SeamlessR does a 100k collab celebration

For those of you who don't know who SeamlessR is, he's a kind of a popular but not too big producer in the music industry well known for his constant contributions of tutorial videos uploaded on his YouTube channel. A combination of a variety of tutorial topics and the fact that he's been doing this for a very long time has given him a slow but steady growth of subscribers over the course of his YouTube career.


I want to talk about him because he's so far my most watched YouTube tutor as a hobbyist music producer even compared to other tutorial channels I've watched that are not related to music production. So far I've been a subscriber for about several months I've definitely learned so much from him especially from his FL Studio basics tutorial.

Anyway, he's recently uploaded a video announcing his 100,000 subscriber milestone and started a collaboration project with his fans to submit sound samples that they have to make from scratch where he will select 100 different samples from and those samples will be used to make a free song for everybody to listen to.

Here's SeamlessR's reddit post for more details: http://www.reddit.com/r/edmproduction/comments/4bp9n4/seamlessr_100k_collaboration/

I myself have decided to submit my own attempt at impressive sound design but I personally think I managed to make something that was not too impressive but not bad either. It was just okay. Here's a video showing the sound I made and how I made it:

Retro Game Review: M&M's Shell Shocked

 

Developer: Simon & Schuster Interactive
Genre: Platformer
Sub-genre: 3D Platformer
Platform: PC, iOS, Android
Released on: September 30, 2001

Gamers generally don't like it whenever some random company seems to try to rip-off an existing popular franchise in order to make a quick buck out of it. M&M's Shell Shocked, for example, is a 3D platformer that plays too much Crash Bandicoot. It probably is one of modern gaming's laughing stocks considering how blatantly inferior it is compared to the franchise it tried to rip-off. That said, it will probably confuse you to know that I'm actually going to defend the game. M&M's Shell Shocked is actually one of my childhood favorites and to this day I still hold my nostalgia and despite being a blatant rip-off, I still think it's a very fun and well-made game.

I am a huge Crash Bandicoot fan. I mean I even use Crash as my profile picture around the net (unless I've decided to change it). Especially the first games. Naughty Dog put love and effort into making their game enjoyable and memorable. Some people think M&M's Shell Shocked was the exact opposite of that but I think they had much of the same intent to make a good game but for some reason, just so happened to rip-off Crash Bandicoot's popular gameplay style. The game on its own however is actually pretty well-made and still fun to play.

M&M's Shell Shocked starts with a red and yellow walking M&M's people named 'Red' and 'Yellow' (naming characters isn't M&M's strong point). They area about enter an airport for a vacation from their job at the M&M's factory when Red gets a call telling them they need to come back because of something Yellow allegedly screwed up. Red gets pissed and pressures Yellow to go back to the factory himself to fix the problem.
 

First level is a driving section. you can crash but there is no bandicoot

It's strange Red doesn't decide to fix the problem himself. Yellow is portrayed as a pretty dimwitted character which is why he created a problem in the first place so its weird to send the same inept worker who started the problem to be the same worker to fix it. But whatever, story isn't something important. Just know that Yellow is who the player will be controlling through the entire game. They introduce a Green M&M character halfway through the game but because the entire gameplay only involves the yellow character, the cutscenes can just be ignored entirely.

The game starts with a driving section that's actually pretty fun. It's no Crash Team Racing but it's pretty challenging. The main obstacles here are the vehicles that are hilariously animated to swerve around and surprise the player into almost getting hit. Controlling your own vehicle takes some practice. I personally had no problem with this section when I played it back when I was 7. So this part of the game shouldn't be much of a problem to other players.

 

That's chocolate, not the other thing you might think about

After 3 driving levels, we get into the part of the game where most players would have a big exclamation point appear on top of their heads if that was physically possible in real life because the first thing they notice is that there are boxes and you have a spin attack. This is the only reason why the people who heard of it or played it may remember it because there's an immediate comparison to Crash Bandicoot. I still wonder what the game would be like if they had created their own main gameplay mechanic instead of ripping off Naughty Dog. Would people still call it a bad game? Probably not, it would be mediocre at worst.

There are no Wumpa fruit though and no replacement of them either. Instead you collect mini M&M's trapped in boxes and inside robots for some reason. This is the point where I should mention that Yellow was responsible for letting these mini M&M's in charge of the factory while they were away and they started causing havoc around the factory. There is a huge disconnect from the plot and what's actually going on in the game. Instead, the factory just has a bunch of robots doing a bunch of robot nonsense and some broken factory equipment instead of mini M&M's running around causing havoc. It would be better if we actually saw them doing that in the game but you shouldn't be surprised to know that the development studio and the animation studio that made the cutscenes are completely different.
 So story is not it's best asset, the gameplay is unoriginal but at least passable but everything else about the game, I really like. I've loved this game as a kid and I still like it now and the bad parts of the game I see now hasn't tainted that. M&M's Shell Shocked has one of the most imaginative environments in video games, in my opinion. It's not just any factory, it has a colorful Wonka-style mixed with pseudo-futuristic design that is unique to any other industrial type place I've ever seen anywhere else. Each department has a different style to it. The first part of the factory deals with Milk Chocolate and has rivers and lakes of liquid chocolate that the player can drown in. The second part is all about conveyor belts. The third area deals with Candy Coloring and is presented like a white laboratory but with splatters of color like there was a Splatoon fight earlier. The fourth area is a bit more futuristic with kind of a shiny theme. The fifth part is the place where the Candy is packed into boxes and it's the place that looks the most like Wonka's factory. The sixth part is another driving section but through the company warehouse. And finally the last part of the game is the factory's power generator where it feels like your exploring some alien U.F.O.

 

What's he so depressed about? At least he doesn't have to fix this mess. Oh wait.

The sheer variety in the design choices for the factory is what's most memorable to me as a kid. It gives a sense of adventure through a beautiful place that was built with artistic intent yet designed for robotic manufacturing. It makes me wonder how much better this game could have been if it would just have a bigger budget and had original gameplay of its own because there is still some genius in it as it is.

The music is really good to. Just like Crash Bandicoot, the composer varies the instruments and feel of the music depending on which part of the game your in. There's a lot of variety in it. It's original. But the music in the PS1 version which I'm reviewing here is was actually slightly different from the PC version: M&M's The Lost Formulas. Possibly because the console engine they used couldn't handle the higher quality and longer length of the music from the PC version. Despite that, this has still one of my favorite game soundtracks ever and I still have some mp3's of it in my personal music folder.

Overall, despite most people's apathy over this game, it's still really good. I personally think it's great through an artistic and imaginative standpoint but the developers on the other hand needed to work on making a more high quality product. They also had to make sure the animation studio knew what was actually going on in the game. But it's a really well made game that I don't doubt was not made to be shovelware. There is a lot of effort and thought put into it. It still has uniqueness of its own and is even sufficiently challenging even though it could be a bit harder. But anyway, really great game and I love it.

CANDY QUALITY ASSURANCE DEPARTMENT SAYS