WCF Version Update
Backend clean up and version update
Where Cards Fall News
Where Cards Fall is now available!
We are thrilled to share that Where Cards Fall is now available!
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
In Where Cards Fall you build houses from decks of cards to solve challenging spatial puzzles. These houses will create pathways that allow you to traverse dream-like landscapes and reveal formative memories of the main character. The mechanics used to build these card houses may seem simple on the surface, but offer quite a bit of depth as the levels progress. Our team has been working to keep the creative gestural controls feeling natural on this new platform so that players of all levels of experience will be able to approach the game intuitively.
What started as a USC student project of The Game Band’s Creative Director, Sam Rosenthal, led to a decade-long journey that saw many talented people lending their skills to make the vision a reality. The story of Where Cards Fall is truly as unique as the puzzles themselves. You can read more about it on The Game Band blog. In a way, the narrative of the game’s creation mirrors the coming-of-age narrative of the game, capturing the highs and lows of life as we change and grow.
From the teams at Snowman and The Game Band, thank you for being along for this journey. And if this is your first time learning of the game, welcome! We can’t wait to hear what you think of Where Cards Fall.
You can follow @wherecardsfall on social media to catch all upcoming news and reach out to let us know what you think of the game.
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
In Where Cards Fall you build houses from decks of cards to solve challenging spatial puzzles. These houses will create pathways that allow you to traverse dream-like landscapes and reveal formative memories of the main character. The mechanics used to build these card houses may seem simple on the surface, but offer quite a bit of depth as the levels progress. Our team has been working to keep the creative gestural controls feeling natural on this new platform so that players of all levels of experience will be able to approach the game intuitively.
What started as a USC student project of The Game Band’s Creative Director, Sam Rosenthal, led to a decade-long journey that saw many talented people lending their skills to make the vision a reality. The story of Where Cards Fall is truly as unique as the puzzles themselves. You can read more about it on The Game Band blog. In a way, the narrative of the game’s creation mirrors the coming-of-age narrative of the game, capturing the highs and lows of life as we change and grow.
From the teams at Snowman and The Game Band, thank you for being along for this journey. And if this is your first time learning of the game, welcome! We can’t wait to hear what you think of Where Cards Fall.
You can follow @wherecardsfall on social media to catch all upcoming news and reach out to let us know what you think of the game.
Where Cards Fall—Coming November 4th
We are excited to reveal that Where Cards Fall is coming to Steam November 4th.
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
The game’s controls have been carefully configured for PC; a platform that was always envisioned as core to development, since the project’s inception nearly ten years ago.
As our teams at The Game Band and Snowman prepare for the next chapter of the Where Cards Fall journey, we reflect on the making of the game and all of the talented individuals who helped make it happen at The Game Band (AKA the studio behind Blaseball). Check out previous recent news posts where we highlight the animations that brought the story to life and the hand-crafted audio that makes Where Cards Fall such an immersive experience.
We're so excited for you to experience the meditative gameplay and inventive puzzles of Where Cards Fall in just a few short weeks’ time.
Follow us on social media at @wherecards fall to stay tuned for further updates.
- the Where Cards Fall team
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
The game’s controls have been carefully configured for PC; a platform that was always envisioned as core to development, since the project’s inception nearly ten years ago.
As our teams at The Game Band and Snowman prepare for the next chapter of the Where Cards Fall journey, we reflect on the making of the game and all of the talented individuals who helped make it happen at The Game Band (AKA the studio behind Blaseball). Check out previous recent news posts where we highlight the animations that brought the story to life and the hand-crafted audio that makes Where Cards Fall such an immersive experience.
We're so excited for you to experience the meditative gameplay and inventive puzzles of Where Cards Fall in just a few short weeks’ time.
Follow us on social media at @wherecards fall to stay tuned for further updates.
- the Where Cards Fall team
The Sounds of Where Cards Fall
Game audio can be so immersive that it’s easy to overlook where the sounds in fact come from, let alone consider that a sound designer has spent time designing a unified experience for players.
To achieve this seamlessness in the world of Where Cards Fall, audio director Kristi Knupp carefully crafted much of the audio from scratch, creating a collection of sounds that matched the tactility and organic feel of the game itself.
We had some burning questions for Kristi about her creative process and hope you learn as much as we did from our conversation!
- - -
How did your background in music and audio engineering lead you to a career in game audio?
I started playing the piano at age five. In my teenage years, I ventured on to drums, guitar and vocals. I started a few bands throughout that time. After high school, I attended Full Sail University for audio engineering. In 2004 moved out to Los Angeles and worked with world renown composer/DJ — Brian Transeau (BT). My jobs for him were many, including but not limited to, composers assistant, gear set up/tech and tour manager when on the road.
In 2006, I graduated from Berklee College of Music and moved back to Los Angeles shortly thereafter. In 2008 I started my career in the game industry as a Quality Assurance Tester for Vivendi Games. A short four months later I landed my first audio job at Electronic Arts working on Boom Box Bash Party, and since then I’ve worked for a number of AAA game studios worldwide on various types of projects.
What does your sound design process typically look like from pre-production through to production?
During pre-production, I try to ensure the audio pipeline is being considered as early on as possible before custom tools get built out.
Production tasks can range from taking on the role of a project manager, to the more hands-on technical and creative side.
I created the language for Where Cards Fall by reading books and taking pieces of words and mashing them together. So like the beginning of one word and the end of another, for example.
The next step was to figure out how many different length phrases would be most commonly used in the game. I would then mix and match different gibberish phrases to create everything from a short phrase that was meant to symbolize “yes” or “no” to a conversation that consisted of multiple gibberish words strung together.
Working with the voice actors at Warner Brothers was a hoot! We had the actors working to videos of the various animations for timing purposes. I also provided them with a printed copy of 2, 3 and 4-word gibberish phrases to choose from. It was a lot of fun and very exciting to see the characters come to life.
Can you speak a bit about some of the processes of creating foley for the game?
For anyone unfamiliar with the term, foley is the manual reproduction of everyday sound effects.
The process of creating foley for the game was a lot of fun. Since most of the sounds were organic and not synthesized, I decide to record content from scratch. For example –the player is interacting with these stacks of cards for a large portion of the game. These cards can open, close, shake, wind can blow parts of them over, etc. The sounds had to be unique but also sound like they were part of the same set of sound effects. I purchased paper and plastic playing cards of all different shapes and sizes and started recording myself doing different movements with the cards, like shuffling, flipping one or multiple over at a time, cutting the deck, dragging them on different surfaces, etc. until I wound up with a unique pallet of sounds to work from.
From there, I would take snippets of my recording and try to make them work to picture until I got to a sound that felt like it fit each action in the game.
The user interface (UI) was also created this way. Some elements of the UI are paper in origin others originated from recording myself scratching and erasing with pencils and various markers on different surfaces until we got something that had the right character. A good example of this would be when the player asks for a “hint” in-game. An outline of the house of cards appears and then disappears. If you listen you’ll hear a sketch SFX, and an erase SFX.
What were some of the tools you used while working on Where Cards Fall?
Since Where Cards Fall I’ve been working on some music projects of my own I’m hoping to release sometime in 2021. I’m also starting a new project with Electronic Arts soon on a very exciting unannounced title.
- - -
It feels like a special privilege to get a glimpse behind the curtain of Kristi’s creative process. Learning more about her role in the game and the detail that went into each sound truly enriches the experience of playing it. Next time you hear the scratchy sound of the UI or the soft fluttering of a card deck, we hope you’ll picture Kristi in the studio, turning ordinary materials into the immersive soundscape of Where Cards Fall!
Kristi has been designing game audio for over 10 years. She has experience working on both AAA and Indie titles like Ori and the Blind Forest, Fractured Lands, Skylanders Spyro’s Adventure, and more. Outside of her audio work, she is an entertainment photographer whose portfolio further illustrates her passion for music and the experience of it.
You can view more of Kristi’s work on her website and follow her on Instagram at @evoke_emotion.
Stay up to date with @wherecardsfall on social media and follow along for more from our Behind The Game series.
Until next time!
- the Where Cards Fall team
To achieve this seamlessness in the world of Where Cards Fall, audio director Kristi Knupp carefully crafted much of the audio from scratch, creating a collection of sounds that matched the tactility and organic feel of the game itself.
We had some burning questions for Kristi about her creative process and hope you learn as much as we did from our conversation!
- - -
How did your background in music and audio engineering lead you to a career in game audio?
I started playing the piano at age five. In my teenage years, I ventured on to drums, guitar and vocals. I started a few bands throughout that time. After high school, I attended Full Sail University for audio engineering. In 2004 moved out to Los Angeles and worked with world renown composer/DJ — Brian Transeau (BT). My jobs for him were many, including but not limited to, composers assistant, gear set up/tech and tour manager when on the road.
In 2006, I graduated from Berklee College of Music and moved back to Los Angeles shortly thereafter. In 2008 I started my career in the game industry as a Quality Assurance Tester for Vivendi Games. A short four months later I landed my first audio job at Electronic Arts working on Boom Box Bash Party, and since then I’ve worked for a number of AAA game studios worldwide on various types of projects.
What does your sound design process typically look like from pre-production through to production?
During pre-production, I try to ensure the audio pipeline is being considered as early on as possible before custom tools get built out.
Production tasks can range from taking on the role of a project manager, to the more hands-on technical and creative side.
- Creating and maintaining a road map of audio needs across the game
- Creating and maintaining a road map for dialogue/localization needs across the game
- Creating sounds for all categories of the game (Ambience, SFX, UI, etc)
- Hiring and working with composers
- Implementing all sounds, dialogue and music into the audio tool/game engine
- Audio QA on a regular basis to ensure audio is working properly in-game
- Managing other sound designers if budget allows for additional folks on the audio team
- Working with production and creative director as needed to ensure the style of the audio meets everyone’s expectations
I created the language for Where Cards Fall by reading books and taking pieces of words and mashing them together. So like the beginning of one word and the end of another, for example.
The next step was to figure out how many different length phrases would be most commonly used in the game. I would then mix and match different gibberish phrases to create everything from a short phrase that was meant to symbolize “yes” or “no” to a conversation that consisted of multiple gibberish words strung together.
Working with the voice actors at Warner Brothers was a hoot! We had the actors working to videos of the various animations for timing purposes. I also provided them with a printed copy of 2, 3 and 4-word gibberish phrases to choose from. It was a lot of fun and very exciting to see the characters come to life.
Can you speak a bit about some of the processes of creating foley for the game?
For anyone unfamiliar with the term, foley is the manual reproduction of everyday sound effects.
The process of creating foley for the game was a lot of fun. Since most of the sounds were organic and not synthesized, I decide to record content from scratch. For example –the player is interacting with these stacks of cards for a large portion of the game. These cards can open, close, shake, wind can blow parts of them over, etc. The sounds had to be unique but also sound like they were part of the same set of sound effects. I purchased paper and plastic playing cards of all different shapes and sizes and started recording myself doing different movements with the cards, like shuffling, flipping one or multiple over at a time, cutting the deck, dragging them on different surfaces, etc. until I wound up with a unique pallet of sounds to work from.
From there, I would take snippets of my recording and try to make them work to picture until I got to a sound that felt like it fit each action in the game.
The user interface (UI) was also created this way. Some elements of the UI are paper in origin others originated from recording myself scratching and erasing with pencils and various markers on different surfaces until we got something that had the right character. A good example of this would be when the player asks for a “hint” in-game. An outline of the house of cards appears and then disappears. If you listen you’ll hear a sketch SFX, and an erase SFX.
What were some of the tools you used while working on Where Cards Fall?
- Unity
- FMOD Studio
- Protools, Ableton Live, Waves Plugins, GRM tools Plugins, Sound Toys Plugins, Omnisphere
- Sennheiser MKH 416 Shotgun Mic and UA 6176 Mic Pre/Compressor for recording Foley
Since Where Cards Fall I’ve been working on some music projects of my own I’m hoping to release sometime in 2021. I’m also starting a new project with Electronic Arts soon on a very exciting unannounced title.
- - -
It feels like a special privilege to get a glimpse behind the curtain of Kristi’s creative process. Learning more about her role in the game and the detail that went into each sound truly enriches the experience of playing it. Next time you hear the scratchy sound of the UI or the soft fluttering of a card deck, we hope you’ll picture Kristi in the studio, turning ordinary materials into the immersive soundscape of Where Cards Fall!
Kristi has been designing game audio for over 10 years. She has experience working on both AAA and Indie titles like Ori and the Blind Forest, Fractured Lands, Skylanders Spyro’s Adventure, and more. Outside of her audio work, she is an entertainment photographer whose portfolio further illustrates her passion for music and the experience of it.
You can view more of Kristi’s work on her website and follow her on Instagram at @evoke_emotion.
Stay up to date with @wherecardsfall on social media and follow along for more from our Behind The Game series.
Until next time!
- the Where Cards Fall team
Behind the Frames of Where Cards Fall
Where Cards Fall has come a long way from the student project that it started as 9 years prior.
The concept for the game evolved from paper prototypes into decks of animated cards that would still need to maintain a sense of tactility on screen. In addition to mastering the right feel for the controls, there was also a coming-of-age story that had to be told through the visual and audio elements of the game in hopes that it would offer players a moment to reflect on their own narratives.
Welcome to our Behind The Game series, where we’ll be shining a light on the people and processes that made this happen.
We got behind the frames with lead animator Cedric Adams to find out more about how he and his team helped bring life to the world of Where Cards Fall.
- - -
In your Pocketgamer interview, you mention that you started out in mostly commercial animation work before getting pulled into games. What’s the story there?
My first job was for a commercial VFX studio in Knoxville, TN. When that job ended, I used all of the impressive pieces to make a post-college showreel. That reel steered my freelance career in a very different direction than working in games. I volunteered to work for a few indie game studios looking to hit their Kickstarter goals and slowly built a reel from those game assets.
My freelance game reel was removed from Vimeo though and I lost all that content to show. I eventually took a contract film job and met the animator that would recommend me to work for The Game Band.
Which tools do you use to animate and what do you recommend for someone starting out?
I generally animate in Maya. Starting out, I recommend learning Maya or Blender as the free alternative.
What are the main methods for animation in games and which were used in the making of Where Cards Fall?
There are two primary ways of animating in games. There’s hand key animation and then motion capture animation. Where Cards Fall was done with hand key animation, which just means that my animators and I had to make every action from scratch.
What inspired your approach to animating the characters in the game?
When I started animating for Where Cards Fall, I thought about the tone of movement someone would have while listening to Radiohead’s song House of Cards. House of Cards is a very chill, melodic song and it was a big reference for Sam, the Creative Director of The Game Band.
I get a calm and gentle feeling from all the subtleties in that song so I tried to make all my animations calm, precise, and subtle. Beyond that, I animated what I thought looked best.
What’s something a lot of people may not realize about the animation of Where Cards Fall?
One weird little quirk about Where Cards Fall’s animation is that almost all of the character movement and facial animations were done separately. Around 99% of my team’s work was done on faceless characters.
Do your creative endeavours outside this role lend themselves to your work and process as an animator?
My biggest creative endeavour outside of work is making music as Foxførd. I love producing music and singing. I’ve learned so many valuable lessons in music production that I have applied to my job as a lead animator. There are too many lessons to list off but an important one is to be knowledgable and concise about what you want to see (or hear).
I’ve made plenty of mistakes not clearly telling Music Engineers what I’d like done and it has only cost more time and money. Unclear direction usually leads to confusion and varied results so it pays to do your research and be clear on what you want.
- - -
As you progress through the game and follow the experiences of the main character, the nuances of the animation work by Cedric and his team help express the ups and downs of growing up in a way words sometimes can’t. It’s clear that a lot of care went into the animations of Where Cards Fall and we can’t wait to see what the talented team will come up with next!
Is animation a hobby or vocation for you? Jump into our Discord server and share your story: discord.gg/snowman.
You can keep up with Cedric on Twitter at @skinnyfoxford
Follow us on social media at @wherecardsfall and stay tuned for more from our Behind The Game series.
- the Where Cards Fall team
The concept for the game evolved from paper prototypes into decks of animated cards that would still need to maintain a sense of tactility on screen. In addition to mastering the right feel for the controls, there was also a coming-of-age story that had to be told through the visual and audio elements of the game in hopes that it would offer players a moment to reflect on their own narratives.
Welcome to our Behind The Game series, where we’ll be shining a light on the people and processes that made this happen.
We got behind the frames with lead animator Cedric Adams to find out more about how he and his team helped bring life to the world of Where Cards Fall.
- - -
In your Pocketgamer interview, you mention that you started out in mostly commercial animation work before getting pulled into games. What’s the story there?
My first job was for a commercial VFX studio in Knoxville, TN. When that job ended, I used all of the impressive pieces to make a post-college showreel. That reel steered my freelance career in a very different direction than working in games. I volunteered to work for a few indie game studios looking to hit their Kickstarter goals and slowly built a reel from those game assets.
My freelance game reel was removed from Vimeo though and I lost all that content to show. I eventually took a contract film job and met the animator that would recommend me to work for The Game Band.
Which tools do you use to animate and what do you recommend for someone starting out?
I generally animate in Maya. Starting out, I recommend learning Maya or Blender as the free alternative.
What are the main methods for animation in games and which were used in the making of Where Cards Fall?
There are two primary ways of animating in games. There’s hand key animation and then motion capture animation. Where Cards Fall was done with hand key animation, which just means that my animators and I had to make every action from scratch.
What inspired your approach to animating the characters in the game?
When I started animating for Where Cards Fall, I thought about the tone of movement someone would have while listening to Radiohead’s song House of Cards. House of Cards is a very chill, melodic song and it was a big reference for Sam, the Creative Director of The Game Band.
I get a calm and gentle feeling from all the subtleties in that song so I tried to make all my animations calm, precise, and subtle. Beyond that, I animated what I thought looked best.
What’s something a lot of people may not realize about the animation of Where Cards Fall?
One weird little quirk about Where Cards Fall’s animation is that almost all of the character movement and facial animations were done separately. Around 99% of my team’s work was done on faceless characters.
Do your creative endeavours outside this role lend themselves to your work and process as an animator?
My biggest creative endeavour outside of work is making music as Foxførd. I love producing music and singing. I’ve learned so many valuable lessons in music production that I have applied to my job as a lead animator. There are too many lessons to list off but an important one is to be knowledgable and concise about what you want to see (or hear).
I’ve made plenty of mistakes not clearly telling Music Engineers what I’d like done and it has only cost more time and money. Unclear direction usually leads to confusion and varied results so it pays to do your research and be clear on what you want.
- - -
As you progress through the game and follow the experiences of the main character, the nuances of the animation work by Cedric and his team help express the ups and downs of growing up in a way words sometimes can’t. It’s clear that a lot of care went into the animations of Where Cards Fall and we can’t wait to see what the talented team will come up with next!
Is animation a hobby or vocation for you? Jump into our Discord server and share your story: discord.gg/snowman.
You can keep up with Cedric on Twitter at @skinnyfoxford
Follow us on social media at @wherecardsfall and stay tuned for more from our Behind The Game series.
- the Where Cards Fall team