Wwise Limbo Redux Contest Information

Contest Description

“Wwise Limbo Redux” is a sound design contest where participants propose an alternate sound design for a 60-second section of the game. The contest is open to everyone and encourages creativity and technical ingenuity.

The winning submission will be the one proposing the most interesting reinterpretation of Limbo considering the originality of the concept, the quality of the new assets created and the best use of Wwise as a sound design tool.

To be eligible, submissions should comply with the contest rules below. Submissions that do not respect one or several rules will be discarded by the jury.

Sorry, the contest submission period has ended

How to Enter

 The Limbo Game and associated Wwise project is available as part of the Wwise Authoring download and can be downloaded from the public download section of our website.
 
 During the install, be sure to check off the ‘Limbo’ install option.
 
 A 21 page PDF document is included as part of the Wwise/Limbo installation. It can be located in the Audiokinetic start menu named as “LIMBO Documentation”. It is highly recommend that this document be consulted before starting your Limbo Redux project.
 
  If you would like to know more about the sound design for the original Limbo game, please feel free to view the Limbo Audio Analysis video prepared by Stephan Schutze.
 
 Note that the Wwise Limbo Project is only compatible with the version of Limbo available from the Audiokinetic Wwise Downloads page, or from the Wwise web installer.
 
 By default, you have access to the Limbo demo version and you can play, monitor, and modify the audio content of the game up to the first encounter with the giant spider. At this point, you have the option to acquire a full licence to unlock the rest of the game so that you can monitor and modify the whole game content. To have full access to the game with a full license key right away, follow this link: http://limbogame.org/store/. As mentioned above, the Steam release of Limbo is not compatible with the Wwise Limbo Project.
 
 With all the tools and all the knowledge and skills, it’s time to create your masterpiece!
 
 Select a 60-second segment of your altered game to record to video (YouTube, Vimeo, etc.)
 
 Prepare a short description of your altered game. Write about your artistic vision, any cool techniques you used in the sound creation and Wwise project. Tell us why you’re the best!
 
 Visit the submission page here to fully submit your project. You’ll need to provide:
  1. Valid name and email address (we need to know how to contact you!)
  2. The text description of your project, with your artistic vision, etc.
  3. The link to your video (YouTube, Vimeo, etc.)
  4. The link to your Wwise project (we recommend a free upload service like Dropbox, Box, SkyDrive, Google Drive, etc.) Share the file with limboredux@audiokinetic.com so that we can grab it!
  5. Submit your entry. We’ll look it over to make sure all of the pieces are there, and we’ll confirm your entry directly with you within two business days.
  6. You are allowed to create two unique entries, so if you come up with another awesome idea, submit it!
 
 And that’s it! Winners will be publicly announced at GDC 2014, as well as on our website during GDC 2014, and will be individually contacted beforehand.

Timelines and Deadlines

The submission period begins November 5th, 2013, and runs until January 31st, 2014 at midnight, Eastern Daylight Time. The judging period will begin February 1st, 2014 and last until February 28th, 2014. The prize winners will be publicly announced March 19th, 2014 at the Game Developers Conference. Details on this event will follow. Winners will also be announced on the Audiokinetic website on March 19th, 2014. Winners will be contacted no later than March 12th, 2014, using the e-mail addresses provided in their entries.

The Prizes!

There will be one ‘Best in Show’ winner, and two Runners-Up.

Prize for Best in Show

A tablet from the following list:

  • 64GB Wifi iPad® Air (retail value: $720 CAD)
  • 64GB Wifi iPad® Mini 2 with Retina Display (retail value: $620 CAD)
  • 32GB Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 Edition (retail value: $600 CAD)
  • 64GB Microsoft Surface 2 (retail value: $550 CAD)

The winner will also have a full feature article on the Audiokinetic website, similar to our developer Q&A features, and will have their winning entry featured on the Audiokinetic website.

Prizes for the Runners-Up

  • Beyerdynamic DT-770 Pro Headphones (retail value: $250)

All runners-up will have their videos featured on the Audiokinetic website.

Rules and Regulations

 Participants must be a minimum 18 years of age.
 
 Only completed entries, validated and confirmed by Audiokinetic staff, will be eligible for judging.
 
 All entries must be sent via the submission form for validation.
 
 All entries can be submitted in Japanese or English.
 
 The submission period for entries begins November 5th, 2013 and ends midnight January 31st, 2014. All submissions received prior to midnight January 31st, 2014 will be eligible for the contest, pending their successful validation.
 
 The prizewinner will be announced at the Audiokinetic event at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, which runs from March 17th to 21st, 2014 and will be also announced on www.audiokinetic.com on March 17th.
 
 Prizewinners will be contacted via e-mail, using the e-mail address provided in their entry and validated by Audiokinetic staff during the entry validation process.
 
 Prizes can be claimed at the announcement event listed above, or can be delivered to the winner, upon their request.
 
 The winners will be selected by the listed jury, using the guidelines described in the section marked ‘Judging Panel and Criteria’. The scores of the four judges for each entry will be averaged to determine a winner. The decisions of the judges are final.
 
 The contest is closed to employees of Audiokinetic, Inc., the jury members, and their spouses and families.
 
 Any litigation respecting the conduct or organization of a publicity contest may be submitted to the Regie des alcools, des courses et des jeux for a ruling. Any litigation respecting the awarding of a prize may be submitted to the Regie only for the purpose of helping the parties reach a settlement.
 
 The entry form includes a skill-testing question, which must be correctly answered in order for an entry to be validated.

Judging Panel

Damian Kastbauer (Lost Chocolate Lab)

Damian Kastbauer Damian Kastbauer is a freelance Technical Sound Designer working to help developers achieve an interactive audio aesthetic in support of their gameplay. Over the past 7 years he has split his time between traveling to developers and working on-site for short durations and experimenting remotely from his home laboratory for projects such-as: Peggle2, Dead Space 3, Marvel Heroes, Uncharted 3, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, among others. He is also the author of the Wwise Project Adventure: A Handbook for Interactive Audio using Wwise.

Matt Donner (CAO – Pyramind Training)

Matt Donner Matt Donner has had a long and storied career - from earning a Masters in Music from NYU to working on feature film scores, recording hundreds of albums and running a studio tech-support business for 5 years prior to coming to California. After landing on the "left coast" in 1996, Matt served as an award-winning Regional Trainer for Guitar Center Pro Audio staff as well as Senior Pro Tools Technician for Cutting Edge Audio, delivering, fixing or teaching about PT to a who's-who of Bay Area studios, including the famous Skywalker Sound.

Matt has been the Chief at Pyramind for 14 years, first serving as lead composer and engineer then dedicating his time to the Training division of Pyramind. During that time, he's helped grow the company from a staff of 2 to a staff of 22, moving from 2200 sq ft to 11,000 sq ft and developed Pyramind's highly touted CORE and DSP Certification programs - collectively 900 in-class hours of Training on Music and Audio production. He's written 4 books, several articles, has served as a panelist for AES Game Audio seminars and has consulted to various manufacturers on both product design as well as Training Programs. He was a significant contributor on the recently launched FMOD Certification program (for which he is the instructor at Pyramind) as well as performing copy edits on 2 soon-to-be-published books on Game Audio from Focal Press.

Stephan Schutze (The Sound Librarian)

Stephan Schutze Stephan Schütze has been a composer and sound designer in the games industry for over thirteen years. He is now the Director of Sound Librarian, an audio production, education and training company that services the games industry worldwide.

Sound Librarian produce sound effects libraries for some of the industries biggest studios such as EA, Activision and Warner Brothers worldwide studios. Sound Librarian also develop education and training material focused on game audio production and recently released the official FMOD Studio 101 course. Stephan is considered the world's principle authority on FMOD Studio and is passionate about supporting the industry's growth.

Robert Brock (Department Director – Conservatory of Recording Arts & Sciences)

Robert Brock Robert Brock is the Digital Recording dept. director at the Conservatory of Recording Arts & Sciences [CRAS], an audio production school based in Arizona. Shortly after the introduction of Wwise in 2006, Brock worked closely with Audiokinetic to integrate Wwise as the primary hands-on tool for introducing audio production students to game audio integration. Since then CRAS graduates have moved on to work throughout the game audio industry as sound designers and audio leads. While Brock is passionate about all things audio, he's equally passionate about education. Brock serves as a Logic Pro mentor trainer with Apple Inc. and in that capacity has travelled worldwide training instructors as well as serving as contributing writer and technical editor for the Logic Apple Pro Training Series. He's also an Apple Distinguished Educator [ADE] and currently serves on the ADE advisory board. When not in a classroom, he tries to get back to his roots as a keyboard player and synthesizer geek while still saving time to save the world from the safety of his couch.

Judging Criteria

The entries will be judged on the following criteria:

 Artistic Vision – the ambition of the project as well as the cohesion of the various audio elements.
 
 Quality of Audio Assets – the quality of the raw sound assets created for the project, and any interesting technical mastery used in their creation.
 
 Use of Wwise – the level of technical mastery of the Wwise toolset and its use in achieving the artistic vision.

Each will be graded on a scale of 1 to 10, and compiled into a final score out of 30. The judges’ scores will be averaged, and a winner will be determined.

Sorry, the contest submission period has ended