A fateful encounter...
Only one month after my 8th birthday, Nintendo and Retro Studios released a game that should change my life.
Of course, at that point I had no idea yet that this was going to have such a substantial impact on my future path. On the contrary: the game was too hard for my 8-years old self and I gave up on it very soon (I remember exactly the point where I stopped). I then swapped it with a friend for another game, never to see it again – until summer 2018, when I watched one of my new friends at university playing the game, which in turn made me eager to give it another try myself. And I finally managed to play through the whole thing on my old Gamecube that I had been keeping up in the attic for all those years.
… this game was: Metroid Prime!
Not without reason has Metroid Prime been praised as one of the best games of all time. It holds the 2nd place for best Gamecube games of all time, only to be surpassed by Zelda – The Windwaker (1) and 42nd place on the list of the best video games of all time (2).
I was completely in awe of it.
What struck me most was the sound design. I loved not only the compositions by Kenji Yamamoto, but also the sounds that he used. They were so unique, such iconic, beautifully crafted sounds with their very special spin of the late '90s and early 2000s – and the atmospheres, those alien worlds that Yamamoto created with them were literally out of this world!
In retrospective, it must have happened without noticing around this time that I fell in love with audio production and sound design myself, which led to the start of my new journey in early 2019.
In 2020 I discovered SynaMax's YouTube channel where he had been unburying many of the sounds that were used by Yamamoto in their bare raw form.
On Christmas of 2021, just by chance, I saw a post of SynaMax's saying that the creator of one of the sampling CDs that were made in 2000 and had been used in Metroid Prime had just launched the sale of a remastered version of that very CD, which was called Uncivilised G'rooves.
I didn't think twice; I needed that CD!!
As it turned out, this CD had been created by Zok Sabijan aka ZTime, who then got in contact with me.
And in a nutshell, this is how I ended up at Finspire!
Being part of Finspire!
At least as fateful as my encounter with Metroid Prime is the fact that both my purchase of Uncivilised G'rooves and Zok's first e-mail arrived in my mailbox on the morning of Christmas Day 2021, which is traditionally celebrated on the 24th in Austria.
And what indescribable of a Christmas present this whole story was destined to turn out as!
The thing that I noticed right from the start in Zok's first email was the warmth and generosity that it exuded.
There is nothing stressful about Finspire! – it is about heart.
For the first time in my life – thanks to this community that I have been granted to step into – I feel encouraged by my surroundings to engage in sound design and audio production and even to aim for a professional activity in that field, although my roots and my 20 years of education lie almost exclusively in the classical world.
I believe heart and gratefulness are the very cornerstones of what Finspire! is intended to be.
I am 100% sure that due to this fateful encounter with ZTime and having been granted the chance to work with Finspire! my life is going to take a course that I would never have dared to even imagine only five years ago.
All that is left to say at this point is:
THANK YOU!
Sources:
(Samus Aran picture source) https://www.gamepro.de/artikel/metroid-prime-4-insider-bestaetigen-bandai-namco-als-entwickler,3325887.html