{"id":1034,"date":"2015-04-16T08:22:17","date_gmt":"2015-04-16T15:22:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.theredactedfiles.com\/?p=1034"},"modified":"2015-04-16T08:30:51","modified_gmt":"2015-04-16T15:30:51","slug":"interview-battlebards-kickstarter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theredactedfiles.com\/?p=1034","title":{"rendered":"Interview: BattleBards Kickstarter"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Hey everyone! We had the chance to talk to the creators of the exciting new BattleBards Kickstarter<\/a> in the days before it goes live. BattleBards is a new tool for introducing audio into your Table Top games. It comes with an impressive library of sound effects, ambient music, and a way to combine the any files into something new and special for your game. They sent me the Soundboard they created in their last Kickstarter<\/a>\u00a0which was really amazing. I enjoyed that they had multiple tabs to keep track of your ambient music, SFX, and other files. You can save your most used files to a side panel, so they’re easy to use over and over, and it’s easy to set something to loop. It’s a much more handy way to handle sound files then fumbling around in iTunes and it looks awesome to boot. We sent our most burning questions to the group behind BattleBards, and here’s what we learned!<\/p>\n

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  1. Tell us about yourself and how you got into RPGs<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    We all grew up around gaming and it\u2019s grown from a hobby to a passion.\u00a0 We\u2019ve all come into RPG\u2019s from different angles.<\/p>\n

    Mike came into RPG\u2019s starting from reading the Dragonlance series of books which primed him for jumping into Dungeons and Dragons.\u00a0 Alex came into RPG\u2019s from video games, namely, the series of Might and Magic games which also, primed him for D&D realizing \u201cWait, I can run my OWN Might and Magic type stuff with my friends?!\u201d Kyn has always been a hardcore console gamer and RPG fan (Dragon Warrior!!!!). In highschool he was introduced to Spellfire the CCG based on Forgotten Realms and then to AD&D 2nd<\/sup> Edition through his geek friends. He was hooked and began enjoying weekly doses of junk food driven TTRPG Campaigns.<\/p>\n

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    1. What do you think adding ambient music and SFX brings to a tabletop game?<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      Sound effects provide evocative accenting to combat and important sequences around the gaming table.\u00a0 Music adds the emotional context for a scene, providing that all important tool to help the GM direct players\u2019 energy as needed.\u00a0 A funny example of just how critical music is to contextualizing a scene, check out this rendition of the Star News A New Hope Ceremony scene at the end without John Williams\u2019 score. https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Tj-GZJhfBmI<\/a>.\u00a0 It\u2019s the same way with gaming.<\/p>\n

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      1. What do you have planned in the future? Will you continue to develop music\/SFX for Battlebards?<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

        The audio library will never stop growing as we continue to work with our talent to continuously release audio for gamers.\u00a0 In the future, once we are confident that we\u2019re offering wonderful content for fantasy gamers, we\u2019ll dive into Sci-Fi, modern, and cyberpunk settings, as directed by the Battlebards Community.<\/p>\n

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        1. What sets you apart from other RPG sound projects?<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

          This falls into two categories.\u00a0 First, let\u2019s talk about the audio itself.\u00a0 We set the bar exceedingly high for what we allow onto Battlebards. As such, we work with only the best artists who are known for their work on television, video games, and film. Another key difference is that we do not tie up with just one artist to do all the work. We throw every creative brief for the next audio piece we want to create to the entire artist community for auditions before settling on the right match. So, just because one artist can do an amazing Dark Elf Temple, doesn\u2019t mean that they\u2019ll produce an equally awesome Orc War March.<\/p>\n

          In terms of the tools, we have an almost single minded focus on simplicity.\u00a0 Alex, our Audio Director, has been using a ton of audio in his games for 15 years and if anyone knows the frustrations of needing multiple media players and minimized YouTube windows open every which place, it\u2019s him.\u00a0 Here, the focus is on customization and accessibility.\u00a0 GMs will be able to bring whatever audio they need at their fingertips by creating custom playlists which they can populate anyway they like.\u00a0 With super simple tools which don\u2019t extend in complexity beyond click and drag, Game Masters can crop tracks, layer a mix, adjust different volume settings in such a way that creating a rich multi-level mix can be done in a flash.\u00a0 Despite having so much audio, you\u2019ll always be able to find exactly what you need when you need it.<\/p>\n