Saturday Update!

Hrn... no bar... feels weird...

Good afternoon again friends! I may have spent the last week taking a break, but I'mma do an update anyway.

I mostly spent the week just taking it easy, but I did do a couple things!

Most boringly, I did my taxes [ boo ] but hey it's gotta get done, and I'm thankful I was able to do it during a break instead of trying to cram it in during work-time x'D Doing my taxes is always a bit of a bitch because I have to do everything by hand [ no employer to give me T4, or whatever the equivalent is in other countries ]. It went smoothly! No troubles aside from owing the government a bunch of taxes LMAO But this was absolutely expected and not an issue [ again, no employer to take taxes out of paychecks, so I have to pay a lump sum at the end of the year- I've been at this for a while so I simply save up to prepare for it ].

In WAY MORE INTERESTING NEWS, if you haven't heard me gushing about it on social media- I got a song license!!! I contacted Graveyardguy because I wanted to use the song 'GORE' on my credits page [ secretly, I've had my heart set on it for months and saved up for an offer ] and it went great!

I feel really proud of myself, because it's kinda the first time I've made a big business move myself and taken the reins fully, you know? I messaged him my offer [ will stay private about how much because I feel it would be unprofessional of me to say and possibly hinder him in the future if he wanted to charge more to someone else ] and wrote up a contract [ admittedly, using a free asset license contract template on google 🤣 ] and he immediately responded and said yes!!! I was so excited that I had to go outside and take a walk LMAO

We hashed out the details, signed the contract, I paid my dues, and the license is ours to use for the game!!! 🥳 I'm so happy!!!

On top of that, I actually have some more good news about the upcoming sound design for the game! I honestly can't believe my luck, but a friend of mine not only dabbles in dark grunge music for a hobby, but was interested in helping me with TPOF! We're still very much in the planning stages so I want to keep his privacy for now, but hopefully I will have more to share soon! 

The bottom line is, on top of getting the licensed song of my dreams for the credits, we may actually get CUSTOM MADE music for the title screen, and possibly other places as well. We've been casually talking about themes for the main 3 characters, and maybe something for death screens, but we'll see- I don't want to promise anything this early and I certainly don't want to respond to this kind favour by demanding too much you know? So I'll keep you guys posted! 

But can you imagine??? Custom music??? AAAAA I feel so incredibly lucky!!! 

Phew, but I do need to calm down and keep my eye on the ball! I still need to sign up for a sound/music library so I can get all the other sound effects and music for any other stuff.

I'm actually planning for the sound design to be rather different than BTD, mostly in that music won't always be present. Because of the way the game works, the player spends a lot more time alone- deciding where to go or what actions to take while an antagonist isn't even around. I want these phases of the game to lack music and to be more eerie and immersive feeling. Instead, I'm going to look for subtle environmental sounds- for instance, wind through trees for Mason's path, or humming fluorescent lights on Celia's path. Then, actual music will kick up when an event happens and the player meets another character [ this is where I'd likely be using the Character Themes ].

I think this strategy will offer me more opportunities to be scary too. Perhaps the sound of a stick breaking in the distance on Mason's path... or maybe a sharp quiet whisper when the player's sanity gets low. I'm really looking forward to it honestly! ^o^

I'm kind of glad my break is ending LMAO To be totally honest, I started getting antsy as early as Tuesday x'DDD I'm just getting so excited about working on the audio... but I know burnout is a real thing and I've been to enough workaholism rodeos to know where that road leads 😅 So I've been respecting the break.

BUT come Monday, it's time to dive back in. Gonna get that sound library membership, gonna actually insert GORE to the credits [ with a pic and nice little links for people who want to stream or buy his song because I KNOW they will ], and gonna start round 3 of editing while I start inserting sound effects and stuff! [ oh god, I have to delete all my game progress AGAIN LMAO thank goodness I made a button for that ]

ANYWAY I should probably stop chatterboxing y'alls ears off!

Thank you so so much for your incredible support through this crazy journey! I'm so excited to start this nearly final phase with you guys!

Stay safe and have a great weekend! ^o^ <3