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Free Music / SFX Resource - Over 2500 Tracks
Eric Matyas replied to Eric Matyas's topic in Game Development
Another hectic week...ugh...but here's a new track that I wanted to share with the community. Free, as always, to use in your projects with attribution: OF LEGENDS AND FABLES 4 (Looping) – Another variation meant for title/menu screens. You can freely download it here: https://soundimage.org/fantasy-13/ Ogg GENRE MUSIC PACKS Please don't forget to check out my music packs. They enable you to bulk-download all of my music at once for various genres. https://soundimage.org/ogg-music-packs-2/ Ogg GAME MUSIC MEGA PACK You can also bulk-download all of my game music here: https://soundimage.org/ogg-game-music-mega-pack/ Enjoy, stay safe and keep being creative! :-) - Earlier
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Three Moves Ahead 643: 2025 Catch-Up Len, Nerium, and Mike kick back to highlight some of our favorite strategy and non-strategy games of 2025 that didn't make it to a full episode. There were how many Roman city-builders this year? And yes, sports management games do count as strategy. Even that one. Games discussed: Nova Roma Look Outside Lisa the Painful Total War Warhammer: Tides of Torment Skin Deep Ambrosia Sky Demonschool Phantom Brigade Eriksholm: The Stolen Dream Crusader Kings 3: All Under Heaven Mount & Blade 2: War Sails Cities Skylines 2 Victoria 3: Iberian Twilight Death Howl Heroes of Might & Magic: The Olden Era The Case of the Golden Idol Enigma Trilogy Nova Roma Look Outside Lisa the Painful Total War Warhammer: Tides of Torment Skin Deep Ambrosia Sky Demonschool Phantom Brigade Eriksholm: The Stolen Dream Crusader Kings 3: All Under Heaven Mount & Blade 2: War Sails Cities Skylines 2 Victoria 3: Iberian Twilight Death Howl Heroes of Might & Magic: The Olden Era The Case of the Golden Idol Enigma Trilogy Listen on the Episode Page Listen on Soundcloud Listen in iTunes
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Free Music / SFX Resource - Over 2500 Tracks
Eric Matyas replied to Eric Matyas's topic in Game Development
Hi Everyone, I've been super-busy, but I did create a new production bed to share with you all...it's really fun: "THE DIXIELAND BAND" You'll find it here: https://soundimage.org/jazz-big-band/ As always, it's 100% free to use in your projects with attribution, just like my thousands of other music tracks, sounds and images. Enjoy! :-D -
Free Music / SFX Resource - Over 2500 Tracks
Eric Matyas replied to Eric Matyas's topic in Game Development
Happy December Everyone! To kick off the new month, I've created a couple of new production beds that you'll find on my Rock page: "STRUTTIN’ DOWN MAIN" "EMOTIONS RUN HIGH" https://soundimage.org/rock/ They're 100% free to use in your projects with attribution, just like my thousands of other music tracks. AD-FREE & COMMUNITY SUPPORTED My website is completely ad-free and supported by the community. If you can, please consider making a small contribution to help me pay for my overhead. You can make a small donation here: https://soundimage.org/donate/ You can also check out my Genre Ogg Music packs (mainly for video game developers.) https://soundimage.org/ogg-music-packs-2/ Or my Game Music Mega Pack here: https://soundimage.org/ogg-game-music-mega-pack/ Enjoy! :-) -
Building a Free Library of Images for Everyone
Eric Matyas replied to Eric Matyas's topic in Game Development
Hey Everyone, I've uploaded some brand new seamless concrete textures onto my site...you find them here: CONCRETE (Tile-able) https://soundimage.org/txr-concrete-pavement-seamless/ As always, they're 100% free to use with attribution, just like my thousands of other images, music tracks and sounds. NEED SOME CUSTOM TEXTURES? I've been creating custom music for a while now...mostly for indie video game developers...but I thought it might be fun to try creating custom textures. If anyone needs some help, feel free to contact me! :-) In the meantime, stay safe and keep creating! -
17 long cold years later.
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7 years later. This me on my other account, I cant remember the email I used for IST. Cant believe how time goes by. I spent years practicing fine art after this. Only now returning to game development and belatedly trying to get my foot in the door.
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Three Moves Ahead 642: Anno 117: Pax Romana Len and Jon are joined by But Why Tho?'s Kate Sánchez and CGMagazine's Dayna Eileen to build Rome in a day with Anno 117: Pax Romana. We discuss the series history and our jumping-on points with it, what's different about this one, and how it serves as an interesting lens through which to view the height of the Imperial Era. Anno 117: Pax Romana, Anno 1800, Anno 2205, Anno 2070 Listen on the Episode Page Listen on Soundcloud Listen in iTunes
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Also, so sorry if I didn't fully engage with your comment and went right into "hey pay attention to me" mode. I really like your examples and especially this piece: "but I do feel elevated by demonstrations of capability beyond my current capacity". That is a very poignant observation that makes me ponder the nature of inspiration and our perception of what we are and aren't capable of. In my experience, that phenomenon feels less like learning something new and more like realizing I know something that I didn't know I knew.
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That's an interesting perspective Clyde. To give an example of what exactly about inspiration has piqued my interest so much, I'll admit something super embarrassing. Back in 2016 I watched the anime Your Lie In April. To this day I can't explain why, but something about the way that story was presented turned on that feeling of inspiration to such a strong degree that I proceeded to spend the next 5 years straight playing piano for 1-hour per day. I was garbage at first, but by the end of that 5-year stretch, I had memorized 37 songs and had gotten somewhat decent for someone just teaching myself and recalling music techniques I learned as a child (I did play saxophone for many years growing up so I wasn't completely new to music). That moment of inspiration somehow resulted in me maintaining that level of discipline for 5 years and as I've examined what was at the core of that emotion more closely, I've realized that what I was really after was setting off the same feeling that was set off in me in others. There is something immensely appealing about the thought of being able to create or do something that another person sees and experiences the kindling of that flame. Another big one for me has been Jacob Collier's audience choirs. I can't watch those without tears starting to form. It is like getting the briefest glimpse into what humanity could actually be.
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Right on Clyde. To expand a bit on my side, I've made it a point to immerse myself in things I disagree with and that make me uncomfortable. And some really interesting stuff has happened as a result. I've gotten way happier, way more hopeful, and way more comfortable with conflict. The phenomenon of having an idea that one is completely convinced is true, broadcasting that idea to the world, and seeing it clash with other ideas is such a beautiful thing, if only people weren't so damn attached to their own opinions. This is going to sound cheesy as fuck, but I've adopted a mentality that has completely changed my outlook on the world. Whereas most people think and assume they are the hero in their story, I take the opposite approach. Statistically speaking, if a hero is out there it is most likely someone else, not me. So when I engage with someone, especially those I disagree with, I put myself in their shoes and imagine they are on a hero's journey and I am the chief supporting character. They are Frodo and I am Sam. And it's my job to help them reach the best possible version of themselves. Notably, I've found that that does not mean just being nice and making the world cozy for them. Quite the contrary: it means challenging them, sometimes vociferously, to try to help them grow in some small way. But it also means treating them as good, decent human beings, regardless of who they voted for and what their political persuasion is. And it means eating shit and acknowledging fault when I have violated my ethos. Which is really no big deal. Being wrong is fine and it's something I'm quite comfortable admitting when it is clearly the case. I hope one day that this is the way the world operates. That everyone could see the tremendous potential in others and contribute to the right conditions for that potential to be met. New ideas and discoveries that move humanity and all of life forward can come from the most unlikely places and if we want to maximize the chance of that happening, we certainly need to stop treating modern discourse as a battle of good versus evil.
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I feel hopeful and excited when I see extremely high levels of confidence in oneself and simultaneously, confidence in the potential for compassion and wisdom that every living being has.
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Inspiration: I've started thinking of inspiration as a distraction. I get inspired when I'm high on caffeine; or when I am trying to focus on one thing for a long period of time, inspiration regarding something completely unrelated will show up and encourage me to abandon the object I'm trying to focus on. That's how inspiration shows up for me in smaller chunks of time, but I do feel elevated by demonstrations of capability beyond my current capacity. I've been inspired by demonstrations of techniques such as: non-violent communication as described by Marshall Rosenberg the cultivation of compassion and non-judgment that I've seen in Buddhist monastics I had an interesting session with my therapist which was derivative of Internal Family Systems; I found that experience inspiring. demonstrations of motivational interviewing the Asist model of suicide intervention has demonstrated well for me. All of these are contextual and I have been located in the contexts where they were applied in a way that gave me a sense that there was something of use that I could learn to be more capable in the ways I want to be capable.
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I've come to similar conclusions. I have learned a lot about how to communicate effectively and empathically with folks and those skills do not translate well to text. And like Zeusthecat, I have a lot of gratitude for the conversations that were had here. I did learn a lot about my unacknowledged biases, but the tendencies of group-think, divisiveness, and consumer/fandom banter that is noise to me (because I don't really have much interest in pop-culture anymore) eventually changed where I wanted to spend my time. This is not specific to Idle Forums, but to all the online communities I chatted with for extended periods of time. In-person interactions are much more easy for me to access now due to a change in my geographic location, if I was still living in a rural place then I might still have the need to post.
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Inspiration: the most mysterious and powerful emotion of them all. That feeling that rises up when you see someone risk everything to save someone else. Or the feeling I get when I see Samwise Gamgee carrying Frodo up Mt. Doom at the end of RoTK. I've been really exploring how to cultivate that emotion more in myself and others.
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Daryl Davis. His story is incredible. There is something immensely inspiring about how he managed to pull multiple people out of the KKK by simply showing them his humanity. I'm fascinated by the rare people like him who are willing to engage with and treat people with genuine humanity even when those people have nothing but disdain for them.
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I've thought about coming back to post many times, but honestly, my views on many things have evolved over the years and to be blunt, I'm not confident that healthy discussions can be had on these forums with the appropriate level of nuance. Which is a problem for me because if I'm going to post, I have to be able to be open, honest, and vulnerable about my thoughts on things. Quite frankly, towards the end of my time posting heavily on these forums, it started feeling more and more like conversations would get shut down and people banned just when the conversations were starting to get interesting. Words like "dog whistle" and "so-and-so-phobic" got wheeled out to derail legitimately interesting points. It stopped feeling like two sides debating points on an issue and more like one side arguing a point and accusing the other side of being evil for not agreeing with the point. We used to point out logical fallacies when having a discussion and then somehow fell victim to a style of debate that heavily hinged on fallacies. Then on the video game side, I'm still just a Minecraft junkie like always and that was never really a big thing here. I realize some will read this post and think "oh no, Zeus went far right", but at this point, if that is how a post like this is interpreted I just shrug my shoulders. My desire for fruitful conflict has exceeded my desire for people to not get the wrong idea about me. There are so many competing forces and ideologies and when you step back from it all and try to make sense of what's happening in our world, there are some very interesting conversations we could be having if we had the guts to have them. But at the same time, if me having these conversations here is going to hurt people's feelings, then it's not worth it to me and I'll just remain silent and have these conversations elsewhere. I am still a people pleaser after all and would rather not debate at all than debate and have someone's feelings get hurt. I do truly cherish the time I spent posting on these forums and it's great to see some of you still posting. It'll be interesting to see where things go from here if they go anywhere at all!
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Free Music / SFX Resource - Over 2500 Tracks
Eric Matyas replied to Eric Matyas's topic in Game Development
Greetings Fellow Creatives, Been super busy, but managed to create a couple of new tracks to share with the community: "TRAIN TO 4th SECTOR" (LoFi) "OFF-WORLD DESOLATION " (LoFi) https://soundimage.org/sci-fi-14/ CUSTOM MUSIC FOR YOUR PROJECTS I recently finished a full custom score for "Warbound," a strategy-based RPG. Starting on a cool 2D cyberpunk game called "Futurika." If anyone needs some custom music created, feel free to reach out! https://soundimage.org/custom-work/ Have a good week! :-) -
Building a Free Library of Images for Everyone
Eric Matyas replied to Eric Matyas's topic in Game Development
Greetings Creatives! More original brick textures are ready for your projects here: TXR - Brick - Seamless https://soundimage.org/txr-brick-seamless/ They're completely free to use in your projects, just like my thousands of other images, music tracks and sounds. 100% AD-FREE & COMMUNITY-SUPPORTED If you can, please consider making a small contribution to help support the site and my efforts. You can help out here: https://soundimage.org/donate/ https://soundimage.org/ogg-music-packs-2/ https://soundimage.org/ogg-game-music-mega-pack/ As always, enjoy, please stay safe and keep being creative. :-) -
I do like video games
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Free Music / SFX Resource - Over 2500 Tracks
Eric Matyas replied to Eric Matyas's topic in Game Development
Greetings Fellow Creatives, Been super busy, but managed to create a couple of new tracks to share with the community: "TRAIN TO 4th SECTOR" (LoFi) "OFF-WORLD DESOLATION " (LoFi) https://soundimage.org/sci-fi-14/ CUSTOM MUSIC FOR YOUR PROJECTS I recently finished a full custom score for "Warbound," a strategy-based RPG. Starting on a cool 2D cyberpunk game called "Futurika." If anyone needs some custom music created, feel free to reach out! https://soundimage.org/custom-work/ Have a good week! :-) -
Video. Games.
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Three Moves Ahead 641: Europa Universalis 5 Len, Rowan, and Jon are at last granted the liberty to speak on their experiences with Europa Universalis 5, Paradox's latest and most ambitious grand strategy game. Is it actually good? Is it even possible to evaluate it in a that straightforward of a way at this point? And why has it turned Rowan into The Joker? Europa Universalis 5 Listen on the Episode Page Listen on Soundcloud Listen in iTunes
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Building a Free Library of Images for Everyone
Eric Matyas replied to Eric Matyas's topic in Game Development
Hi Everyone, Cool new texture images are ready on these pages on my site: TXR - ABSTRACT https://soundimage.org/txr-abstract/ TXR - ROCK/STONE - Fantasy https://soundimage.org/txr-rock-stone-fantasy/ BIG NEWS!!! LOOPING OGG GAME MUSIC TRACKS ARE HERE...YAY!!! All of the looping music tracks that I've created for the game development community over the years are now available to download from my site in higher-quality Ogg format. Besides sounding more rich and full, they will loop seamlessly in game engines (no editing required.) You'll find them on all pages for the following genres on my site: ACTION CHIPTUNES DARK/OMINOUS EPIC/BATTLE HORROR/SURREAL DRAMA FANTASY FUNNY/QUIRKY WEIRD PUZZLE MUSIC SCI-FI MISC LOOPING Give them a try! https://soundimage.org/ If you happen to come across any looping tracks on these pages that I missed (are still in Mp3 format) feel free to DM or email me so I can replace them. Enjoy, stay safe and keep creating! :-) -
Free Music / SFX Resource - Over 2500 Tracks
Eric Matyas replied to Eric Matyas's topic in Game Development
LOOPING OGG GAME MUSIC TRACKS ARE HERE...YAY!!! All of the looping music tracks that I've created for the game development community over the years are now available to download from my site in higher-quality Ogg format. Besides sounding more rich and full, they will loop seamlessly in game engines (no editing required.) You'll find them on all pages for the following genres on my site: ACTION CHIPTUNES DARK/OMINOUS EPIC/BATTLE HORROR/SURREAL DRAMA FANTASY FUNNY/QUIRKY WEIRD PUZZLE MUSIC SCI-FI MISC LOOPING Give them a try! https://soundimage.org/ If you happen to come across any looping tracks on these pages that I missed (are still in Mp3 format) feel free to DM or email me so I can replace them. Enjoy, stay safe and keep creating! :-)
