The Mr. Rabbit Magic Show Devlog #1 – The Magic of Sound Design ✨🎙️

Driftwood Audio creates magic through sound design, and the Rusty Lake devs try their hand at voice acting!

Since back when we were working on The Past Within, around the time we first collaborated with Jorick and Giliam of Driftwood Audio, we developed a deep appreciation of the magic of bringing the surreal world of Rusty Lake to life through sound design. For The Mr. Rabbit Magic Show, we knew we wanted every detail to create immersion and pull players deeper into the mystery of the magic show, as well as the celebration of 10 years of Rusty Lake in the second part of the game. That’s why we once more teamed up with the audio wizards at Driftwood Audio to craft an experience that feels surreal, magical and festive – a true celebration of a decade of Rusty Lake!

The First Act: Crafting the Magic Show

Driftwood Audio began by conjuring the sounds of the show itself in their usual clever manner: by using all kinds of miscellaneous household items like balloons, water boilers, sizzling pans, cassette players and more! They carefully created an immersive magic show experience by creating the perfect ambiance for the game through the applause of an invisible audience, menacing tiger sounds (with the help of a cat), the muffled gasps, or boos, of a trick gone wrong. Every cue had to feel tangible, as if the magic could spill beyond the screen, which we hope you’ll agree with us in saying that they more than delivered. Check out below how Jorick created the splat of the small bunny in Act 9! (No bunnies were harmed in the making of The Mr. Rabbit Magic Show…)

Office Sounds: Recording at Rusty Lake

Next, they visited our Amsterdam studio to capture the sounds of our own workspace, because yes, as part of our anniversary celebrations, you do get to step into a virtual representation of our Rusty Lake office as a surprise twist when playing The Mr Rabbit Magic Show. The clatter of keyboards, the hum of an old VHR player, the creak of a chair, coughing and groans, each noise was carefully recorded to blur the line between game and reality. You can see how they even recorded our exact water boiler and office coffee machine in the video below!

Voicing Ourselves (and Surviving the Process)

And since players get to step inside our office, we had to make it even more believable! For the first time, the Rusty Lake team stepped into the recording booth to voice our in-game characters. With basically no voice acting experience, we placed ourselves in the capable hands of the team at Driftwood Audio, whose patience and expertise made this one of the most fun experiences of our careers. They coached us through takes, helped us find the right tone and turned our awkward readings into something we were all very proud of.

And then there was the birthday song…

As an extra touch of authenticity, we wanted to record ourselves singing the birthday song at the end of the game! And with clever layering of the different takes, the off-key chaos as we sang in exaggerated voices, Driftwood Audio spliced it all together in post to create a perfectly awkward but hilariously heartwarming rendition of Happy Birthday. We hope you’ll enjoy the visual of the whole process in the video below!

Thank you for joining us down the rabbit hole of crafting the sounds of The Mr Rabbit Magic Show! Check back in soon for some behind the scenes of how we recorded our latest short film, Rusty Lake – The Intern!