Jeremy Goh, co-founder of IMBA Interactive, explained how better audio can lead to better casual games in his recent Casual Connect Asia speech. To find out more about delivering the audio quality audiences increasingly expect, watch the video below.
The Entrepreneurial Journey
IMBA was founded to serve the games industry in Singapore, Asia and Southeast Asia, using the years of knowledge garnered by the three partners through their freelance work. Together, they work to expand the business while achieving and maintaining the vision, mission and work quality they originally determined they would deliver. To do this they must also supervise and become involved in all the aspects of sound production, including: field recording (going out to collect the sounds), foley (acting out effects), voice recording, sound design and editing, music composition and production and game audio implementation.
Jeremy brings to IMBA years of experience in a wide variety of sound-related work: musician in a band, drums instructor in several musical institutions, composer for animated films, sound engineer for a TV station, sound designer for art installations and audio freelancer for games. All this background allows him to make more informed choices and decisions for IMBA’s clients.
His involvement with games began in 2010 in the Singapore-MIT GAMBIT Game Lab Programme while working toward his BFA in Interactive Media. In fact, all three of IMBA’s founders are alumni of the program, and since then they have never stopped developing audio for games. He finds great satisfaction flows from creating audio and music for games because they are nonlinear, as opposed to the linear nature of film and animation.
For someone as creative as Jeremy, the operational aspects of the business can sometimes feel a little stifling, but support from his co-founders and industry friends has been a tremendous help. As he says, “The entrepreneurial journey can be tumultuous, but it definitely has its merits.”
Maximizing the Contributions of Every Team Member
Finding the employees to make up a team to realize his vision for the company is one of his foremost challenges. He looks particularly for those who know when to lead and when to follow. Each team member must have the opportunity to contribute. And since the “boss” really doesn’t always know best, sharing (rather than hoarding) knowledge maximizes the team’s talents and abilities.
Sound designers are the most difficult people to add to the team since in the Singapore area “sound designer” isn’t a commonly recognized job title. In fact, sound design is still seen as somehow inferior to music composition. It is so undervalued that he has seen video editors dragging and dropping library samples into their videos, never bothering with any sound design.
It is also quite difficult to find a good variety of American and British English voice talent in Singapore. Other languages, such as French and Spanish, are even more difficult to find. Generally they are limited to actors, hosts and radio deejays. With high demand and low supply, the price of hiring these talents is exorbitant. Usually IMBA is able to keep within the budget of an indie by recording remotely, but the lack of personal coaching limits this approach.
Complications within the team are handled by carefully considering all aspects of a problem and simplifying as much as possible. Jeremy emphasizes that it is essential to keep the team focused on the goals of the company and avoid involving any personal and emotional issues.
His co-founders see him as someone who is analytical and able to simplify complex, abstract concepts so others can understand them. He is relaxed and straightforward, with the ability to teach and share ideas. And he is a techie and ardent fan of Apple.
The Sounds of Singapore
Singapore celebrates 50 years of independence this year, and the founders of IMBA want to put it on the map of game development and audio. So they have recorded and released libraries of sounds from the local culture, the first of a series featuring the “Kopitiam” (the traditional hawker centres of Singapore). And as a way of giving back to the community and industry, IMBA offers this first pack for free. The next project, to be released later this year, will be themed around “Singlish,” the mixture of English with many colloquial terms from different languages. The IMBA team hopes this work will influence other countries to share their unique culture through sound as well.
Serious About Fun
When IMBA is hired to work on a game, they work closely with the development team as if they were an in-house audio department. They would play test early builds as soon as the client releases one to them. During the pre-production phase, this helps them know what sounds will be needed for the game; then, during production, tests reveal if there are any missing sound assets as they prioritize which sounds to produce next. They test again during post-production to preview the results. Throughout this process, they also help developers find other potential problems in addition to audio bugs.
A particularly rewarding response to their work was for Romans in my Carpet by Witching Hour Studios, when they were told well how the voices and game music complemented the visuals and made the game really pop. To match the art style and whole aesthetic of the game, the music was created with a blend of 8-bit and modern instruments. Each Breetle and Romite in the game was given a unique personality through its voice.
The most satisfying times in Jeremy’s work are when people come to them to express appreciation for IMBA Interactive, whether these are awards for their audio or simply people who have heard of them through YouTube and realize they are pushing for better audio in modern media. It proves to them that people value their sincere efforts to make a difference in the industry and the community.
What Comes Next
As the game industry develops, Jeremy is seeing mobile and home entertainment beginning to converge, and he expects a boom in augmented reality and virtual reality experiences. Users will come to appreciate binaural audio and surround sound in their games and other interactive entertainment. At IMBA they are already preparing the software and hardware to produce such content, while constantly tracking the latest in technology and trends.
Jeremy also expects mobile devices to become more and more powerful, and as they do, developers will need better audio authoring tools to provide rich experiences in games. He says, “Audio middleware will become more commonplace in the audio development pipeline of mobile games. Franchises like PopCap’s Plants vs Zombies already adopt audio middleware.” Within a short time, the Asian region will have to catch up; IMBA is already working on titles incorporating audio middleware.
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