Q: Where can I get the soundtrack for [INSERT GAME TITLE HERE]?

Most of our smaller games use royalty free music from shockwave-sound.com. The best we can do is link you to those songs, though to purchase a non-watermarked track you’ll need to shell out $20 or so. If we make a game with original music in it made specifically for that game, we’ll be sure to make the soundtrack available in some fashion. But for now, here are the links:

Effing Hail

• We Are Loud - [preview track]

Fig. 8

• Les Pieds - [preview track]
• Cafe Musette - [preview track]
• Tabac - [preview track]
• Not Very Smart - [preview track]
• Boulangerie - [preview track]
• La Bouree de Claudie - [preview track]

Q: Does that say Iowa? Why are you in Iowa?

We all went to Iowa State University for school. That’s where we met each other. So our roots are here, and it doesn’t cost much to live here. Iowa is pretty lonely as far as mainstream game development goes. Budcat Creations and Phantom EFX are the only shops in the state that do more mainstream work. Despite that, there are a good number of indie and amateur game developers around us. Most of the co-founders of the indie game companies in Iowa, including all the people in our company, have worked at the Virtual Reality Applicatons Center at ISU, which has become a local breeding grounds for those interested in game development. Plus, there’s the Des Moines Gaming Group that meets monthly to show their own game creations. There’s a mobile developer Lightning Toads in Ames, and 8monkey Labs in Cedar Falls, working on their own AAA title. So we’re not alone as far as indie development goes.

In fact, we’ve been known to get together for an Iowa Indie Game Jam, where we try to make a game over a weekend. Members from 8monkey Labs, Lightning Toads, students from VRAC, and of course those of us from Intuition Games have been known to participate.