Rumblings from the Studio

Recently we were pleased to be introduced to a couple companies that are geared to helping and inspiring indie game developers and game designers to make great games. We’re pretty familiar with this idea. And we share the very same mission, so we thought it would be appropriate to tell you more about it. Even more, our conversation with our new friend Justin, the company’s operating manager, yielded a new game sound resource that is probably the new best place to start for game sound design, for any game developer. We are pleased to introduce you to three great resources for indie game developers.

Indie Game Developers Learn with Cartoon Smart

Cartoon Smart is a tutorial and education platform for helping and teaching independent game developers and designers. The site is run by hands on game dev geeks so the content is street smart and tuned to the real world. The subscription based content is focused around learning how to build and design games faster.  They offer tutorials on technologies like iOS and tvOS, Unity3D and HTML 5 plus comprehensive tutorials on Illustration and Animation techniques. The platform is supported with a growing community forum too.

The offering is extended to include kits, templates and royalty free graphic assets that give the indie game developer ample content to build their projects. This highlights their focus on making game development faster and easier, particularly for those that are just starting out. Importantly, they offer a free account with tutorials on iOS development, Adobe Animate and Javascript essentials training. It’s clearly a great place to start game dev learning.

Ready to Go Game Art with Game Art Partners

The site Justin runs is called Game Art Partners. They share assets with the Cartoon Smart game dev tutorial platform. Game Art Partners is worth a look when you need a source of pre-made animated graphic assets to complement your project. Choose from characters, GUI, levels and environments, warfare and FX, pixel art, animated PNGs, isometric objects and a cadre of monsters of course. A great way to get familiar with the Game Art Partners catalog is to check out their free game art download pack. You won’t be disappointed.

In our conversation with Justin, we got to talking about the difficulty and challenge indie game developers face when it comes to creating game sound for their projects. Sound effects, UI/UX interaction sounds, background ambiences, loops, intro, achievement and background lobby music and every other aspect of sound in a game must be created an incorporated into what is hopefully a dynamic and engaging gameplay experience. For most indie developers this is a daunting task. Moreover, most game developers and story designers are not skilled or trained in sound engineering, sound design or music composition whatsoever. We came up with a solution that is sure to jump start any game development project.

Sounds That Make an Engaging Gameplay Experience

Game sound, like game graphics, are critical to creating an engaging gameplay experience. As we talked with Justin, we realized it would be super helpful to create a sound effects kit for the Cartoon Smart and Game Art Partners developers. The kit would provide virtually everything they would need to instantly outfit their game project with sound. Thus, The Cartoon Smart and Game Art Partners Game Sound Kit was born. We configured this custom sound pack bundle to include the typical audio assets a game developer would need from a sound perspective: Sound effects, UI/UX interaction sounds, background loops and game music. It’s all royalty free. Premixed and mastered, AAA game studio quality SFX are ready to use out of the box (RTU-OTB). Free sample sounds are available here. Be sure to check out all the demo sound tracks on the Game Sound Kit page.

So, there you go. If you’re looking for resources to help you learn and help speed the progress of your game development project, these three resources are a great place to start. Considering the fact that each one includes a no cost option to get familiar with the content, it’s is all the more reason to check them out today.