24 Jul 2013

Icebound Voice Acting and Other Updates (Release Devblog #1)

Posted in Games By Jonathan X On July 24, 2013

While Icebound is nearly ready for release, a while back I made the decision to add voice-acting to the visual novel. I’m planning to use it as a test for how to implement voice acting in the future, in future interactive stories that I am planning to work on. I am of the school of thought that voice acting has the potential to greatly improve the emotional impact of a game, and though there are times when it is unnecessary, having the option of a voiced game is something that I would love to include and give some talented people the chance to bring the universe to life.

To that end, we have finalized the list of voice actors who will be lending their voice to Icebound’s characters. Many of them have already started working on the voice acting of Icebound with Britt Myer, our voice director, with some feedback from me to make sure that the voices sound the way the characters were intended to sound. Of course, all voice acting will remain optional, but will be included as a free patch to Icebound some time after the game is released.

I am pleased to announce that LittleKuriboh (a.k.a. Martin) of Abridged Series fame will be voicing Dougal, the main character of the game! I am certainly a fan of his, and it’s kind of come full circle now that he’s voicing a character I wrote. Don’t worry, though – he doesn’t end up becoming an ancient Pharaoh – or does he?

In order to support the voice actors, and to provide for plans to port Icebound to mobile platforms using the Unity Engine, we are planning to launch a Kickstarter soon leading up to the release of Icebound. It’s my hope that the Kickstarter can bring some new attention to Icebound, since it’s had a bit of a slump lately what with me being so reticent about development.

The beta testing period of Icebound is now over – I’ve gotten some useful feedback, which I have incorporated to make a few minor changes to the game. Thank you to everyone who participated, and I hope you enjoyed playing through Icebound.

The full list of voice actors for Icebound is below – check it out!

Barzul – River Kanoff

Dirk – Matt Shipman

Dougal – Martin Billany

Edward – Daniel Gold

Guard – Greg Nugent

Isaac – Jeremy Baker

Jeffrey – Johan Bagenholm

Kai – Edward Bosco

Roy – Patrick M. Seymour

Torrun – Chris Guerrero

Voski – Edwyn Tiong