Prey 2!  If you’re looking for news or secret insider updates, too bad.  Here is the already public trailer.  That’s all you get.

BurgerTime World Tour finally launched.  It’s now available for XBLA, PSN and WiiWare.

Sadly, J.E.R. Kit was outright banned for iOS.  Don’t worry, you can still kill hookers in GTA III for iPad.  What was all the fuss?  Good news Android users, you can still judge for yourself what the 5000+ users have already discovered.  Laugh with friends, embarrass your significant others.

Warning!  Nostalgia bomb detected!  Recently teamed up with The Men Who Wear Many Hats to do sound and music for an iOS and Android version of Organ Trail.  Oregon Trail?  No.  ORGAN Trail.

Next up.  More mobile madness (literally).  Noise production begins soon for a game by Furywing Games.  Not much I can say about it now.  I made the suggestion I base the soundtrack off the first 3 Madness albums.  They said enthusiasitcally, “Go for it!”  Fuck.  Yes.

Sound FX libraries?  You read my mind!  I have plans to release a few by 2013.

Hmmm… what else..?  I have rough plans to update all the other sections of the site soon.  I mean, christ, Duke Nukem and Guitar Hero jokes.  Pretty lame.  I know.

GDC 2012 looms just around the corner.  I’ll be there.

In other news, I quit smoking. No.. no… that didn’t happen.  An old friend and bandmate of mine released a country album.  Check it out.  Speaking of old pals, Greyslater made a soap version of “that thing on your arm”.  So buy one and pretend we’re taking a shower together.  Dirty and clean, sugar.

Ruckus and noise,
Ben Crossbones

First off, if you’re at GDC 2011, track me down and say “hi”.  Let’s grab some beers and talk about classic arcade games, roller derby and local bands.

Check out J.E.R. Kit for the iPhone and Android.  I teamed up with Analog Pixels to provide music and the voice over for the charming and encouraging personal trainer.  Yes.  That is my voice.  Is that going to make things weird between us?

As of a few days ago, I wrapped up a quick contract with Chicago developers, Robomodo.  These guys rock!  I had a lot of fun working with these all-stars in a sick crunch before GDC 2011.  As always, when I have the go ahead, I’ll tell you all about it.

Frozen Codebase makes games that I can’t talk about.

And the big news:  I just teamed up with Human Head Software and Bethesda as sound designer on another project that I can’t talk about.  I can however say, I’m looking forward to working on it for the next 6 months and that it is going to kick fucking ass.  Again, I have to be super tight lipped about this one for now, but in a few weeks come back to the site for links to trailers and possibly developer diary blogs.

In other news, The Boners’ album is almost finished being written, but you can get your fix of Adam Bones (the talented part of the band) if you’re in the LA area.

Get tattooed by Tim.

No Coast Hardcore,
Ben Crossbones

After the last super-belated update, I got a call from Mike Csurics about doing some songs for an upcoming 2K project. Not willing to rely on VSTs, I enlisted the help of former Chicagoan and old friend, Adam Bones. The Boners (Ben Crossbones and Adam Bones. Get it?) finally laid down their first single in the form of a 50′s instrumental rock and roll love song. I was privileged to team up with other fantastic musicians, Adam Boese and Chris Struif on a separate, post WWII jazz number. Fantastic work guys.

Then, Mike gives me another call and has 2K Games send me to LA to assist in the dialogue production for Xcom. It was an amazing experience to say the least. We were set up at POP studios in Santa Monica which was an insane departure from the usual indie budget that I’m very accustomed to (in this sense “indie” is synonymous with “no”). We were teamed up with famed Command and Conquer voice director, David Fries. If all this weren’t enough, we recorded Richard Steven Horvitz (voice of Invader Zim and Raz of Psychonauts), one of my all time favorite voice actors!

In September, I was once again drafted by the troops from the freezing north, Frozen Codebase. The first task at hand was tackling Jam City Rollergirls. To be completely fair and honest, I really didn’t have much of a hand in the audio production aside from a handful of sound effects and a bit of advice. Hopefully the game will be launched just in time for the WFTDA National Finals hosted on my home turf (Go WCR!). The title will be out for WiiWare and it’s a ton o’ fun. See what the indispensable, Rev. Norb had to say about it at PAX.

The second of crunches (a little under 3 weeks) was tackling the sound design duties for NON-DISCLOSURE AGREEMENT. Let me start by saying, this was one of the most fun projects I have ever worked on. I was able to embrace the forms of Warner Bros., MGM and Hanna-Barbera cartoons which heavily influenced me early on in my journey through sound and music. I can recall several times sitting in front of my monitors just laughing at a single sound knowing where it would be placed in the game. My foley area eventually looked like Harpo Marx exploded. I was reminded once again: This is why I do what I do; this is why I love what I do. Nearly 250 unique sounds were created and implemented in this short amount of time. This was no mere one man operation near the end of the contract however. David Novak jumped on to help with some sound design. Later, he helped me produce songs for the soundtrack, as well as submit music of his own. Another hearty handshake and high five goes out to Apollo Occhino, our beloved and extremely hardworking programmer. No matter how much time and care was put into the sound design and music, it would be all for not if we didn’t have him placing his devotion into following extremely tedious and boring implementation notes. On a bragging note, I wrote the theme song for NON-DISCLOSURE AGREEMENT too. I’m incredibly excited that the first couple of sounds the player will eventually hear will be my work! I’m looking forward to the game’s release as I am extremely proud of all the work that went in to the audio. All this on top of the fact the team at Frozen Codebase has made an amazing game. I have played it myself every day since I started on the project… not just for research and testing purposes. So, look forward to playing NON-DISCLOSURE AGREEMENT when it comes out NON-DISCLOSURE AGREEMENT for the NON-DISCLOSURE AGREEMENT.

I guess that is all for right now. Try to catch me for a beer or Galaga high score challenge this week in Austin during the Game Developers Conference.

Brass valves and brass knuckles,
Crossbones

So.  GDC.  Awesome.  Great to see everyone again.  Hope your mid-year endeavors have been kicking ass.

Speaking of Kick-Ass, I’m regretting to inform you at this moment, that Metalocalypse: The Dethgame has been canceled.  Why exactly, I cannot say.  I can say however, that I am exceedingly disappointed.  Personally speaking, I accomplished the best work of my sound design career to the date.  As a huge fan of the show and Brendan Small’s Dethklok, everyday working was met with new, exciting and fun challenges.  Brutal Legend’s release in October 2009 added some additional professional pressure to strive for the ultimate metal opus (thanks Double Fine).  I would love to extend a huge thanks to the Frozen Codebase development team.  It was a privilege and pleasure to work with all of you.  I hope our career paths cross again in the future.

In other news, recently I worked with Toy Studio on Pet Rescue for Facebook (Coming soon).  I had the pleasure of collaborating with friends, Jake Null and David Novak.  Lots of interesting details coming soon as we’re planning to add an articles section to the site; along with some music and SFX downloads.

For the time being, I’m working on some songs for a secret project, reworking the sound design demo reel, prepping post-production sound for a full length film this fall, and just being an all-around, handsome Chicagoan.

Thanks for stopping by.

Brass valves and brass knuckles,
Crossbones

Unfortunately, stuff is breaking everywhere. It has not gone as smoothly as I thought it would. With any luck, I’ll get his media files in some sort of presentable form sometime tonight.

Thanks for reading, smell ya later.