In 2012, the stealth-action video game Dishonored was released. Developed by Arkane Studios and released by Bethesda, it was what any fan of sly first-person games could hope for. In the industrial, free-roaming city of Dunwall, players could choose to be a lethal action hero, a strategic assassin, or a nonviolent vigilante, avoiding brutal deaths through quick reaction and … [Read more...]
Mixing “Serial” (no milk required) – An interview with Kate Bilinski
For this month's theme, I interviewed Kate Bilinski who was a editor and mixer on the second season of the Serial podcast. Kate is a sound designer and re-recording mixer. Outside of the Serial podcast, she makes noises for film and television, including Todd Solondz’s ‘Wiener-Dog’ and the Emmy-winning documentary, ‘We Could Be King.’ Serial is a serialized award-winning … [Read more...]
Helping visually impaired children through audio – An interview with Monica Gori from ABBI
Acknowledging a lack of solutions to help visually impaired children to apprehend their movements and surroundings, a team lead by IIT-researcher Monica Gori created the ABBI project. Built with young children in mind, this bracelet is generating audio based on body movement and spatial localisation and, therefore, helping them interacting with other and their surroundings. … [Read more...]
Recording Life and Nature: an interview with Gordon Hempton
With more than 30 years of professional activity, Gordon Hempton has dedicated most of his life to listen and record the sounds of nature, an endangered soundscape that he has sworn to protect as a recordist and an activist. Part of his life work has been made available for the rest of the sound community since 2012 trough the now very popular Quiet Planet sound libraries. … [Read more...]
Sonic interactions with the world: an interview with Hildegard Westerkamp
Thoughts on sound interactivity on different kinds of media should perhaps be accompanied by thoughts on how we relate to our daily sonic environment. Roughly speaking, the world we live in is actually the first and most important interface we have to deal with and sound plays a big part in that relationship whether we take it for granted or not. Internationally acclaimed … [Read more...]
Through the Norwegian Woods: An Interview with Dan Wakefield
It began as a student project and became a successfully-funded Kickstarter, a GDC "Best in Play" exhibitor, and the "Sound of the Year" winner at the 2015 Norwegian Game Awards. After three years of hard work, Through the Woods was publicly released last month to let players traverse its immersive and fantastical landscape full of the usual Norwegian things: fjords, lush … [Read more...]
Role-playing with Sound: An Interview with Drew Becker
As we continue our series focusing on the creators and artists of blind-accessible games, we now interview sound designer Drew Becker. Drew has worked on titles such as Woodsy Studio's Serafina’s Crown and their recently released Echoes of the Fey: The Fox’s Trail. Drew is also the sound designer for the upcoming blind-accessible turn-based strategy game, A Hero's Call, … [Read more...]