I'm a solo dev working on a Game Boy Color-inspired RPG. I'm hiring a composer / sound designer to help define the game's audio identity and produce an initial set of music and sound effects.

About the game

• Setting: remote North Atlantic fishing villages. Fog, dark sea, weathered saltbox houses, rocky coasts
• Mood: lonely, windswept, melancholic, horror-adjacent vibes
• Art style: authentic Game Boy Color-inspired aesthetic, top-down, four colors per tile, desaturated near-monochrome palette
• Inspiration: Tall tales of the sea. Moby Dick, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Creature from the Black Lagoon, The Fisherman, The North Water. Stories that have a deep reverence, respect, and fear of the sea
• References: Dredge (tone, vibes), Robert Eggers' films (desaturated colors, natural-light palettes, also vibes), Widow's Bay (gloomy/spooky coastal)

About the sound

• Loop Hero is the north star for both music and sound design. For music, the moodier and less energetic tracks. For sound design, that bitcrushed, downsampled crunchiness
• Music is rhythmic and melodic, but moody and low-key
• Every track is a loop that repeats for as long as the player is in an area, so it needs to hold up on continuous listening
• Sound design is crunchy and lo-fi
• It should FEEL authentic to the Game Boy. Real Game Boy audio could only play four sounds at once, and I'd like arrangements to stay in that spirit and stay sparse, but can break this rule when needed. It's more important that it feels authentic than it actually being authentic
• Imagine you found a Game Boy Color in the middle of the forest, and it's dirty and mildewy, and it's almost out of battery, but miraculously it still plays
• Arrangements should stay uncluttered enough that sound effects can clearly be heard over the music

About the job

• The work: create a small, highly-polished set of music tracks and sound effects for a pitch video and early marketing materials. Roughly 4 tracks and 10 sound effects
• Long-term potential: if we work well together, the full game will need tons of audio and I'd love to continue the relationship

Details

• Looking for one person to handle both the music and the sound effects
• Paid audio test for everyone who seems like they could be a good fit. This includes one round of notes which is included in the fee
• Short mutual NDA before the test brief goes out. Full project brief and a complete list of the music and sound effects I need provided after
• You deliver the audio files and I'll handle putting them in the game
• Work-for-hire contract
• All work must be your own. Use of generative AI in any way is not accepted

To apply

• Send an email with your portfolio or reel
• Include any similar work to the description above, even if it's unreleased or just a fragment
• Any sound design work specifically, if it isn't obvious from the reel
• Your availability and your rates