for Best Presentation 2013 to Daedalic’s game Memoria (feat. our music and sound effects), (translated) quote: “We think: Concerning graphics, sound and production, The Dark Eye: Memoria has convinced us the most last year. Beautifully drawn backgrounds, manifold animations, excellent music and voice actors make us virtually breathe the Dark Eye atmosphere.”
Thanks Adventuretreff, and congrats again to Daedalic for a job well done!
Blackguards is out now (PC/Mac)!
Blackguards (Daedalic / Eurovideo) is out now! Daedalic’s venture into the realm of round-based RPG strategy is available for PC and Mac, on Steam (10% off till tomorrow!) or in stores. Deluxe and collector’s editions contain a selection of our soundtrack, too. We are glad & proud to have worked on music and sound design, or how Gamestar Magazine would put it, “good weapon sound effects” and “atmospheric soundtrack.”
Check out the game, the entire first chapter is available as free demo.
Early Access to Blackguards on Steam
To repeat the quote on Steam:
“Blackguards is now available on Early Access. The team is incredibly proud, since now we can present the fruit of two and a half years of intensive hard work. We’ve created a game we really like ourselves and want to play: a turn-based strategy game with many RPG elements and an intense, gritty story.”
One of our biggest projects so far, developed by Daedalic with our music and sounds, check it out!!
MobileWebAward for Rally the World
Rally the World. The Game (by Aperto/Brightside Games) has won the Mobile Webaward 2013 for Best Game Site Mobile Application (w/ our sounds and voices). Congratulations!!
Laser Match out for mobile devices
Hey there,
Laser Match has hit the app store and Google play store. This indie mobile game by Klaus Ullrich features our music & sounds while combining elements of match 3 games with tetris and LASERS in a scifi arcade setting. With puzzle and action modes. Check it out and support indie development!
11 nominations for games we helped with
German Developer Awards (Deutscher Entwicklerpreis) ceremonies are coming up, and nominations have been announced:
11 nominations for 5 games we helped with! Coolness ladies and gentlemen, well done!
The games are:
Memoria, Sidekick Cycle, Smash ‘n Bash, Rally the World. The Game and Word Wonders!
Best of luck to them, and to our other friends in the industry as well! Last awards, all our nominations got an award, maybe we can make that happen again 😉 CU there…
Cheers, Daniel
Happy Hills 2: Bombs Away! is out for iOS devices
Finally out! Happy Hills 2: Bombs Away! (Chimera Entertainment/dreamfab/Thumbstar Games), sequel to the very entertaining physics action puzzler Happy Hills, has hit the iOS app store. With new music, sounds and voices by the Knights of Soundtrack, featuring my friend Marco Rosenberg as the revamped hills.
I really like those games, not only from our audio angle (Happy Hills 1 for example is a project whose audio package I am still very.. ehm… happy with, one of my favourite achievements), but I also like this mix of action puzzling (things explode and are flying everywhere, you sometimes need to be quick) and the clever physics part (working with freezing, melting, friction, chain reactions in the right order to solve a level). It deserves to be a huge hit. 🙂
Try it out, 160 levels are waiting for you. 🙂
– Daniel
Blackguards Closed Beta Launched
Blackguards is a totally new line of advance from our friends at Daedalic, a massive RPG set in the Dark Eye universe, with a huge and complex soundtrack by your very own Knights of Soundtrack!
Yesterday, the Closed Beta started! Check out these screenshots, or the official website.
Released: Memoria (PC/Mac)
Memoria (Daedalic/Deep Silver) is now available for PC and Mac!
Memoria is the sequel to the Dark Eye point-and-click adventure Chains of Satinav. As mentioned earlier, we had the honour to ride again with our friends from Hamburg (for the sixth time! ❤ ), and provided music and sound effects for this critically acclaimed title with ratings like 10/10, 94%, 90%, 90% plus some friendly words about the soundtrack on top:
“1st class soundtrack… outstanding soundtrack… good sound effects”Gamestar “A soundtrack to fall in love with … wonderful fantasy tracks accompany the game atmospherically from the first minute to the last.”
Gameswelt
“the music score is absolutely fantastic, from the soft-playing harp melodies in the menu screen to the gripping orchestrations during the final chapters. They’re so good, in fact, that you’ll wish the game included unlockable music tracks in the Bonus menu. The ambient sounds of your surroundings are equally pleasing, and whether the locations are teaming with life or buried beneath the surface of the land, you’ll never doubt your ears. […] beautiful array of ambient sound effects and mesmerizing orchestrations.”
Cheat Code Central
Here is the trailer again:
And some screenshots:
Knights Of Soundtrack 