Hello Humans and Aliens!
Our first interview proved to be quite an interesting hit with our audience so we decided to push ahead and set up another one!
This time, we’re talking with Constantine Chistiakov, the composer and sound designer for Redneck Ed: Astro Monsters Show!
Hello, Constantine! Thank you for taking the time to talk with us. In true team interview style, I'm going to ask you what you were up to before we sat down?
Hey! I was recording the sounds for arenas, specifically the hissing of the biting monster from the Lightning Planet.
Can you briefly introduce yourself? Who are you and what do you do for Redneck Ed?
I am the composer and the sound designer. I write music for contemporary dance, advertisements, movies, shows, and games. I started in this career by working on sound designs for video games and later moved to other projects. However I found myself turning back to the gaming industry and alongside Redneck Ed, I am working on the sound and music for several other games.
My role with Redneck Ed is to create all of the sounds: so music, soundtrack, and voice acting, then adding it all to the game’s sound engine.
What is it like working as a composer for Redneck Ed, and do you have any funny stories that you’d like to share from your time working on as a composer?
I love working on Redneck Ed because the team is small and completely dedicated to the project, this means that the work on the sound is very precise and structured.
The best part is that everyone in the team understands that the sound is a very important part of the game.
A funny story from my side is that in the beginning, the team wasn’t that excited about my ideas and I wasn’t even meant to be a part of this project. But somehow I still found my way to the team!
What has been the biggest challenge that you’ve experienced when working on Redneck Ed?
It would probably be the amount and types of tasks.
We already have about an hour of music written for the game. But that’s only part of the story, a unique theme is written for each screen, each arena making the work very time intensive.
Essentially, my goal was to make the music unique and eclectic by being a mix of electronic, classic patches from the Yamaha YM2612 sound chip, (fun fact, this was in the Sega Mega Drive console), then translated into sysex messages and downloaded and processed by me using the FM synthesizer, live instruments like banjo and harmonica, overloaded guitars synthesized on the same FM synthesizer, vocals and much more.
The music is adaptive and it will change according to the battle situation, the health level of the player and the enemy, etc.
Also a huge amount of sounds is needed for the game. For example, the basic animations of the protagonist have about two hundred sounds that have been recorded.
200 sounds of hits and punches, which in the engine gives around 100,000 combinations of one sound so it never repeats, also each character has their own voice reactions.
For the dialogue system, sets of phonemes are created for each character that will generate hundreds of word combinations in the engine. I work on the sound for Redneck Ed as it is a AAA RPG, not a 2D fighting-platformer, and I do all of this work alone; this is probably the main difficulty and biggest challenge.
Could you tell us how you started working on Redneck Ed?
This was probably one of the strangest ways to start on a project! The work began with the fact that I was NOT accepted into the project. This was because I suggested a strange concept and it took quite some time for everyone to realize that it was exactly what the game needed.
In the end, we spoke about it for around a month and in that time the concept took root and grew on the team!
What do you like most about Redneck Ed? Is there any special reason for this love?
I really like the art that Arvi makes, it was actually the main reason for me wanting to join the team.
Now, it’s evolved further, I like the whole process, since each member of the team is maximally interested in all aspects of the game. This really gives us perfect communication within the project, something that you don’t see everywhere!
Speaking of gaming in general, what is your favorite genre and platform on which do you prefer to play? What are you playing now?
I started playing with ZX Spectrum, then on Nintendo, Sega, slot machines and handheld consoles, that's why platformers, fighting games and so on are very close to me. I’ve been playing Tekken since 1999 almost every day.
My first game on PC was Flashback, and when cool AAA projects began to appear (on PCs), I played the Assassins Creed, Deus Ex, TES, Mass Effect series with great pleasure.
The most striking impression was made by Morrowind and of course the first Half-Life, then it seemed a whole life.
Now, unfortunately, almost any AAA project seems boring, scenarios are the weakest point, and the cool visual causes satiety after an hour of playing.
Therefore, now indie games impress me much more - for example, Fez, Journey, Final Station, Kentucky Route Zero and the most ingenious work of contemporary art - Everything by David O'Reilly.
What do you do when not working?
Mostly I work, but switch between completely different jobs, for example, a game project, modern ballet, multimedia shows and recording hypercar engines for drifting. I love good auteur cinema such as Bertolucci, Lynch, Cronenberg, and the like.
We have come to the end of the interview. Maybe there is something that you would like to share with readers? Maybe talk about your favorite game (which no one knows about), or some advice (for example, to achieve your goals), or something else?
Reach your goals and play your favorite games.
If you want to know more about Constantine’s work, check out his website.
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