A couple of years ago, I came across a wonderful charity called Child’s Play. They help children who are forced to stay in hospital for long periods of time by donating toys and games such as consoles, board games, colouring books and DVDs in the hope that they may find some enjoyment to distract themselves from their environment. They have a network of 80 children hospitals worldwide which all receive toys and games from donations given by the charity. Their determination throughout the years have helped many children find happiness in a place where, to be honest, it is quite unsettling and alien.
Two years back, I decided that I wanted to do something to raise money for this cause and since it’s well underway, I can finally tell you about it!
I am putting together a book to raise money for the charity, called Level Up. It’s a compilation of articles about video games, by people in the industry and 100% of the profits will be going directly to the charity.
Around the time that I was thinking about doing a charity event for Child’s Play, I started playing Alan Wake, and so the game itself had a huge impact and influence in how the project was formed. Actually, it was the game that made me decide to put together a book. The idea of having something that would hold people’s perspective and memories in something as durable and long lasting as physical text was something that was highly appealing.
Now for the really exciting part! There are several awesome contributors writing for the book, including my own personal heroes, Poets of the Fall. With Alan Wake being obviously a huge inspiration to the project, I asked them Spring last year, if they could possibly write an article about the creation of the music. And they agreed!
The article was written by Markus “Captain” Kaarlonen, the awesome keyboardist and producer in the band. He has worked on Max Payne 2, Alan Wake, Alan Wake’s American Nightmare, Legend of Grimrock, Shattered Horizon, and also he created the phenomenal soundtrack for Rochard. And he also worked at the benchmark software company, Futuremark. So as you can imagine, it was great working with him.
The article recounts the creation of Children of the Elder God, The Poet and the Muse, War, The Happy Song, and Balance Slays the Demo; all songs created/used in the Alan Wake franchise.
More information about the book regarding its final price, release date etc will be released in the upcoming months. And yes, the article is well worth the wait. I’ll keep you updated about the book via The Sudden Stop and Level Up’s Official Site.
Level Up Sites:
