Seth at the IGF Awards 2010.

‘Horse Talk’ is a series here on the Octodad blog where we run intra-team Young Horses interviews. The first 2 or so questions are the same for each horse, but afterwords we crowd-source the team for things they’d like to ask the interviewee.

Who are you and what is it that you do at Young Horses?

Yar, I be Seth.  I do audios and make fart and butt jokes (be prepared for many in the ensuing answers).

What are your favorite games and why?

While I thoroughly enjoy games like Halo Reach and Borderlands 2, my heart is really in the games that aren’t incredibly difficult.  One of my favorite games from recent times is Polytron’s Fez.  I like things that are personal and that have good music.  I’m not talking about something with a catchy beat, I’m talking about something that moves me.  Fez’s OST moves me.  The game itself is also incredibly soothing.  I could play it for hours and not really accomplish anything, just wander around and enjoy the sights and sounds.  Superbrothers: Sword and Sworcery ep is also a game that I enjoy a lot.

How did you get into game development?

I went to music school at Depaul to study Sound Recording Technology and for one of my production classes, the audio director from NetherRealm (Midway at the time) came in to do a few classes on fmod and interactive game audio.  From listening to him talk, I immediately knew that I wanted to get involved in game audio.  A year passed and nothing happened.  In that year, a small team of students from Depaul made a game called Devil’s Tuning Fork that was selected for the Independent Games Festival student showcase.  I happened to know one of the artists on this team, and I contacted him asking if there was going to be another team the following year.  It turned out there was!  I had missed the application deadline, but was lucky enough that I ended up getting a chance to interview for the team and was selected!  That project became Octodad.

If you weren’t doing audio and could possess any talent, what would be your role on a game dev team?

Assuming that I could love it as much as I love music, I would be a programmer.  I think it would be totally awesome to be behind how everything in the game works.  I think it would work really well with how my work habits are too, I like to have a set group of tasks and be able to formulate a plan to complete them.  I also like to be busy, and I feel like programming would allow me a tedious busy that I would dig.

What childhood cartoon show shaped your brain the most?

There is this one episode of Beavis and Butthead where they find a camera in the park and take a bunch of pictures of down their pants.  That scene has pretty much defined my life.

How many butts is too many butts?

One time I calculated that it would take about 11 pentrillion trucks to transport a mole of butts.  That is probably too many butts.

Which instrument do you wish you knew how to play?

The sackbut, obviously.

What’s your favorite sound effect that you’ve made for Octodad?

There was this one in the first game.  It is literally just me makin’ a fart with my mouth.  I always wait for it to come up in play throughs when people release objects that they are holding.  It still makes me giggle.

Which console generation for video games has been your favorite?

The system that had the most magic in it for me was the NES.  Don’t get me wrong, I love playing newer games on my ecksbawks, but I loved that earlier games required a lot of input from my imagination.  For instance, my favorite game for NES was Little League Baseball: Championship Series.