Genetica is a lot more than just your usual texture-making software. It is a powerful node-based combination of a texture resynthesis tool with a texture generator, in which you – yes, YOU, not the software itself – can control each step of the way, producing exactly the textures you need, in the right size, color, pattern, substance and lightning. You can either start with one of the many texture presets already provided by Spiral Graphics, search their forums for some user submitted ones, or just start from scratch, by using various „labs” (generation algorythms) and advanced nodes providing you with tools and possibilites that the competition just doesn’t have. You can start in the middle, you can start at the very beginning, you can do anything you want – just click a node, set its properties and see how Genetica transforms the final texture accordingly to your actions.

If you’re one of the people who are easily overwhelmed by vast possibilites and options presented to you by software you’re using, better stick to the presets and don’t touch Genetica’s more advanced features. Genetica comes equipped with vector-based professional drawing tools that you can use to create full-fledged texture compositions, and a powerful set of lab systems that enable you to generate almost any substance or material in the universe. Liquids? Check. Hair and fur? Check. Weird-ass noise-based textures that look like someone just pulled them from another universe? Check. Although some textures may be harder to produce than others, Genetica offers you infinite possibilites and enables you to create every frakkin’ texture you may ever need for any of your projects – including the really bizarre ones.

Want more? Then how about enviromental reflections applied with a single click? Shadows and ambient occlusion? Normal maps? 3D effect maps? HDRI Environments? A batch processor? Or the awesome option (available only in Genetica Studio edition) to generate fully seamless, fully animated textures of fire, water, snow, plasma, magma and other awesome effects?

We’ve been creating textures for years now, both for commercial and non-commercial projects, and – believe us or not – Genetica is the best texturing software we’ve seen since troglodytes invented cave scribbling (well, that, and Adobe inventing Photoshop of course). And the bast part of it all? You can get it at our Game Design Store for a price lower than the producer’s! Ladies and gentlemen, get the ultimate texture maker before we run out!

Buy Genetica at the Panzer Flakes Game Design Store

Keywords: genetica | spiral graphics genetica | buy genetica | texture software

Maciej Byczyński is a busy man. And there’s no suprise to that, seeing that he’s the head honcho of the Game Day gamedevelopers conference, Imagine Cup 2010 Game Design semifinalist, Ernst & Young’s „Informational Society in Poland” contest finalist, Entrepreneurship Ambassador at the Silesian University, a Chairman of the Scientific Association at said University and – last, but not least – a PricewaterhouseCoopers Student Ambassador. And, yet – despite all of that – he somehow manages to find time to not only be an active member of the Polish game development scene, but also a founder of a death-metal band and… well, a Panzerblog interviewee. Ladies and Gentlemen, we give you… Maciej Byczyński!
 

 

• Panzer Flakes (Jakub Riedel): Hi Maciej. Let’s start off on the right foot here: could you tell us something about yourself? What do you do exactly, what are your passions?
  

Maciej Byczyński: Hi y’all! Basically, I’m still a student, but I managed to find some time for professional work. I’ve got lots of interests, but my most prominent passion are, of course, computer games, the gamedev industry and music, both listening to it and creating it. I intend to associate myself with game development in the future.

• PF: You’ve been doing so many things recently that I don’t know where to start… You’re the main organizer and coordinator of the Game Day gamedevelopers conference, a very cool Polish initiative we would like to know more about. Could you shed some light on it, throw some details at us?
  

MB: Comments and opinions about Game Day 2010 were really positive, which is a good thing – thank you for your support, people! A common opinion that I’ve came across when I was sending out the prospectus for our conference to the media and other interested parties was that there already have been similar conferences out there. And, sure, there are some very interesting events in the same area of interest, but Game Day’s profile was a bit different than what you could find elsewhere. Our main goal was to collaborate with the private sector, show how all of this works in practice, to gather experiences from gamedev companies and independent game designers and build on that. One of our main objectives was to crack through the faulty stereotype that game production is mostly about fun or entertaining yourself. There is a lot of people who don’t get that this is an enormous business. However, we’re going to change things a bit next year. Next Game Day will be held during the summer vacation time. Oh, and of course this year I was massively supported by Łukasz Strąk, a Microsoft’s student-partner.

• PF: Which companies made their appearance at this year’s Game Day?
  

MB: We had a bunch of attention-grabing companies at GD2k10. The whole conference was opened up by Microsoft, represented by Rafał Czupryński, who talked about „Shaders and what they are all about”, and Daniel Biesiada, who’s presentation was about „Game trends: games that people want to play”. Next in line was Artur Ganszyniec, a former CD Projekt employee, who talked about designing and developing story-driven video games, basing on his own experiences with „The Witcher”. He was followed by Nicolas Games, covering a wide spectrum of topics: from game design technologies and tools, through game graphics, up to gamedev’s business aspects. Wojtek Pazdur from The Farm 51 studio was our last speaker, talking about production managment and overall game design, using their current project as an example.

• PF: I really hope that we’ll join that cool cast at the next Game Day. You won’t mind if we take the podium in a swift assault, right? There won’t be any casualties, I promise.
  

  MB: There won’t be any casualties, because everyone at Game Day has „Godmode” switched on! Seriously, though – you’re more than welcome! I’m pretty sure that our next edition will be divided into two days, split accordingly to a thematic profile. I would like to make the first day of the conference a bit lighter, more popular-sciencey, approachable by anyone, while the second day would be a bit more hardcore, aimed at independent and commercial game developers. I really hope to make it a bit more tradeshowish, with lots of fresh news and featurettes.

• PF: „Tradeshowish” sounds good, really good. What I really love about initiatives such as Game Day is that they enable you to take a closer peek at the whole Polish game design industry, check out what’s on the horizon. Any thoughts and observations from this year’s edition?
  

  MB: The overall vast interest in the game design industry, for sure, and the fact that we had an occasion to talk to lots of gamedesigners. There were people who wanted to hear news about one specific game, others wanted to expand their knowledge about game development, others just wanted to meet some interesting people. It really would be awesome if someone went home after Game Day and said to himself: „I’m gonna’ start making video games”. That’s why I wanted to establish a connection between game developers and my university. „Business-education” and „education-business” connections sound really professional, but it’s not an easy task to try and find a way for such a connection to benefit both sides, especially when we’re talking about the game development industry.

• PF: You surely bumped into Nicolas Games at this year’s Game Day, so let me ask you this, maybe you can shed some light on the contradicting information we’re getting… Afterfall: will it be published or not?

MB: Which one, I could ask? Objectively speaking, I think that it will be published. Nicolas Games had a lot on their heads during the last two years and I’ve heard and read that some people have held many things against them. However, some of their difficulties were a result of some of their own essential business exploits, and will be fading away… I’m talking about a sudden change in their business model and their search for a strategic investor. Plus, there’s a substantial problem in the Polish gamedev industry, and every game developer has to deal with it sooner or later. The lack of properly qualified, competent employees. I actually think that’s one of the main reasons we’ve been waiting so long for Afterfall to resurface.

• PF: Well, if anyone needs qualified and competent game developers, our outsourcing studio can help you with that. But let’s leave in-your-face advertising for later. What Polish game are you most anticipated for right now?

MB: A couple of them. I really like CD Projekt’s approach and marketing angle, telling people that The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings will be „the best cRPG game we’ve ever seen”. It will surely be polished from every angle: engine, gameplay mechanics, graphics. It may sound a bit colloquial, but all the upgrades and changes can really be a decisive factor in the game’s fight for success. What I’m really most psyched about is how Bulletstorm is going to turn out, a game from the People Can Fly studio, published by EA. During E3 – which you could track online – it actually got more buzz than… Crysis 2! Oh, and there’s Nail’d from Techland, a company I must compliment on finding its way onto the 100 Best Game Developers list, being the biggest game studio in Central and Eastern Europe, according to Great Britain’s surveys and charts. Afterfall: InSanity, which we discussed earlier, is next on my list, I’m really curious about this game and its reception on the European market. Let me refresh your memory, by saying that CD Project will be distributing the game locally, whereas all of Europe – except Poland, Russia and Bohemia – will be covered by The Games Company. Last on my list – the stealthy project from The Farm 51.

• PF: Well, let’s hope that they all will turn out to be hit bestsellers. And since we’re talking about bestsellers here – what’s the best game you’ve ever played?

MB: A „hit game” is a game you can go back to after a while and still have the same amount of fun with it as with the first playthrough. As for the games that were to my liking: Fallout 1 and 2, Heroes of Might & Magic 2 and 3. Their overall atmosphere, stories they set up…

• PF: What about this year?
  

  MB: God of War 3. This game was consistently and flawlessly executed. They took all the great features from part two and multiplied them with new ideas, which turned the game into something monumental. Story, camera work and – most of all – combat were all important ingredients in its success.

• PF: Let’s keep the ball rolling here, let’s create a list, „the best of Maciej Byczyński”. Favorite protagonist in any video game ever?
  

  MB: I’m still quoting the good ol’ „You wanna dance?” from Duke Nukem 3D. Duke was a distinctive, unique character, with a biting tongue and extreme manners. I remember that – when I was still in primary school – I devoted a whole lot of time to Duke. Good times. Shake it baby!

• PF: Ah, yes, the good ol’ Duke… But let’s not venture too far into the duking territories: who’s your favorite secondary character or antagonist in any computer game?
  

  MB: I remember the first time I saw the Butcher, from Diablo 1. I was 10 at the time, I’ve already seen my share of movies about „satan” and „satanists” and I was petrified – to make things even worse, I was almost out of „life potions”!

• PF: I wanted to ask about the most unappreciated game in history, but I guess that title belongs solely to Beyond Good & Evil, so I won’t go there. Instead, why don’t you tell me what’s the best, most awesome gun in computer games history?
  

  MB: Boozar from Fallout 2.

• PF: Give me one question you’d like me to ask the next person I’ll be talking to…
  

  MB: What are the biggest flaws of the Polish gamedev industry?

• PF: Time for our little survey: what’s better, pirates or ninjas?
  

  MB: „Pirates… who pay for music anyway”.

• PF: Thanks for the interview, thank you for your time. Would you like to end this with some kind of a blast, say your goodbyes in some kind of a bizzare, eccentric way, maybe send a word of greeting to the cast of your favorite soap opera?
  

  MB: Greetings to everyone who’s reading the Panzerblog. And now… Let’s rock!

• PF: Thanks for the chat, see you on next year’s Game Day! And until then… Be strong. Eat Panzers.

 
You can find more information on Game Day on its official site (in Polish). If you would like to read more interviews we’ve made in the past, check out our talks with Marcin Przybyłowicz and Oscar Jilsén.

 
New products (24th of July, 2010):

Reach For the Stars (a Sci-Fi Royalty Free Music Pack)
Have you ever gazed upon the stars, dreamed about the vastness of space, thought about how insignificant we all are in the face of the universe? Check out this amazing science-fiction Music Pack from Marcin „Kaneda” Maslanka, which will take you hundreds of light years into the undiscovered void.
 

Easy Listening (a Casual Games Music Pack)
If you’re in need of jazzy, groovy, funky or rock music for your casual games, adventure game projects, tv shows or independent movies, be sure to check out this inspiring Music Pack by the award-winning composer and full-fledged Panzer Flakes associate, Marcin Przybylowicz.
 

Conquer the Universe FX (Music FX Pack)
If you want to add interactive music components to your game or just spicy it up a bit with an occasional fanfare or some sampled tunes, be sure to grab this musical sound effects set! This pack perfectly accompanies the Conquer the Universe Sci-Fi Music Pack.
 

Spiral Graphics Genetica (Texturing Software)
Spiral Graphics Genetica is an innovative and effective node-based seamless texture and animation editor for 3D artists and everyone in need of fresh textures and special effects on a regular basis. Be sure to check this out – our prices are a real bargain!

 
You can check out all of our offer at our Game Design Store – check out our special offers and discounts on some of our game assets.

Be strong! Eat Panzers!

Here’s what we want you to do: log into your twitter account and follow our Panzerfeed! Once that’s done, drop us an e-mail via our contact form and be sure to supply us with your e-mail address, name, nickname, twitter username, and a short answer to the question below (one sentence will suffice):

     What does the term „Mass Effect” mean in ME’s universe?

You can send in answers up until the 25th of July. Winners will be selected at random and notified by e-mail, and prizes will be shipped out within three days by air mail – winners will also receive an additional 25% discount coupon on everything we have in our Store and everything our Studio can produce for ‘em. We also have runner-up prizes: five runner-ups will receive 15% discount codes for all our products and services, valid till the end of the year.

Please note that these are boxed PC versions of the game, already containing the additional Bring Down the Sky DLC. Games contain both English and Polish language versions, but the boxes and manuals have been printed out in Polish.

Good luck to all our contestants!

We’re just not big fans of karoshi, the japanese phenomenon of being worked to death, y’know? And due to the fact that we’ve completed almost a hundred smaller and bigger projects (including the really little ones) since our opening on 23rd of March, it’s time to veg out, hit the beaches and finish up those roleplaying sessions we’ve been postponing since January.

It’s vacation time, here, at Panzer Flakes, and that means that all store sales, studio quotes and e-mail replies will be covered once our core team gets back from their travels, on 5th of July. If you order something between 20th of June and 5th of July 2010 – it will be delivered to you once we’re back at our posts, breeding Atomic Space Mutants with wide, banana-like after-vacation smiles.

See you in July! Be strong, eat panzers and always remember: making games makes you sexy… but some time off and a beauty sleep can’t hurt either!

- Jakub ‘Koobare’ Riedel
Panzer Flakes Project Manager

Oscar Jilsén is a 23-year old space marine from Gothenburg, Sweden. He is currently working at the newly started Coffee Stain Studios, creating awesome games and fighting off the orcish menace, but still finding enough time to answer a couple of questions from our pro-space, pro-coffee and pro-menace part-time interviewer (and full-time CEO), Jakub Riedel.


 

• Panzer Flakes (Jakub Riedel): Hi Oscar, thanks for the opportunity to ask you some questions. You’re a game designer at Coffee Stain Studios, an independent gamedesign studio based in Sweden… What do you do exactly, what are your responsibilities?
  

Oscar Jilsén: Hello. Since Coffee Stain Studios is a rather small studio my responibilities vary a lot between each project. On Sanctum for example I’ve mostly spent time building level-bound content – making sure the collision on the map is right, building the menus, taking care of scripted functionality, layout of the waves of monsters and so on. Other than that I and the other designers define how everything should work from a player perspective. I think you could say that I take care of everything that isn’t pure programming, graphics or sound. That includes building levels and defining gameplay.

• PF: Coolio, you’re a man of many talents then. How many people work at Coffee Stain Studios right now?
  

OJ: At the moment we’re eight people working here but we’ll most likely be bringing in an additional programmer soon. When Sanctum started as an UT3 mod we actually were eleven people, so we’ve gotten smaller as a group but I think we’re more focused now.

• PF: Is there a story behind your studio’s name, or was it just something you guys came up with spontaneously?
  

OJ: It’s a mystery, really. Our coffee pot seems to always be full and wherever we go there’s always coffe stains when we leave.

• PF: Either way, it has a nice ring to it. How did you start your gamedesigning career? And how did it bring you to Coffee Stain?
  

  OJ: My game designing career actually started long before I got to Coffee Stain. I’ve always been interested in games, ever since I got to play Microman on my fathers computer. After that I grew up with Duke Nukem – the good old 2d ones – and the NES. When I was around 14 me and two friends started up a game project in RPG-maker and worked on that for quite some time. That was my first taste of developing games and it was delicious. After that I noticed that I enjoyed figuring out how games work and designing my own systems more than actually playing the games. So when I saw I could get an education in game design in Skövde I didnt think twice and applied as fast as I could. When I had been studying for about two years I met most members of Coffee Stain and we banded together for the annual game project.

• PF: Your flag title, Sanctum, started off as a mod for Unreal Tournament, but was soon transformed into a full-fledged standalone game. How did that happen? What’s the story behind Sanctum’s origins?
  

  OJ: When I become a member of Coffee Stain we needed a game for a game project at the university. We wanted something that hadn’t been done before and after a while we had come up with a FPS-TD. We worked on the mod version of Sanctum for a good while and decided that, hey, we should start a company. When Epic released the UDK we took a look at it and decided that it looked nice and that we should remake Sanctum in the UDK. The plan was, however, not to do it directly. We decided to make some iPhone games in the meantime… until Epic contacted us and asked us to create a demo of Sanctum for their showcase. We’re very concerned about the gamers opinions, though, so we decided that we would wait a little while when the demo was released to gather feedback. The feedback will greatly affect the development of the full version, it’s only fair the players get to affect the outcome of the game. They’re the ones who will play it, after all.

• PF: That’s a great attitude towards your customers, I applaud. I’d love to hear more about this game. Could you throw some random details at us? Something about the gameplay?

OJ: Ok, I don’t know how much you know about the game so I’ll start from the beginning…

• PF: Sure, by all means.

OJ: Sanctum is a Tower Defence played in First person mode. The goal of the game is to stop all the waves of monsters before they get into the city. Elysion One. To stop them you have to build towers in a maze and utilize your own handheld weapons. You cannot win if you dont combine these two, especially the mazing. You need a big maze.

• PF: Do continue, kind sir.

OJ: We’ve tried to keep the player engaged by weak spots on the monsters or by pure enemy design. I’ll give you two examples of this. The bobble heads are impervious to damage on their bodies, where the turrets aim, so the player needs to shoot them in the head to take them out. These enemies arent very interesting on their own, but if you mix them with other types of enemies you create a more interesting problem. This is an example of an enemy explicitly designed to challenge the player, since he/she is the only one who can affect them. The small runners, on the other hand, work in a different way. They engage the player by turning up the pace, the player has to be very mobile and stay in front of them or he/she will have a very hard time catching up again. They are easily killed but they’re dangerous because they’re numerous and fast. They traverse the maze a lot faster than regular enemies, so if the player doesn’t have a decent sized maze he/she’ll have a really hard time. Story-wise nobody really knows why the monsters keep assaulting the city. Could it have something to do with the cries before each wave?

• PF: Your other title, I Love Strawberries, is an iPhone-centric puzzle platformer that’s most probably going to be both cute and fun. Actually, it seems that it’ll be a real cuteness overload, as it already has both „love” and „strawberries” in the title!
  

  OJ: I Love Strawberries is all about platform jumping. The goal of the game is to jump to the giant strawberry at the end of the level. On the way there the player has to collect wild strawberries to score points. The way is not all safe, though, the player has to travese and use a lot of different obstacles on the way. There will be two different types of highscores, one that records the amount of points you get and one that records the amount of jumps you needed to get to the end. We think I Love Strawberries will appeal to almost everybody since, deep down inside, we all love strawberries! ;D

• PF: Two of the game’s advertised features are the medal system and the Facebook-connectivity. Are our games becoming more social, or is it just me? How can gamedesigners benefit from this?
  

  OJ: In my opinion the games are not becoming more social. Sure, it’s easier to share your gaming information and set up games over the internet to play with friends and randoms. This is a great thing, it helps the games to expand a great deal. The reason I don’t think games are becoming more social is that the multiplayer is over internet. We’ve lost the golden days of split-screen gaming! Sure we have LAN but the majority of players don’t go to those. Even those that do go to LAN parties a lot spend most of their gaming time, well, not on LAN parties.

• PF: Ah, the good ol’ LAN-times, when everything was simpler and… Stop, you’re making me nostalgic! Let us get back to Facebook…
  

  OJ: The trend of connecting games to social sites is a great opportunity for developers, it is essentially free ads for your game. For example, if the fictional ”Mark” gets a highscore on a game and posts this on his facebook, all his friends will see this information. The cool thing about this is that it isn’t a company trying to sell this game to you, it’s your friend Mark. And since he has bought it and is playing it, that makes it a good game, right? Can’t hurt to test anyways. In the case of iPhone games, they’re often very cheap to boot. What things like facebook connectivity also does is it exposes potential customers that you normally wouldn’t reach because they’re not gamers, for instance. The pros for features like these are endless.

• PF: I Love Strawberries will be realesed at Apple’s AppStore, while Sanctum is going to hit Steam. Are modern, online forms of distribution a chance for indie gamedesigners?
  

  OJ: Short answer: yes! The way we look at it is it doesn’t cost as much from the outset – we don’t need to print out all those games. It also gives us a bigger share of the sales. If we go through the usual channels to get the game out to the stores we’ll end up with a very small percentage of the sales. I think virtual distribution is the future, not only for indie games.

• PF: I guess you’re a gamer yourself, right? How do your own experiences in gaming shape your work as a gamedesigner? How often do you seek inspirations in games you’ve played earlier in your life?
  

  OJ: Gamer forever, although it’s been hard finding time to play games lately. When I start out with a game idea I try to avoid other games as much as possible as they, to me, are very distracting. It’s very easy to unintentionally make the game very similiar to games used to reference in those early stages. That said I don’t seek inspiration from games very often, I Love Strawberries for example came from my unconditional love for strawberries (even though I’m allergic). When I’ve got the general idea down I can look at other games to see how they’ve implemented the features I’ve planned. I don’t think it’s a good idea to base a game off another game, that’s what sequels are for.

• PF: By the way, what’s your favorite game ever?
  

  OJ: Oh… Ehm… this has to be the hardest question out there. There are so many incredibly good games. I instinctively want to say Passage, as it is one of the smartest things out there. Problem is it’s not really a game, it’s more an experience. If I had to choose the choice has to be between Super Smash Bros. Melee and Pokémon Puzzle League. PPL is, hands down, the best puzzle game ever created but I think SSBM takes the prize. It’s just so good and it’s very easy to get into since its controls are so simple. Despite its simple appearance it’s actually very deep with things like SHFFL (short-hop fast-falled L-canceled) air attacks etc. It’s also the game I’ve played the most out of all games I’ve played, I think.

• PF: And what’s the game you wished you’ve never played?
  

  OJ: This is also a very hard question. I really want to designate No More Heroes, it’s a really horrible game but somehow I like it anyway. It’s an awesome horrible game. I think I’ll get a lot of FLAK for this but the game I wish I’ve never played is Final Fantasy VII. The game was a total letdown for me, probably because it had been over-hyped. Don’t kill me please.

• PF: I won’t, don’t worry, I never really jumped onto the whole Final Fantasy bandwagon myself… As for our readers… Quick, distract them, throw some useful advice on the stage or we’ll get ripped apart!
  

  OJ: The best advice is to work hard. The best way to get better as a game designer is by designing games, so keep those hobby projects active! Also make sure people get to know about your games, it doesn’t matter if you’re the best there is if nobody knows about you. Don’t be content with something that is only ok, it has to be at least good. This doesn’t mean you have to work like Blizzard, just don’t be afraid to redo something. Hope that helps, I’m not really a grizzled veteran yet.

• PF: If you could ask the next gamedev I will be interviewing a single question, what would it be?
  

  OJ: The most important question of course! Do you love strawberries?

• PF: Okay, before we wrap this up, I really need to know… Pirates or ninjas?
  

  OJ: Pirates! Ninjas lack the ‘ARR!’ and are all a bunch of landlubbers. If there’d be a Pirate vs. Ninja war I doubt the Pirates would even suffer a single casualty.

• PF: Landlubbers we may be, but hear us you shall not… Err, anyways, thanks for the interview, Oscar! Been a pleasure. Any last thoughts or advertising shout-outs you want to end this with?
  

  OJ: My pleasure! Keep an eye out for I Love Strawberries on the AppStore in about a month!

• PF: Oh, we will. There’s nothing better than a bowl of crunchy Panzer Flakes with some strawberries on top. Yummy. See you later, Oscar!

 
Oscar Jilsén is a great chap, working at Coffee Stain Studios, the gamedev studio behind I Love Strawberries and Sanctum. Take a look at their site, here, and be sure to buy a copy of I Love Strawberries as soon as it hits the AppStore’s shelves! It will be tasty!

The Game Developers Convention is aimed both at game developers and everyday gamers interested in the arcane world of gamedesign. The whole event is organized by a group of game-making hotheads, active game developers and their close associates, and backed up by Polish and international game companies, websites and organizations. Needless to say, if you work or would like to work within this line of business, or if you’re just head over heels in love with computer games, you really should check this out! Plus, attendees will receive really cool gifts from our Gamedesign Store!

You can find more information on this event here, at the Game Developers Convention official site. We also encourage you to befriend the convention at facebook, here.

See you in Gdansk!

His inexhaustible source of inspiration lies in the world of Western light music, from jazz to soul. He admires Danny Elfman, Hans Zimmer and Henry Mancini but never acts as a mere copycat, always searching for his own unique style. Jakub Riedel spoke with Marcin Przybylowski – a Polish composer, sound designer, Creative Valley grand prix winner and Panzer Flakes collaborator – about his earlier projects, his inspirations and favorite game soundtracks.


 

• Panzer Flakes (Jakub Riedel): Let’s start off with the usual introductions. Could you tell us something about yourself?
  

Marcin Przybyłowicz: My name is Marcin Przybyłowicz, I am a music composer and a sound designer, I create and arrange complete audio settings for computer games, and music for animation, advertisements, movies…

• PF: How did you get involved in the game music industry?
  

MP: Unexpectedly. Some time ago, while I was browsing the web, I’ve found a recruitment announcement for an indie roleplaying game project – I replied, and thus my first game project was born. It gained momentum after that.

• PF: What was the name of that game, remember the title? Did it ever get published?
  

MP: My first project, the one that started my adventures with gamedesign, was Afterfall… An independent, fan-based roleplaying project, with a post-apocalyptic setting, taking place in Central-Eastern Europe. My first paid game job was „The Witcher: Music Inspired by the Game”, a musical addon to the Collector’s Edition of „The Witcher”.

• PF: Afterfall is an almost legendary project in Poland, often referred to as the „Polish Fallout” game. How does one compose music for the apocalypse?
  

  MP: Actually, you could say that composing post-apocalyptic music is pretty much the same as composing any music – there are lots of ways to build the proper atmosphere. When you’re thinking about the world after the apocalypse, you want to emphasize the emptiness, the space, most probably with dips of sadness and sorrow… These are universal, common emotions, and they can be achieved by multiple means – which helps to make soundtracks different from one another, untrite, even if they are set in a very similar universe.

• PF: Where did you seek inspiration for those compositions? Mark Morgan’s score for Fallout? Other places?
  

  MP: I like Morgan’s music from both Fallout and Fallout 2, but I’m more into Inon Zur’s soundtrack for Fallout 3. It’s not about copying any ideas or sequences, it’s about those couple of characteristics that I’m keen on, that I support – the full, wide brass sound of the symphonic orchestration, the classical drama interweaved into the music… I really enjoy it when music in games has a strong movie-like feel.

• PF: There’s been a lot of rumors lately about whether or not Afterfall is still under development. Could you clarify them up for us, even if just a bit? Are we still going to see Afterfall in the end?

MP: Hard to say, really – job ethics and the fact that I try to approach my job very seriously, limits what I can and what I can’t say publicly, even if it’s flying around the internet from some time. Let’s say it this way: everyone who’s interested in this project and at least knows how to put „a” and „b” together knows for sure that Afterfall was and is the first project of Nicolas Games. Nicolas Games was a publisher only up to that point, and by acquiring Afterfall it jumped into a totally different pair of shoes, and one that they knew nothing about. It’s quite an undertaking, to create a huge, complicated, extensive roleplaying game, especially if you don’t really have any experience in that particular type of work. Some may even say that without proper experience, it’s a doomed venture. And let’s not forget that the very premise of Afterfall was that it was supposed to be as huge, complicated and extensive as possible.

• PF: Right, even an experienced team could stumble upon many problems with such an ambitious project…
  

  MP: Another blow was dealt when the development team started loosing its founding fathers, people who built this project from ground level. It’s really bad news when a project is being abandoned by the very same people who imagined it, wrote it, toyed with every little detail. They are being replaced by others who may be as well talented and imaginative as their predecessors – I don’t want to judge anyone – but this kind of thing just keeps spawning delays, people start crossing the deadlines, rewriting the scenario, changing gameplay and so on.

• PF: And how doeas it look from today’s perspective? Is Afterfall still breathing?
  

  MP: Currently, and I’m basing this on the official press releases, it seems that the developer is preparing a survival horror named „Afterfall: Insanity”, previously titled „Rascal”, which will be set in Afterfall’s universe – it’s going to be a smaller, less complex game with simper mechanics, that is supposed to pave the way, prepare the beachhead, a place on the market. On one hand, that’s a good idea – the producer is drawing conclusions from the whole ordeal and, instead of chasing another utopian dream, which is supposed to shine brighter than the sun, is focusing on a game that’s easier to produce and finish. On the other hand, this „Insanity” still remains that company’s first gamedesign project, so the same dangers that crippled the original Afterfall project should be taken into account. That’s why I think a lot of time will pass before we’ll be able to play a game with „Afterfall” in the title – though I’m not a clairvoyant, of course. For my part, I wasn’t fully satisfied with my cooperation with Nicolas Games and I’m really sorry that this project – which I dedicated myself to for a long time, from march 2006 to virtually the end of 2009 – has bad luck and is surrounded with such misfortune.

• PF: Well, we can only hope that it ends well for the players. You were the music composer and sound designer behind Duke Nukem Trilogy: Critical Mass developed by Frontline Studios for the Nintendo DS and Sony PSP. How different is music composition for handheld consoles?
  

  MP: You must take the console’s capabilities and limitations into the account. For example, when composing something for the Nintendo DS, you’re always struggling with not enough space on the cartridge and you must rely on your wits to make the music, make it sound good and preserve as much space as possible in the same time. It’s a bit like trying to mix water with fire… Usually, it all comes down to knowing your limitations and trying to push the boundaries as far as possible. Having said that, DS enables you to do some things that are a lot harder to do on other hardware (doesn’t matter whether handhelds or stationary consoles). For example: you can play with tempo and tone range of your music on runtime, which gives you an easy way to organize music in such a way, that it dynamically responds to what happens on the screen.

• PF: Any favorite Nintendo DS games? Of course, music-wise?
  

  MP: There are two titles on the Nintendo DS that made a serious impression on me: New Super Mario Bros, which managed to stuff lots and lots of great music and – perhaps even greater – sound on a small cartridge, and Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings, which has a beautiful soundtrack, brilliant, if you consider the DS’s capabilities. I don’t want to compare my own compositions to these two examples, it’s just not cool to measure yourself to the classics, but I think that the soundtrack from Duke Nukem Trilogy: Criticall Mass – both for the PSP and the DS - sounds pretty damn well and the players really enjoy it.

• PF: Was Duke Nukem 3D’s original score a major inspiration for you when working on that title?
  

  MP: Of course. Where would Duke be without his characteristic „Duke Theme”, well known by all the impassioned players everywhere! It would be just as bad as if they tried to strip him of his „I’ve got balls of steel” and other fan favorite one-liners – it wouldn’t be the same! Both the soundtrack and myself had a guardian angel, Terry Nagy, who gave out some really cool ideas on how to approach the soundtrack for the new Duke game… Ideas that, as I like to think, I managed to expand and merge with my own ones. We both had a similar point of view on how the music for this entry in the series should sound – it was supposed to be dynamic, full of energy, with a solid rock drive, fortified with a symphonic foundation. Thanks to that, the music remained „dukey”, showing off – when needed – with its own characteristics. Its massive in one places, progressive in others, sometimes heavier, sometimes calmer.

• PF: Talking about classic games, classic soundtracks, classic themes… What are your top three game scores? And who’s your favorite game composer?
  

  MP: I remember and I always will remember the soundtrack from the Baldur’s Gate series – it was my first own game soundtrack and the first game that I really delved into, I have fond memories for it. As for the composers… I really don’t like the stiff border between those composing for games, those composing for movies, those composing for something else… All these art forms resemble a melting pot nowadays – Hans Zimmer had a hand in the Modern Warfare 2 soundtrack, Harry Gregson-Williams has been composing for both movies and games for some time, the same goes for Michael Giacchino, who has honored with an oscar this year… There are a lot of composers who really have fun with creating music tracks for games, but they don’t want to limit themselves to a single art form – and I’m one of those people. Anyway, getting back to your question… I really like what Jesper Kyd did in both Assassin’s Creed and its sequel. It’s a very dextrous combination of „localized” music, created with the geographical location and the time period in mind – Jerusalem and the Crusades in the first game, the Italian Renaissance in the other – with modern contemporary music. It really sounds well together.

• PF: As a follow-up, do you feel game music receives the attention and credit that it deserves?
  

  MP: Hard to say – depends how you look at it. I can say one thing for sure: the more we talk about it, the better.

• PF: By the way, I don’t know if you’re a Lostie, as I am, but I swear to God that I’ve heard a short piece of Michael Giacchino’s „U-boat” theme from Medal of Honor playing in the background during one of Lost’s episodes, when Sawyer, one of the characters, gets on a submarine.
  

  MP: I’m not a fan of the series, but your observation may be right – this can be an effect of how the game and movie businesses look in the USA right now. It’s not uncommon to hire a composer for a specific project, because the producer really wants to have a soundtrack very similar to that one, from Project XYZ, written by Mr ZXY. A known example for this from the movie industry is Thomas Newman, who – after the great success of his score for American Beauty – admitted in a few interviews that he is often asked to compose something similar to what he did in American Beauty. I’m guessing that in the gaming world Jeremy Soule could have had a similar situation, as his Morrowind and Oblivion soundtracks are not only coherent, but similar as well, but that’s just my speculations.

• PF: Or it could be a result that Oblivion is really Morrowind’s successor, another entry in the Elder Scrolls series. Speaking of Bethesda… You have vast experience in gamedesign music, working alongside such companies as Bethesda Softworks, Nicolas Games, Frontline Studios, Apogee Software and CD Projekt. What advice could you give to younger music-lovers, composer-wannabees, people who have dream  of becoming game composers one day?
  

  MP: Don’t ignore music theory – in these times anyone can create mediocre music, all you need is a computer, some software and a set of loops. If you want, you can go along that path and then try to do something with the effect you achieve. But it usually turns out in the end that it wasn’t enough, all of this comes into the daylight and you have to go the extra mile to return to the drawing board, and that’s a lot tougher. In my opinion the market sooner or later verifies everyone and it usually turns out whether or not you know what to do and whether or not you’re a good composer. And this is an important difference – everyone can string together boorish melodies, but not everyone knows how to compose decent, professional and – first and foremost – good sounding music. It’s a set of skills you have to learn, as is programming, graphics, or any other specialistic domain of science or art.

• PF: Has there ever been a game experience for you that was ruined because of its music?
  

  MP: Can’t really remember such an instance – maybe I’m not playing enough games nowadays… I remember such problems with promotional game trailers, in which the background music wasn’t even a slightest bit coherent with what was happening on screen.

• PF: Some composers say that they can’t compose music for anything if they don’t see that project just in front of them. Is royalty-free music composition a lot harder than creating soundtracks for specific games?
  

  MP: A matter of opinion, really… I could say its a lot easier, as you don’t have any scenario restrictions, you don’t have to comply with a project manager’s vision – you can do what you like, as long as you don’t go outside of the theme and style you impose on yourself. I guess it’s a pretty individual thing.

• PF: Where did you get your inspirations from, when composing such brilliant and epic music, as in the „Conquer the Universe” Music Pack, currently available in our royalty-free store? 
  

  MP: When I was preparing to work on that pack I knew that it would have to be as universal as possible, all-around, so that it could be used in different projects and situations. The Science-Fiction theme can be interpreted in many ways and I wanted my music to be appliable to diverse projects and still go well with what’s happening on the screen, be it a computer’s screen or a console’s TV. That’s why my pack echoes the Space Opera setting, you can find many modern, dirty synthetic tones, or even heavy rocking electric guitars, which – in my opinion – really work well with the theme.

• PF: Any specific inspirations?
  

  MP: I had many movies and other works in my mind during the creation process: from the classics, like „Buck Rodgers in the 25th Century” and the „Star Wars” series, to – for example – „Battlestar Galactica” and the „Matrix” trilogy, which was full of great „cosmic” tracks. It’s a difficult question, really, it’s difficult to give a straightforward answer, since music is a complicated medium, not easily definable, and everyone can find and appreciate different things in the same soundtrack – it’s reception is pretty much dependent on your previous musical experiences, from what you like, what you don’t like, and so on.

• PF: Do you already have any plans for your next multimedia packs?
  

  MP: I’ve got some, but I don’t want to show down yet.

• PF: Thanks for the interview! Any shout outs, wise quotes or shameless self promotion you want to add at the end?
  

  MP: A bit of self promotion can’t hurt. I encourage you all to visit my website, at MarcinPrzybylowicz.com, where you can listen to some of my music compositions. You can also visit my profile at Vimeo. as for the catchy quote to close things up… Nobody expects the Spanish inquistion!

• PF: Neither do they expect the prancing panzers! Anyways, thanks for the interview, and we really hope to see more of your music at our store soon! See you!

 
Marcin Przybylowicz is a Panzer Flakes collaborator, he created a set of different multimedia packs available at our Store, with the Music PackConquer the Universe, and Sound Packs Interface Sounds Vol 1 and Household & Office Essentials amongst others.

There will be four main weekly columns in the beginning (although we’re already thinking about introducing a fifth one), the first one being „Game Spotlight„. As the title suggest, this section of our blog will present a different game each week, review it and strip it down to its core parts, examining what works in that particular title and what doesn’t. We’ll take on both smaller, indie games and big-budget ones, be it Mexican Motor Mafia, Cave Jumper or Max Payne 4.

„Talking Game” will be our second grandest feature, as we’ll track down gamedesigners and multimedia producers from all around the world, flank them, smash them with questions and await honest, no-bullshit answers. First article from this section will arrive in a few hours, so keep those beautiful eyes of yours open.

Our third column, „Inspirations„, has a pretty self-explainatory title: it’s all about the things that inspire us / can inspire you during the game creation process. There will be links, pics, news snippets and inspirational quotes for you to devour, digest and turn into something awesome within your own projects.

Fourth section – named „Virtual Worlds” – will boldly take you on a journey to a land far, far away, where pixels roam and shaders fly across the sky… It’ll be about the ever-important skill of worldbuilding, of creating a unique setting in which a great game can take place – and we’ll explore it by exploring the games themselves, by checking out game worlds and finding out what makes them tick, from a writer’s/reader’s/astronomer’s perspective.

As you can see, there’s a lot of cool stuff coming – whether you’re our customer or not, you’ll find lots of material to read, think about and comment on, every week. If you haven’t done it already, add us to your favorites and stay tuned.

As for now… Be strong. Eat Panzers.

All communication channels remain the same for both language versions (there are no separate Polish e-mail addresses as of now) and you don’t have to worry about any Babylon-style goofs and mistakes (all communication goes through people fluent in both languages). Please note that Polish licenses may contain minor differences from their International counterparts: they are for Poland-based clients only, doesn’t matter whether you can understand them or not – if you don’t live and/or are registered in Poland, you should read and acknowledge universal licenses meant for international usage (available here).

Polish language is currently available exclusively at our main website (containing all the core information and documents), not at our Gamedesign Store. This will be addressed in the next couple of days, alongside a major update that’s long overdue, but still coming.

Oh, and here’s a quick – and free (if you buy the shampoo, that is) – lesson for those of you who are really interested in learning some words along the way:

    Pancerpłatki – Direct translation of „Panzer Flakes”.
    Wszystko czego gra twa zapragnie – All your game wants.
    Zabójczy, uzbrojony ninja – Deadly, armed ninja.
    Nieeee! – Noooo!
    Wybrane produkty – Selected products.
    Projektowanie gier – Designing games.
    Kosmiczne małpy z bronią – Spacemonkeys with guns.
    Ten kieł trochę śmierdzi – This claw stinks a bit.
    Podziel się płatkami – Share your flakes.
    Wielbłąd – A camel.

The rest is up to you. We did our best.

Keep in touch. Be strong… And eat Panzers.