Straw is a humorous game about packing objects on top of a camel. Players take turns placing objects they have collected in the bazaar onto the camel’s back until someone ‘breaks the camel’s back’. Hence, the name of the game. Set in the world of Arabian Nights, the game is full of funny objects like monkeys, bags of bricks, flying carpets and genies that either add, subtract or copy weight on the camel. Eventually, someone will have to play more weight than the camel can bear and its back will break. Your goal is to make sure that that someone is not you, unless you can do so with the one and only Straw.
Predecessors
Straw is already a published card game. This iPhone App will attempt to capture the fun and excitement of the card game in a new medium. The App will incorporate existing art assets from the card game as well as the basic game play mechanic. However, we will need to add animations, a simple user interface, sound effects and a thematic soundtrack for the full sensory App experience.
The Project
In total, we need 36 different sound effects for events which occur throughout the game, plus or minus. Here’s the list:
Menu Screens
1. Change Menu Forward
2. Change Menu Back
Play Screen
Objects when played
1. Jewelry
2. Backgammon
3. Monkey
4. Parrot Cage
5. Oud Guitar
6. Fruit Basket
7. Water Jug
8. Ancient Tablets
9. Furniture
10. Bag of Bricks
11. Flying Carpet
12. Straw
13. Magic Lamp
14. Copy
Animations for the Camel
1. Spitting
2. Yawning
3. Swooshing its tail
4. Gasping
5. Sweating
6. Shaking
7. Breathing Heavily
8. Wincing
9. Collapsing
Objects teetering on back
1. Jossling of wood & metal
Background business in bazaar
1. Money changing hands
2. Animal noises
3. Feet movement
4. People talking
5. Haggling
6. Doors opening/closing
Genie Screen
1. Emerging from his lamp
2. Greeting
3. Acknowledgement of command
4. Granting of wish
The Task
Depending upon what’s available online, we might be able to pilfer the creative commons for some of these sound effects. But, I suspect that we will have to create a few as well in order to get all that we need. Ultimately, we’ll want to make sure that the sounds are all consistent with each other, so that may add further considerations as to what sound effects we can borrow and what we will have to make. We may also find out along the way that certain sounds are hard and should be replaced or we might find a few extras to add to the mix… but we won’t know until we start putting the compilation together.
How to Proceed
If you’re interested, we should discuss the list itself and see if it’s feasible and/or if there are things that we will need to change or add to it before we go looking for the sound effects. At that point, we should go looking for what’s available online and try to fill as much of the list up with free content as we can without having to make stuff ourselves. Once we figure out the landscape of the public domain, then we’ll know what we can use and what we need to make. At that point, we can do some recording. After that, we should sit down together and edit everything to conform to the animations and for consistency. For most of these events, I imagine little more than a second of sound will suffice… but we will have to fit each into a standard time frame which matches the length of the animations. In the end, we will have to deliver all the sound effects in the appropriate file type the program requires.
Time Frame
We can start as soon as you want and go at whatever pace will be convenient for you. Based upon the time frame for other parts of the App, we’re looking at at least two months before we need to have the sound effects ready. During that time, we can meet up whenever it is convenient for you and I can make myself available to help you with the process during any stage.
Compensation
Tell me what you want for the job and we’ll figure out some way to compensate you. You’ll also receive full credit for your work in the credits menu for the game for sound effects.
Grant of Rights
For all sounds we produce, we can arrange the project to either be a perpetual license between you and Evertide Games or a work made for hire, whichever you would prefer.
