Pirate Bae – Cassette
Plasticy claps and hats add the juice to this cassette sampled track.
Performed live, using Maschine Music Studio.
charging up...
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Crisis Simulations
Plasticy claps and hats add the juice to this cassette sampled track.
Performed live, using Maschine Music Studio.
Put together a quick track to showcase how I do during a live performance.
The cramps in my left hand were pretty intense, this is a two-handed job.
Enjoy the rough and ready tune.
P.S. Mind the crunch at the end – live recording loves to add artefacts for some reason…
Toms, hats.
Where my drummy boys at?
It’s been a hot minute since I’ve hit the studio.
Have you ever thought about designing a tabletop game?
Do you have 10 minutes to spare?
Join Chris Kingsnorth, founder of 10minutedesignchallenge.co.uk, and Rob Sparks, Creative Director at Board Game Bud, for laid-back discussions about tabletop game design and the board game community.
View ProjectTinderblox is a fun, easy to learn dexterity game that comes in a pocket-size mini-tin so you’re always ready to play.
Challenge your friends and family to ‘Play with fire’ as you gather around to build a 3D campfire, but don’t get burned! If you drop a piece of the fire you lose the game!
Tinderblox funded to the tune of £44,476 with the support of 2,485 backers on Kickstarter.
Feeling the contrasting mix of soft keys and acid synth.
Soft and crunchy like yoghurt and granola.
Delicious.
What you been up to?
Not much, you?
I’ve finally discovered chords…
Live performance from a drunken Friday night drum pad session. Keen to tighten this one up for the EP, when I’ve got a hot minute.
There was an echoing bell.
In a dream I once had…
It sounded a little bit like this.
Another track for the lockdown EP that has been filling my evenings. Tricky to get an off beat sounding right here, but I think it comes out well in the wash.
Darker nights make me tired.
At least that means I get more sleep.
The void ain’t all that bad.
The first track I’ve put out there in a long time. Discovering how to use Guitar Rig to record live performances has been a game changer.
Have you ever wanted to design a tabletop game?
It’s not as hard as you think!
In this short seminar, published tabletop game designer, Rob Sparks, talks about his progression from hobbyist board game fan to a published game designer in under a year.
Six stories outlining his journey accompany six lessons that he wished he learned sooner:
These lessons are rooted in game design, but they are useful for any creative pursuit. If you’re a board game fan looking to begin your journey designing games, there has never been a better time.
Being locked in (thanks COVID-19) doesn’t mean you can’t start looking for inspiration, sharing your ideas, and creating something amazing to enjoy for years to come.
Rob Sparks pops into WNW Towers to chat about his on fire Kickstarter TinderBlox which you can back by checking out the links below. We also talk about limiting your design choices by creating for mint tins, punning until we can’t pun no more and general very much nonsense.
We had fun. Hope you do listening along.
View ProjectTo celebrate the launch of Tinderblox, I hosted a smashing party at the one and only Chance & Counters, Bristol.
Featuring lots of really questionable campfires, and a venue at maximum legal capacity, it was awesome to have such a great crowd. The people of 365 Bristol were there to see the Kickstart hit £11,000 (double the funding goal) in under 10 hours!
The night was a highlight of my career; we got amply sauced on craft beer, danced around the board game cafe, and run tournament games to crown the champion. Turns out I suck at my own game…
Speaking of highlights, check out the videos of the night over on Instagram.
Thinking outside the box is my speciality, especially when it comes to board games.
Cue headhunter for the role of Cyber Crisis Simulator Content Developer, and I quickly realised I needed to impress.
I took their technical assignment to write a two-page crisis scenario and decided to spend my two days time limit making their product into a game instead.
It definitely helped me get the job, and hopefully, you may get to see it at one the many Cyber conventions Immersive Labs markets at.
Take command of one of two mighty Viking navies in this easy to learn, deeply strategic card placement game. Plan your attack as you assemble your Viking navy with a strong fleet of Drakkar longships – and draft support from the dangerous serpents of the sea.
Launch attacks and bolster your fleet by covering as many enemy longships as possible with your cards – just be careful not to leave your own units exposed to a counter-attack!
You’ll be set up and drumming for battle in under a minute, on a unique playing field each time. A tactical game of pure skill and evolving strategies awaits you – Steed of the Sea…
Will you claim glorious dominance of the waves; or will your fate be left to the briny deep?
DRAKKARD was a finalist in the Button Shy 18 identical card challenge. Watch the tutorial video here.
In 2018, working remotely was a bit of a novelty. Perfect fodder for a stand up set at my local comedy club. where I covered how to overcome procrastibation, getting on a first name basis with the mailman, and the sudden realisation that you haven’t left the house for three days whenever you put the bins out.
Fast forward to 2021, and little did I know I’d be preparing the punters at the comedy club for the working from home lockdown landscape we see ourselves in today.
It was an absolute blast to take hold of my anxiety, put together a set, and hit the stage for this Christmas comedy event.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t filmed, so you’ll have to take my word on it – it was a lot of fun.
And yes, I shaved my head for the occasion…
If you’re in the Bristol area, you can’t go wrong with attending a How Lazy Is He comedy night.
Fly away with this dice drafting, push-your-luck puzzle game, where you pack the game away as you play.
Prepare your bags for different interesting trips, and bring the right items for various destinations. Just try not to overpack and under prepare for your next Trip…
You’ll jet-set up in under one minute; so enjoy a quick game or play multiple different trips on a Journey. Enjoy a Perfect Trip, and you’ll have already packed the game away – bonus!
Pack It Tin was designed with minimal setup and pack away time/effort in mind.
Out of the five available awards, Pack It Tin was the winner of Board Game Geek’s 2018 Mint Tin Design Challenge:
Whilst placing third in the remaining two categories:
Contest Entry: Board Game Geek
If you’re interested in publishing Pack It Tin, please click here to review the sell sheet, and reach out using the contact page.
HITC Sport Live brings all the content from HITC along with curated transfer news from around the web. With the addition of live sports, we aim to make this app your primary source for football information.
Developed in Swift at a time where the language was relatively new (little help from stack overflow), this app was a baptism of fire to work on.
However, it sharpened our knowledge and developed our skills to produce a brilliant sports app to compliment our website.
View ProjectiSo is a colourful isometric elimination game for 2-4 players. Built as a side project, the game ran on PC and was built in the Unity 4.3 engine.
Run around colouring as many map tiles as possible before the elimination clock runs to zero.
The player with the least coloured tiles has their tiles continually flash to let them know elimination is looming.
Moving over another colour tiles replaces that colour, bringing them even closer to elimination.
A selection of power-ups has been created for the different maps in the game, along with multiple game modes and modifiers, such as elimination, blind mode, and team games.
Due to other projects taking priority, the development of iSo was halted in 2016, but the project served as a launchpad into the wider gaming industry, as well as a beautiful project piece immortalised right here.
I always grin when I look back on this beauty, and all the late, caffeine fueled nights spent piecing it together.
Braul is a local multiplayer game based around an ancient Aztec Mesoamerican ballgame, with the addition of combat elements to spice up the action. Using Xbox 360 Controllers, up to four players can duke it out in the arena to see who can brawl their way to victory.
Take control of Tochtli (Rabbit), Chimalli (Shield), Xochitl (Flower), or Xilonon (Hairy one) in a battle royale to see who has the balls of fury. Combine precision and combat prowess; players can steal the ball from each other in the hope that they’ll be able to land a clear shot at the goal and clinch victory.
Braul boasts the ability to be played as a free for all game, or as a team game, with changeable win settings; highest score in two minutes, or first to 15 points.
The concept for Braul was inspired by the incredible controller-based local multiplayer games we played at university, such as Rayman Legends, Spelunky, and Little Big Planet. Though we’ve adored the single-player elements of these games, it was the mini-games included in these games (Rayman’s Kung Foot, Spelunky’s Death match, and Little Big Planet’s Basketball) that caught our attention.
We wanted to produce a game that we wanted to play, with our friends, deciding to combine elements of our inspirations into something playable, and over time, the vehicle in which we would present this combination of game styles made itself apparent; the Aztec Mesoamerican ball game.
As for the name ‘Braul’, we took the two main elements of the game (the ball game, and the fighting, or ‘brawling’), and combined them to make Braul (pronounced just like ‘brawl’).
The art-style we chose for Braul was reminiscent of Rayman Legends, with all graphics in the game hand-drawn by Paddy Selman. We decided to utilise this theme throughout the game, to ensure everything looked vibrant fresh, with a wet paint style worked into the core elements of the artworks.
Five tracks were produced for the video game, three of which were used in the menu systems, gameplay, and sudden death situations.
Concentrating on percussion, the tracks all include a wide selection of tribal drums, darbukas, bongos, claves, guiros, tablas, and cowbells for good measure, to create a very busy and exciting selection of tracks for Braul. Sound effects for the game were also original, keeping in line with this percussion theme.
You can listen to them, along with music produced for iSo, on Soundcloud.
Slow down and soak up some summer heat.
I really like down-timbre bass and falling piano sounds in this track. So much so, I gave it the name Embers, and it stuck immediately.
Eventide (noun) – The end of the day; evening.
One of my simplest releases from way back when I barely knew what half the buttons on my Maschine Mikro did.
I still don’t…