Pit People VO Spotlight: Dan Paladin

(See the introduction of the full Pit People VO Cast in “The Voices of Pit People)

I didn’t expect to be filling any roles, especially one that started so tiny. We needed something for an Emissary conveying story things to you in the introduction part of the game. As we added features, the Emperor’s Orders missions appeared in Update 3. Now the Emissary is with you throughout your expeditions!

Even though the recording was initially assumed to be temporary I still had a tough time with this guy. I wasn’t really sure what I wanted him to sound like. I almost wanted him to be someone that you want to punch in the face due to coming off as judgmentally classist. It didn’t really end up that way, but I like where it landed.

After about 10 to 15 attempts, the shnooky-pooky binky-bong-bong line was me throwing my hands in the air and re-inventing my approach all together. The trick was making the gibberish much more formal sounding along with saying the stupidest words that came to mind. When Stamper laughed along with a good number of playtesters, I felt pretty good about leaving the recording as it was.

The Emissary sports both highs and lows in his voice, which makes it difficult for me to make additional lines for him. His signature “thing” is his high-pitched throat clear.

You can hear some of the raw recording from the first session below, some outtakes, one of the final versions of a line, and a bonus clip with the cow poop sounds!

Pit People VO Spotlight: Piper Faye

Piper’s got that voice that naturally matches what we were looking for. Pipistrella’s a youthful innocent princess dealt a nasty hand in life – forced to find her own way and learn right from wrong through trial and error. Pipistrella is a tough role to fill as she’s a softy at heart but lives in a violent world, so she basically needs to be yelling to a certain degree to match the atmosphere.

Piper and Monica are friends IRL which is extra great because both Pipistrella and Pandora are closely related in Pit People.

“Piper is pretty great to work with. There’s a certain amount of care that’s apparent there with how she approached things, whether it was delving in and requesting any and all reference material on the story and character or dissecting gibberish with me.

“I recall after a few too many back and forths on chat and email, having my first phone conversation with Piper to go over Pipistrella’s gibberish lines. As Dan pointed out, she truly has this natural voice that embodied what we were looking for. I hope this doesn’t come off weird, but she naturally has one of those VO actor or announcer, radio persona type voices. It almost sounds like there’s production on it, but it’s 100% natural. That in itself is a gift.” – Ian Moreno (on his experience working with Piper)

(See the introduction of the full Pit People VO Cast in “The Voices of Pit People)

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