Giant Bomb Presents: Talking Firewatch with Sean Vanaman and Rich Sommer
Austin chats with game designer Sean Vanaman and actor Rich Sommer about Firewatch's development, the joys of voice acting, and a few esoteric board games.
Giant Bomb Presents is giantbomb.com's home for interviews, previews, and more.
Heads up, I say this in the intro but I wanted to repeat it here: The audio starts great and then... it gets much less great. (That said, thanks to Twitter users @KeithJCarberry, @ali_west, @brutushayeosu & @InaudibleWhisper for their help with the audio!)
If you still have the old file on your pod listening device, delete that file and redownload and you should get the better version.
Additional heads up, some light spoilers in the cast, if that's a thing that you're concerned about!
The bitter war between audio equipment and Austin Walker continues.
@austin_walker: if you have a written version of this conversation somewhere I'm sure people would like that. But if you'd have to write the whole thing then don't bother of course. Don't want to saddle you with more work.
Oh wow I watched the Quick Look and thought the player character sounded familiar, but had no clue that it was Rich Sommer! He played such a spectacularly great asshole on MAD MEN!
People who are listening to the cast, let me know if this audio is is easier for you to listen to? The ghosty wind effect on this and the too-sharp sibilance makes it really hard for me, but that could just be my setup.
@austin_walker: That audio is much better IMO. I can barely make out what they are saying in the current podcast audio without turning my speakers to 11. Great interview though, have you thought of maybe transcribing it or at least paraphrasing in an article?
@austin_walker: The sample is WAY better. I hear the ghostly effect your talking about but at low volume it's nearly absent. I would love to get that version. The robot voices were tough to listen to.
How light are we talking for the spoilers in here? I want to listen to this, but I don't think I'm going to be able to actually play Firewatch for a while and going in as fresh as possible seems crucial to enjoying this game
@austin_walker: Hey Austin, don't know if this matters but you left in the spoiler that is mentioned right at the end of the cast with regards to firewatch.camera
This is a great interview, top to bottom. It's especially nice to hear a little bit about the voiceover process because it's an aspect of game development that you don't typically get to peek behind the curtain at.
You can tell Rich Sommer is a fine actor because he seems like a super nice guy despite playing an insufferable arsehole on Mad Men.
Oh wow I watched the Quick Look and thought the player character sounded familiar, but had no clue that it was Rich Sommer! He played such a spectacularly great asshole on MAD MEN!
As for the quality of the audio, it kinda sounds like they're talking with each other using old radios, so I guess it kinda fits the theme of the game.
For any Rich Sommer fans out there, he's made appearances on Wil Wheaton's Tabletop board game show and some (not all) episodes of season 3 of boardgamegeek's Game Night Youtube series. I've not seen any of his work (including Med Men) but his knowledge and passion for board games is very apparent. Seems like a cool guy.
@wazanator: @detraya: Fixed this! Sorry folks, was working on repairing this the dozen different ways yesterday while home sick yesterday and totally missed this.
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