No Rest for the Crabby...

Sorry my posts have been a bit spoo-radic of late, but I've been working on this freelance gig at night and, you guessed it, a new one it is ripping me, yes. Basically, I do the occasional music and sound-effecting gig for an online game company. The time frame for the gigs is usually really fucking short and the whole thing is really fucking frantic, but I make a little money out of it and, in theory, it's fun. It's not, though. I really only enjoy it after it's over and I play the game and listen to the sounds and music and go, "Holy fuckshit, I did that?! I have absolutely no recollection of ever making any of that shit. Oh well... OOH, A CHECK!"

I'm not sure if you need to sign up on the site to play the games I've worked on, but I think some of them are free. Let's see...

Here's a recent one I did. It's a jigsaw puzzle thing. Click "Play as a Guest" if you want to... uh, play as a guest. The direction for the music was something like, "Make it adventure-y sounding." Is it? Fuck if I know. You tell me.

Ooh, this one was one of my faves. It's an Ali Baba-themed slot machine, and they wanted Ali Baba-style music for it. I had no fucking clue what I was going to do, but I said, "Sure! No problem! Ali Baba-style music is my middle name!" I had to find all these sitar/flute/tabla patches and I was in WAY THE FUCK over my head, but in the end, I think the music turned out great. Is what I created an accurate reflection of the music one might have heard in ancient Arabia? Probably not. Did the check clear? You bet yer harem-pants-wearin'-ass it did.

I think you have to join to play the other games I did. It's free, I think, but you have to give them all your info, along with a pint of blood and a stool sample. There's a great one called "Hog Heaven Slots," that's got a cherubic-piggy theme, and one of my other faves was the 70s Moogy-electro-pop flavored "Keno Pop."

The only thing that sucks about the gig is that after mixing everything down, the sounds/music I make sound pretty awesome (crisp, full, in stereo) but for the big audio files to actually work in the game, I have to compress the shit out of them into this ridiculously tiny file size that makes them sound like they're playing from inside the dickhole of a dung beetle. But as long as the check clears, I'LL play from inside the dickhole of a dung beetle. Crabby needs cash.

And there you go. I just wasted 10 minutes and I still haven't figured out a sound for "weekly bonus ding." All right, back to work. I guess the spawnage have to eat next week. Now where's my 'ding' folder?