We are seeking an aspiring indie game musician for a secret project we are working on. We are looking to have a minimum of 5 tracks produced, with each track ranging from 3 to 5 minutes in length. We are not seeking professionals with a strong track record as our budget is limited with this title. However, we would most certainly listen to your work if you can work within our budget (see below). We want to work with someone who wants to get their foot in the door to work on a commercially released game, and we know there is a vast amount of talent out there seeking to be a part of something fu ..read more

Early Access is a program on Steam designed for players to jump in and start playing games while they are still in development. The goal of the program is for players to provide valuable feedback to improve the game and make for a more polished, complete experience. But is Early Access right for just any game? This article is a reflection of my experience and opinions and may help offer some insight to other developers looking to enter the program. My experience with Early Access begins a couple years ago, midway through The Forbidden Arts’ development cycle. I began to think about ways I coul ..read more

Thank you for your interest in voice acting for The Forbidden Arts. For these auditions, please do not add any effects to your voice. All auditions must be raw. Due to the number of auditions we receive we will not be able to respond to you unless we are interested in having you voice a particular role. If we are interested we will ask you how much compensation you are seeking for the role. Compensation is negotiable and will be paid via Paypal or similar service. Please send all auditions to info@stingbotgames.com. Please submit your auditions, with which role(s) you are auditioning for by Fr ..read more

EDIT: We have filled this role. Congratulations to Jonathan Cooke! We look forward to sharing his voice in the game. We need a voice actor to assume the role of Joppay, a desert drunk. Joppay used to be a treasure hunter in his youth, but as of late he spends his days drinking and spreading rumors throughout the desert. He’s a light hearted fellow whose happiness rests in a half empty bottle of Whiskey. He’s not angry, rude etc. Just a drunk. This role will require you to sound drunk. What we are looking for is someone who can do a great old man voice and add some drunken flair to it. See bel ..read more

Recently we entered our game, The Forbidden Arts, into the Windows Dream Build Play contest. One of the requirements for entry was to build and publish the game on the Windows UWP platform, although it isn't required to be live in the store. We didn't have the smoothest ride, but we did make it to the end of the road. I'm writing this Blog to help other developers who might be struggling to port your Unity game to Windows UWP. At the time of writing, we were using Unity 2017.2.1 and Visual Studio 2017. First let's begin in Unity. Most of The Forbidden Arts' code is compatible with Windows UWP ..read more

The title says it all. Zelda has Hyrule, Mario has the Mushroom Kingdom, Elder Scrolls has Tamriel and so on. We need a name for the world the game takes place in. We are asking for suggestions from anyone and everyone. If we choose your suggestion we will give you a $50 gift card to Steam, or simply $50 via Paypal. We will make an announcement on Facebook/Twitter with the winner when and if one is chosen. Please email info@stingbotgames.com, or if you follow us on Twitter or Facebook you can simply reply with your suggestions. Thanks for being a part of our development process. We look forw ..read more

Music can really strengthen a game and make you fall in love with it. Mario 64 would have been a very different experience for me if it wasn't for the beautiful melody that is Dire Dire Docks. I remember swimming around collecting red coins just to listen to the music on repeat. Or how about the original Mario on NES? Remember the first time you entered level 1.2? Such a simple theme and so classic. Makes me happy just thinking about it. Music can play with our emotions and make us feel things we didn't know we could feel. It does truly have a profound effect on us. Game development is actuall ..read more

This past summer has proven to be quite a busy one. We are very happy to announce a demo of The Forbidden Arts has been completed and we recorded a video showing some in-game footage which can be seen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzWkHHhOo_k We explore the basics of the game mechanics, story, exploration, collectibles and challenges available. Aside from finishing a demo we have integrated hundreds of voiceovers and sound effects, and lots of music. We have built more than 50% of the game world to date and about 70% of the game is fully programmed. We are very pleased with the progre ..read more

As an indie game developer it’s very difficult to juggle time between development and marketing, so I decided not to spread myself too thin. I wanted to focus on just a few social networks to promote our upcoming game, The Forbidden Arts. I decided on Facebook, Twitter and Youtube. With nearly 2 billion users, Facebook was a prime choice and should be a no brainer for anyone wanting to promote their business or services on a social network. Once I got started with Facebook and began to build a following for the game I realized how expensive Facebook promotions actually are. This isn’t meant t ..read more

This post first appeared on the Black Shell Media blog. Digital Rights Management (DRM) is a corporate attempt at fighting piracy by controlling exactly how and when you use media. There are, approximately, 10,742,489 kinds of DRM and copy protection out there, with almost every company or format having their own take on it. And with a total estimated revenue loss of $74 billion due to pirated games in 2014 alone, it makes sense why DRM is so prevalent. Valve’s Steam is one of the primary examples discussed when mentioning DRM, especially online, where the words “digital rights management” ar ..read more