25 January 2009

Ecological Tycoon by EcoThink (France)

In September 2008 we were asked by Frédéric Pedro, CEO at EcoThink , the help them ‘improve’ the audio for their game Ecological Tycoon.

The game is a management game based on creating a sustainable environment. The project Ecological Tycoon (www.ecological-tycoon.com) was originally made for Microsoft’s Imagine Cup ’08 (100.000 competitors from more than 100 different countries), was selected to represent France and it led them to the final round (global TOP 6).
EcoThink was given the chance to release the game on XBLA but the team decided that before releasing the game some improvements needed to be made. Audio was one of the things that needed improvement.

We started out with making new menu music. The team had indicated they preferred a relaxed piece of music. After that new in-game music was made (4 new relaxed tracks). The original in-game music composition, a very nice tune by the French talented band Euphony, was also used. We re-recorded it and slightly adapted to our new music, making it a bit more in-game. This way we got 5 great pieces of music that will be varied during the game. The outro tune is a lovely song by Euphony called ‘Dryness’. For this version their recording was mixed by KSK Productions. The band sent the separate tracks of the song through internet and Jan mixed this in his studio. Recorded in France, mixed in the Netherlands.
All communication went through e-mail and msn. That turned out really well.

In the game you can play 4 minigames. For 3 of them we provided new music and for 1 minigame music of Euphony was used.

Other than the music production KSK was responsible for:

• Editing existing sound fx
• Designing new sound fx
• Editing voice recordings made in France (the instructors voice)
• Implementing the audio through XACT in the game (Together with the programmers)

Some examples of sounds and music from the game:


At this point the project is almost finished and will be released on XBLA soon.

The follow-up project of Ecological Tycoon is already in the making. And we where honored to be asked by Frédéric to become the audio director for the coming project. We gladly accepted and will meet each other soon in Paris to discuss new project.