The Voices in Their Heads are Talking

February 7, 2025

As promised last time, most of the past month has been spent recording non-player character (NPC) dialog for Sleuthhounds: Cruise. And it’s been a blast! There are really talented actor types in my local area that I’ve been able to bring in. They’ve all been sweethearts and wonderful to work with.

At this point, there are two main NPCs that I’ve yet to cast – Colonel Napier Forsythe and Captain Warwick Windwhistler – but I’m planning to make an offer today, in fact, for someone to play the good captain. When I put his audition audio on, I must confess to being a bit distracted as I was also working on something else. The moment he started talking, I stopped what I was doing and, wide eyed, my head swivelled to look at the audio player. He’s absolutely nailed the part and I do so hope he accepts the role.

There’ve been other characters like that in the game as well. In particular the fine ladies playing would-be reporter Beckers Swift and society darling Marion Wood sounded exactly like I imagined. Then there was society columnist Carmichael Portly, for whom I had no idea what he sounded like – even after living with the character and his dialog for close to seven years – but when his audition came in, I knew immediately that was the voice. Other voices have challenged my preconceptions, with the likes of Doctor Michelle Seymour or Joanna Price, the daughter of the cruise ship owner. I originally heard something quite different for both of them in my head, but when their actors auditioned, I was like, “yeah, that’s what those characters should sound like.”

Since December, I’ve recorded 10 of the major NPCs, leaving 3 still to do, and 6 out of 10 minor characters. In total, that’s resulted in 4,413 lines of recorded dialog. Immediately after the first recording session I did in December, I started the work of cleaning up the audio and incorporating it into the game. Of those 4,413 lines, I’ve now got 2,371 integrated into Cruise itself. To put that in perspective, Sleuthhounds: The Cursed Cannon, the previous largest game I’ve made, had 2,348 lines in total, including 1,677 for main character Jane Ampson.

It’s been so fun hearing the great line-up of voice talent I have recoding their lines. Each person is, of course, recorded individually, so it’s also been fantastic to put their lines in the game and hear the conversations the characters have back and forth. In particular, the almost sister-brother bickering of Beckers Swift and Carmichael Portly has just been a delight. I couldn’t be more happy with the excellent job everyone has done! All my thanks to everyone who has recorded so far and fingers crossed that the wonderful trend continues.

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