Dutch Game Awards 2009 – The Soundery
The Soundery
As part of my graduation project I created a game called The Soundery, a game completely controlled by sound. I worked on this game for a couple of months, together with what is now a dear friend; Dirk-Jan Aalbers. He graduated in interaction design so he took care of the interface and most of the art and I focused on the gameplay. In the Soundery you could create robots by saying the names of their types. Then, when you would command them to “FIRE”, the volume and would determine the amount of bullets they would fire and the pitch would control the direction they would aim. The goal was to hold back waves of incoming enemies.
The first Dutch Game Awards!
During our graduation presentation day, Dirk-Jan and I showed the game to anyone that was interested. Among them was Roger Ter Heide, who I would meet many more times during my carreer. He suggested we enter in the Dutch Game Awards, a brand new event to celebrate all the beautiful games created in the Netherlands. With nothing to lose, Dirk-Jan and I submitted the Soundery as a contender. A couple of weeks later we got invited, as the game was nominated in the category best student game. We couldn’t be more excited.
During the event I remember meeting Peter Molyneux, which was a true legend as I had played Black & White extensively.
We did not win the award, but fellow classmates, Ward, Marthe, Maxine and Alex did with their game Hollandia which was a true beauty.
I did not know it would be many years until one of my games would again be nominated, but it sure was a great start, right after graduating!
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