All The Binaurals
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There has been a lot of commotion in the audio gaming world in the past week. A developer which was unknown to most people has landed on the scene with big plans for a 2020 release. They have been gaining good support via their Kickstarter, but some potential backers have been waiting for more information about the game to come out. I sat down with Harry Cooper for a 40 minute interview where we go into a lot of the game specifics. We answer a lot of questions about what type of game Pitch Black will be, and what type of challenges it will have for the players.
Game Info
Developer: Purple jam (Harry Cooper, Jordan Barry , Connor Harrison)
Game Release Date: October 2020
Final Game Price: £20
Kickstarter: Pitch Black – The ‘AAA’ Audio Game
Kickstarter End Date: November 14, 2019
Platform: PC, Mac, IOS, Android
Genre: character driven storyline, immersive binaural audio, distopian, exploration, 3d audio puzzle
youtube: PitchBlack
Twitter: @dusklightpro
Why an interview & some background
When the kickstarter first came to my attention I browsed their page, and though my interest was peeked, I had a lot of questions about the game. It turns out I wasn’t the only one. Hannibal was asking the same things, and others reached out wondering about it as well. Mainly what kind of game would this be? A lot of the Kickstarter was focused on the binaural audio system, but not specific game features and challenges. This lead to the below interview.
We start off with how they got into the audio game world, then transition to specific details about Pitch Black.
I admit, I was very sceptical at first. After talking to Harry Cooper (the developer) I am much more optomistic about what the game will be.
Most audio games are replacing visual aspects with sounds for the person playing. This is what we are all use to playing, and it is how all of our favorite audio games work. Pitch Black is not using this visual to audio method however, it is purely audio based without any need for visuals.
Imagine yourself blind and in a crowded bar at midnight on a weekend. There is a band playing and loud conversations happening everywhere. Now you need to find a friend who is somewhere in the bar. The challenge of this is the audio. It isn’t audio representing what could otherwise be visual, it is simply audio. This is the premise behind Pitch Black. It is an “audio game”, a game of audio where the challenge is audio based. This is why the binaural aspect makes more sense, and why it isn’t just a window dressing being added after the fact.
Once I understood this everything else about the game made sense. I was simply looking at it from the wrong perspective. We go into this in the interview as well as some specific challenges built into the game for the players. If you were wondering about game specifics this interview should answer a lot of your questions.
Thanks to Hannibal, Amine, and Sito for helping me come up with and refine questions.
An Interview with Harry Cooper of Pitch Black
Download a copy of the interview
The Giveaway
By clicking on the below link and tweeting out to enter into the giveaway to win a free copy of Pitch Black you agree to the rules of the giveaway.
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