Making Noises

<Mah0gany>  I think we should get ambience sound effects
<Tigershark> wat
<Tigershark> now?
<Tigershark> do you have any idea how close we are to release
<Mah0gany> you know like café and school cafeteria stuff
<Tigershark> but they cost so much = (
<Mah0gany> I know
<Mah0gany> so we make our own?
<Mah0gany> don’t you have that recording stick?
<Tigershark> are you talking about the black dildo
<Tigershark> yes I have it
<Tigershark> damn thing’s costing me more money than I saved
<Tigershark> don’t know how to use it
<Tigershark> I’m not a sound designer whatever
<Tigershark> but okay, I’ll try
<Tigershark> give me a list of the ones you want

Look at it.

And so, with a compiled list in hand, our fearless hero (that’s me) sets out on a clear Saturday morning to attempt to immortalize the sounds of this world in a recording.

It did not fare well.

It really isn’t until you pay attention to your surroundings that you realize just how loud they are. It’s crazy. Next time you go outside, close your eyes and just listen. Only then can you appreciate the sheer amount of sounds and noises that your brain normally filters out.

I spent two hours walking around the city, ears perked up trying to find a suitable spot to record without unwanted interruptions. Those two hours also consisted of visiting ten cafés because Mah0gany wanted “eating noises”. It’s next to impossible to record in those kinds of place because music is almost always played in a café, and using them would violate copyright.

Hell, I didn’t even KNOW there were ten cafés close to where I lived.

Also, you’ve never known awkwardness until you spend 10 minutes standing in the middle of a food court, pointing a fuzzy, black dildo at your surroundings. My wind muffler looks like the tip of an erect penis mushroom.

The final one on my list was park ambience. Basically, rustling leaves, birds, crickets chirping…

Text message:

Tigershark: okay im at the foot of the mountain. cant do this too loud.
Mah0gany: whats wrong
Tigershark: im 300 meters away from street and i can still hear traffic noises and sirens. going home now ttyl
Mah0gany: climb up mountain dude
Tigershark: taking shelter under mountain. its winter and the wind is killing me and ruining recordings. the wind muffler. it does nothing.
Mah0gany: just get birds and insect sounds then come home
Tigershark: ITS WINTER. EVERYTHING IS DEAD

Death.

10 minutes later:

Tigershark: i found ducks next to the museum. you like ducks?
Mah0gany: lol no
Tigershark: good, because the children here are feeding them and i can’t record anything anyway

And three grueling hours later, I come home with barely any ambience sounds we can use. Currently, we’re still considering whether implementing them would make the VN better or would it just detract from the atmosphere of the soundtrack.

We have yet to reach a consensus, but you’ll see in the final game whether there’s ambience or not.

-Tigershark

Overload Preparations and the Dreaded Crunch

Pictured: Everything we haven’t yet done

Hey guys,

This is just a heads up to let you people know that we will be attending the Overload Convention on the 23^rd of July.

Here’s their lovely website: http://www.overload.co.nz/

You’ve probably never heard of it (hipsterkitty) but that’s only because Overload takes place in this obscure country called New Zealand.

Still no luck? It’s under Australia.*

No, not Antarctica. New Zealand.

Pictured: The Electrofish Team (there can only be one)

We will be selling A2 and A3 posters as well as physical copies of our demo.

What this basically means is that it’s CRUNCH TIME.

Mah0gany has been working non-stop, churning out posters and sprites as well as multiple CGs.

I’ve been testing, doing rewrites, buying all the necessary stuff for Overload and doing all the grunt work. The printing presses here charge an arm and a leg to print anything, so I’ve also been trying to gather some funds/cut costs where possible. Pretty sure we’ll be operating at a loss here, but that’s life for you.

kaoS is busy freezing his socks off in his sex dungeon frozen city of doom (he’d actually be writing this blog post if he could bear to take off his fuzzy gloves), while Gumaster is busy getting his wisdom teeth pulled out.

kaoS: s-s-so…co-co-cold…can’t…e-e-even…f-f-fap…

Well okay, it’s crunch time for MOST of us.

- Tigershark

*Where everything is out to kill you except Hugh Jackman. [citation needed]

Happy New Year!

Best wishes from Electrofish Studios for a wonderful and prosperous 2011.

I’ve just returned home from a hectic one week long road trip, it was an awesome experience with its fair share of ups and downs. But if I was given the chance to relive it all over again, I’d do it in a heart beat. Except for the skydiving though, I hated that.

Happy New Year and I hope you all enjoy your holiday as much as I did.

- kaoS

Happy Holidays!

(click to enlarge)

Best wishes from the Electrofish team!

kaoS: everyone on the team is on the naughty list. hurr hurr.

Have fun, be safe, and cherish your friends.

- Tigershark

Suddenly! Legs!

Tonight, ladies and gentlemen, we’re proud to present to you a little vignette of our journey to create the perfect pair of legs. However, if you’re inclined to skip straight to the final product, it’s right at the bottom of this post.

Disclaimer: the images shown below are not representative of the final product and may be subject to change.

Oh and just a few words on my side of things, we actually did end up extending the demo a bit more, making it up to around about 100k words. Gumaster  should be happy now that his OCD is satisfied.

Anyway, back to more Duke Nukeming.

Well actually now that I think about, this blog post is kind of silly because we’re not even going to show legs in the demo. They will appear in the final version in the menu screens but, at this point in development, they’re not going to make an appearance.

You may then ask the question: then what’s the point of adding legs now?

‘Proportions’ would be my answer. It’s actually very easy to make mistakes when you’re drawing if you don’t have a clear idea of the whole body.

Let me give you an example:

At first glance, there’s nothing wrong with this sprite. Indeed, that’s what we all thought until Mah0gany decided it was a good idea to ignore the CGs I wanted and add legs to the characters. (ignoring my requests is something he does on a regular basis.)

So when we gave her legs, we realized that her arms were a bit too long. And not just for her either, after doing a few rough sketches, we realized that the problem is present in most of our character sprites.

You’ll find that we also Duke Nukem’d her clothes. It now has creases and generally looks better than before. We’ll also rework her sleeves a little later on.

kaoS: heh, duke nukem’d her clothes, I like the sound of that.

Why are you still here?

kaoS: because you haven’t fired me yet.

Fair enough.

Moving On:

Now what you see here is our first attempt. I have to admit I wasn’t quite sure about showing this version and I think you can see why.

<kaoS> good god what’s wrong with those legs
<Mah0gany> these are real life proportions
<kaoS> we’re not drawing real life
<Tigershark> might wanna make them standard anime length
<Mah0gany> but anime legs are so looooong
<kaoS> but these are like rubber pipes!

And the Second:

<kaoS> longer
<Gumaster> longer
<Tigershark> longer
<Mah0gany> damn you guys
<Tigershark> you’ve heard of the phrase
<Tigershark> ‘she had legs that went on forever’ right?
<Mah0gany> fine

Third Time Lucky?:

<Tigershark> you might wanna take a break
<Tigershark> think you’ve been staring at the art for so long
<Tigershark> you’ve gone a bit numb
<Mahogany> yeah okay
<Mah0gany> going to sleep
<Mah0gany> talk to you guys tomorrow

The next day:

<Mah0gany> I just checked what I drew yesterday
<Mah0gany> what the hell was I doing
<kaoS> drugs
<Tigershark> hookers
<Gumaster> at the same time

One More Try:

<kaoS> longer
<Gumaster> longer
<Tigershark> he’s gonna kill us
<Mah0gany> I’m gonna kill you guys

Let’s Have One More:

<Mah0gany> oh wait, that does look better

<kaoS> wait, her shoes…why so huge
<Tigershark> lol
<Mah0gany> goddamnit

And Finally!:

<kaoS> yeah there we go
<Tigershark> looks great, doesn’t it
<Mah0gany> finally
<kaoS> if it were up to me
<kaoS> and I’m just saying ‘if’
<Tigershark> lol
<kaoS> I’d make them just a little bit longer

- Tigershark