Parallel
Nobody asked me to do this
Parallel is a sci-fi trading card game. Its rarest cards ship as Perfect Loops, playable cards that appear as looping animations in play and in your wallet. In 2022 they were silent.
Parallel is an exciting new project, and I noticed a lack of Sound on their Perfect Loops. After seeing Chris Bjerre’s Augmented Technology, I was compelled to halt all plans that day and whip something up.
So this is not a commission. It is a self directed study, and still one of my favourite things I have made. The more detail and sense of real space there is in a visual piece, the more there is to work with.
What it turned into
I had been designing these cards for practice. Then Parallel paid me to try out, and paid well for it.
Nothing formal came of that, and it still redirected everything. This is the project where I worked out that audio for video games is the thing I actually want to do. I went to Berklee for game audio straight afterwards and dropped the rest to focus on it.
One rule for the whole universe
There are five Parallels, five civilizations that evolved separately. Rather than score each card on its own, I gave the universe a law: every Parallel’s energy has its own waveform. Energy meaning the visible evidence of energy being spent, a gun charging, a staff pulsing, light, particles.
One waveform per civilization means a card tells you who made it before you read it. That is the whole trick, and it is the part that makes it world building rather than sound effects.
The set
Every one is a perfect loop, because the card loops forever in your wallet.
A relic that keeps the top of your deck permanently revealed. The sound had to feel like knowing something.
Wipes relics or upgrades off the board. Written in A minor at 120.
Earthen, so the energy foundation is a sine. It gathers counters, then spends them to heal.
Augencore, so the foundation is a saw. Written in G minor at 120.
Not a card. A key item, so it needed a mechanism rather than a spell.
The piece that started it. Seeing the gun charge with no sound on it is what set the whole project off.
Interface
A HUD pass on the same logic, dry and unprocessed.
Credits
Card art by Chris Bjerre, a card artist on Parallel, and Oscar Mar Studio. Parallel is made by Parallel Studios. Sound is mine, added after the fact and unprompted.
