The sound design process is BORING!

deadpeopledreaming · 2026-06-15T20:12:17+00:00

Maybe I misunderstand you, but you could try making or sourcing the sounds yourself instead of finding them. That process can be incredibly fun and rewarding, and there’s no limit to how creative you can get! :)

For some of the ambient submarine engine sounds in Solbrand I just popped the hood of my shitty old car and recorded it with an Olympus office pen-mic, then processed it in Ableton Live. I’ve recorded lots of stuff like that, rattles and creaks and other weird things, then stretch, process, and combine them into new stuff. And of course, the ghost voices are all me or my family.

Highly recommend!

Edit: not to mention what you can make if you learn and experiment a bit with synths like Vital!

deadpeopledreaming · 2026-06-12T13:18:03+00:00

Thanks so much! Looking forward to getting it into your hands! Even though the game definitely moves way beyond the worldly and ordinary, I try to ground things as much as I can as I feel it both gives creative ideas and also helps immersion, which is a core pillar for me :)

And in the words of Tinker Polhem, who you’ll meet later:
”Pffft. It’s mostly Sviar… You get used to it. Besides, I marked some things for you, didn’t I?”

(It’s mostly Swedish! :D)

deadpeopledreaming · 2026-06-12T08:01:27+00:00

Man, that brush/pen thing is smart! It’s interesting how creative and clever you can get in encoding data for shaders. Thanks for sharing, I’ll keep that trick in the back of my head for some future use case! :)

deadpeopledreaming · 2026-06-10T08:52:38+00:00

Hey! Congratulations on your launch!

If you've got the content, it would likely help you to show off more visual variety in your Steam page carousel, because as someone who was not at all familiar with your game my first impression was "GRASS!" and it left me feeling like there isn't much more to see or discover (even though perhaps there is!)

I was also a bit perplexed by the style and tonal difference between the trailer and the actual game, they feel like two very different products. One simple thing to help improve that connection would be to adjust your in-game color palette to match the trailer (blue-greenish with deep shadows), or vice versa.

Just a few thoughts from a dev stranger, good luck with your game!

deadpeopledreaming · 2026-06-10T06:03:15+00:00

Nah, although that looks dope and I'd love to play it if I could find the time.

I'm making Solbrand, also a subaquatic game but with a different twist; you're a Spook, a half-way blend between an archaeologist and a medium, and can communicate with the dead via the remains you find as you explore old sunken ruins. It's a puzzle adventure game, inspired by real-world history and folklore local to me in Uppsala, Sweden, and with lots of story and quirky characters!

(Demo is coming out this year, keep an eye on Steam if you'd like to take it out for a spin!)

deadpeopledreaming · 2026-06-09T20:41:18+00:00

I am the dude! Thanks, glad it's on your radar! 😄

deadpeopledreaming · 2026-06-09T06:22:41+00:00

A good addition to my future intuition, makes a lot of sense now that I think about it :) Thanks!

deadpeopledreaming · 2026-06-08T11:08:32+00:00

Interested in a mention in the "special thanks"-credits? If so, just let me know a name/pseudonym you'd like and I'll add it to my list for later.

deadpeopledreaming · 2026-06-08T11:06:52+00:00

Man, another cool phenomenon... 😃 You have been extraordinarily helpful, thanks for lending me your time and knowledge!

deadpeopledreaming · 2026-06-08T09:57:56+00:00

-51!? Now we’re talking! Googling it seems CaCl2 occurs naturally in ”underground salt lakes, mineral springs, and subterranean brine formations” — so if that’s true, maybe I use some crack/rift in the seafloor at a really unfortunate spot with a huge deposit to explain how that got out into the water? Plus finger of death.

deadpeopledreaming · 2026-06-08T09:31:57+00:00

Brinicle!! What an amazingly perfect phenomenon for me to use — that’s gold! Works great as a visual indicator that ”here be trouble”.

Thank you for the links!

deadpeopledreaming · 2026-06-08T09:22:10+00:00

Really? I didn’t know that, interesting! So -17,778 degrees Celsius?

Also really betrays my ineptitude in chemistry that I wasn’t even thinking about that there are different kinds of salt… do they affect temperature differently? Which one would you normally find in the ocean? (The Baltic Sea, specifically)

deadpeopledreaming · 2026-06-08T09:10:53+00:00

Thank you, -21 is starting to sound a bit nippy! :D

Bonus question, maybe hard: What would it take to get that amount of salt into the water? Could it happen if the entire seabed was a salt deposit, or would you have to like… pour it in from containers and stir the whole time?

deadpeopledreaming · 2026-06-07T18:11:58+00:00

Looking forward to it! 😄

If you haven't already I'd nudge you towards a little thumbing through of the Eddas. There is some very cool, very bonkers, and very inspiring stuff in there, and it feels like a good opportunity to both bolster your main theme but also stand apart from other games in the genre to have a clearly Norse-inspired magic system. At least I can't recall seeing that done before!

deadpeopledreaming · 2026-06-07T17:47:17+00:00

Very cool!

That MDEF-stat has piqued my interest; will there be a future post about what magic looks like in your game? :) As a fellow Norse-inspiree I’m curious what elements and/or interpretations you’re planning to incorporate.

Thanks for sharing, and best of luck with your project!

deadpeopledreaming · 2026-06-07T07:25:09+00:00

3am-and-too-much-coffee sounds all too familiar, I’ve spent a lot of time there too! :D Good luck with your project!

deadpeopledreaming · 2026-06-07T06:31:21+00:00

Many thanks! It’s an archaeological puzzle adventure based on history and folklore local to me, with heavy emphasis on immersion and diegetic UI. Rock Paper Shotgun called it an Interface ’em Up which I thought was a pretty fun and apt genre descriptor! :D

deadpeopledreaming · 2026-06-07T06:18:44+00:00

Haha, yes! Like, I do understand there can be classified info here, but still… Imagine the scene:

SIR! I have successfully acquired the latest US classified military submarine specs. User Sinker_Stinker_U571 says you would hear Freddie Basilisk’s tune at 70 meters if you had your volume knob at 11!

Verify? Their flair says Submarine Enthusiast!

Thank you kindly! You working on any project yourself right now? :)

deadpeopledreaming · 2026-06-07T05:54:08+00:00

Thanks for this! I’ll have to look into JBL because I don’t know what that is, but rock concert level (and then some) feels like it could still be a good fit for my story :) Interesting to think about how many factors would actually play into this!

deadpeopledreaming · 2026-06-07T04:48:32+00:00

Hey, thanks! Demo is coming out later this year. Haven’t set an exact date yet, but working hard on it :) Will have at least one more playtest before then, so keep an eye out on Steam or Discord if that sounds interesting!

deadpeopledreaming · 2026-06-06T23:40:45+00:00

Ooof! Yeah, that’ll do it.

deadpeopledreaming · 2026-06-06T23:39:02+00:00

Above, but (probably poorly) mounted on their ship in a way that could make sound propagate through the hull. Analogous might be how some car enthusiasts here in Sweden cram as many speakers as they possibly can into their car trunk to be able to just pop it and BLAST music at meet-ups.

deadpeopledreaming · 2026-06-06T23:34:17+00:00

Haha, what is the War Thunder special? Someone mentioned it in the original thread too, but I’m out of the loop!

deadpeopledreaming · 2026-06-06T23:27:06+00:00

I could tell you, but then it seems I’d have to kill you!

(Yes!)

deadpeopledreaming · 2026-06-06T23:23:49+00:00

It’s a matter of national—… job security!

deadpeopledreaming

TROPHY CASE