New Studio
As you may know, Jam Sonic recently relocated to Pittsburgh’s Strip District. The studio sits on the site of the original HJ Heinz Company Factory (the ketchup people). However, moving was just the beginning. We also undertook the task of upgrading our studio to give us some enhanced recording and composition abilities. We’ve been waiting to upgrade our equipment for some time. Since the primary focus of our Pittsburgh studio is composition/design, we’ve designed it with that goal in mind. Mixing/mastering and any instrument recording is still done at Truephonic studios in Charleston, SC. Here are a few of the updates.
Argosy Desk: The new desk provides us with plenty of working space for our laptops, drum machines, midi controllers, and any other gear that we setup. No more having to squeeze and try and work around everything. Our other favorite thing about this desk is the pullout keyboard tray that sits an 88-key piano. This frees up so much desk space without feeling cluttered. I always hated having to press the record button on the DAW, turn around to record, and then turn back around when I finished. The keyboard tray makes it so easy to pull out the keyboard when recording or to put it away when editing.
Dual Monitors: We’re in the middle of installing these right now, but I’m not sure how we’ve lived this long without them. I was sitting in on a friend’s studio session who had a dual monitor setup, and from watching over his shoulder and seeing how smooth the production process went, I knew I had to make the upgrade. One of my pet peeves is having to dive back and forth between windows on the computer screen to complete my tasks. The dual monitors boost productivity tremendously by allowing me to have multiple screens open simultaneously.
Tiered Keyboard Stands: We’ll be honest, tiered keyboards in a studio just look sexy to us. For that reason alone, we wanted one. However, for more pragmatic reasons, they allow us to access our weighted 88 keyboard and our synthesizers in one fell swoop. Also, we aren’t working out of a huge room, so having our studio be properly outfitted but organized and clean is a priority to us. The tiered keyboard helps us free up valuable real estate.
Mood Light: We now have some back lighting that can be set to a variety of colors. Setting the right mood in the studio helps us create an inspiring environment and one that we can work in all day and night without wanting to leave. Just a touch of colored lighting transforms the space from workspace to studio. It’s a subtle touch that makes a big difference to us.
Vocal Booth: We now have 25% percent of the room dedicated to vocal and foley recording. The space is small enough where it allows us to feel comfortable in the other part of the room, but it is big enough to record a foley pit. This is a huge convenience for us and allows us to recored footstep sounds and other foley sounds for video games.
What’s Next: Upgrading the studio is an ongoing process where we are always tweaking something throughout the year, but our next big update will be to build a new custom computer optimized for audio. We are planning to do a walkthrough of the process for those wanting to follow along in one of our upcoming posts.
Keynote Speech: Games For Change
Where did the time to go? Here in Pittsburgh, it’s clear that summer is over and fall is upon us. The summer was such a great time for Jam Sonic because we got a chance to travel to the east coast, west coast, down south and back. However, now that we are settled for the fall, there is no better time to start reflecting on our summer highlights starting with Game’s For Change.
June 10, I had the honor of giving the keynote address for the Game’s For Change Student Challenge. Games For Change is a non-profit organization dedicated to using games as a vehicle for social change. High school and middle school students competed in the Student Challenge to create games based on one of two themes: Climate Change or Immigrant Voices.
The event was held here in downtown Pittsburgh at the Heinz History Center, and it was a joy to see the center filled with VR units, laptops, controllers, and keyboards. The student teams typically consisted of a programmer, an artist, and a sound designer. However, there were some games crafted entirely by one student. Genres ranged from platformers where you navigated a pixelated earth ravaged by climate change to resource management games. The grand winner of the challenge, however, was from the Immigrant Voices category. The winner, “Italian Immigrant Voices”, was a text-based game featuring real documents and photographs from Italian-American History. The documents were gathered from a local Italian-American Heritage society in Pittsburgh. They integrated these documents and photos into the game’s storyline and visuals with great results.
I remember as a kid reading a book about game programming using BASIC. I enjoyed the text-based games you could make with BASIC, but I always dreamed about making games like I played on the NES. At that time, the resources and technology weren’t as sophisticated and affordable as they are now, so seeing these students have such an opportunity is amazing. It’s also great seeing the creation side of gaming as being used as a vehicle for self-expression. Congratulations to all the students who participated in the event.
OGDE 2015 Highlights: Collapsus (Wraith Games)
This past weekend, I had the pleasure of attending the Ohio Game Developer’s Conference in Columbus, Ohio, and although I was “working”, don’t feel too bad for me. My “work” , consisted of playing game demos coming out of the indie game dev scene in Ohio. The variety of games being developed ranged from RPG/Card hybrids to puzzle based games, and all this week, I’ll be writing about my favorite games played during the conference. So be sure to check out these upcoming games and show some love to their developers.
Collapsus (Wraith Games)
Continuing my highlights of OGDE 2015, today I’ll be talking about the puzzle game “Collapsus” from Wraith Games. The best way that I can describe Collapsus is to compare it to Tetris, but instead of manipulating shapes, you collapse blocks of various colors. Once four blocks of the same color are aligned, they disappear and you get points. However, outside of the blocks, the similarities to Tetris end as “Collapsus” manages to put its own spin on the puzzle genre.
Despite the apparent simplicity of the game, the game is tough to win, and even harder to put down. From my recollection, during the weekend, there were only 2 people that made it to level 2 of the game. Yea, don’t let the bright colors fool you, this game is an ass kicker. I myself stopped by the booth the first day, played it, got my assed kick a few times, and enjoyed it so much, I stopped by for round 2 for an additional serving. Addicting is an understatement.
Outside of that, the Collapsus dev team, Wraith Games, is also pretty cool group, and during the second day of the expo, I got to chat with the founder of the company for quite some time and their story is a testament to the power of perseverance. They have 2 other projects in the pipeline that I myself did not get a chance to play, Physix and Jet Pack Hero, but I’ll be keeping an eye out for them and you should too. Show some love by visiting them on:
OGDE 2015 Highlights: About To Boom (Hand Cannon Games)
OGDE 2015
This past weekend, I had the pleasure of attending the Ohio Game Developer’s Conference in Columbus, Ohio, and although I was “working”, don’t feel too bad for me. My “work” , consisted of playing game demos coming out of the indie game dev scene in Ohio. The variety of games being developed ranged from RPG/Card hybrids to puzzle based games, and all this week, I’ll be writing about my favorite games played during the conference. So be sure to check out these upcoming games and show some love to their developers.
About To Boom (Hand Cannon Games)
First up is the multi-player shooter “About To Boom” from Hand Cannon games. The concept is simple. Defend the sun against all enemies. This at first seems simple as you are armed with 3 types of weapons, and with up to 3 other people joining you, you feel like you have everything under control. Slowly but surely though, the screen begins to be flooded with enemies until the inevitable happens…the sun explodes.
However, make no mistake. There is no stopping the invasion, there is only hanging on as long as possible in order to get the highest score possible. What is most memorable about this game is those “O #$%#!” moments when you realize how massive the enemy force has become. With the massive wave of enemies, the unique variety of attacks, and your fellow teammates, the action on screen gets tense quickly.
What’s also cool is where the dev team plans to take things. On the demo itself, there were only a few weapons active, but many more weapons are being planned for the final version, including weapon customization options.
Be sure to vote for them on Steam Greenlight and check them out at the links below for more info.
Challenges of Mobile Audio Part 1
Developing mobile audio effects and soundtracks for mobile gaming poses significant challenges and raises several problems for developers to contend with. In this series of articles we’ll look at the main challenges of developing mobile audio and the workaround solutions for soundtrack development.
Many mobile devices simply cannot play multiple sound files at once, and are limited in most cases to playing just one sound. This can be very challenging for designing immersive games with good quality sound effects.
Audio playback on mobile devices has to be queued; this of course means that the design process needs to prioritize the choice between sound effects, or a dynamic soundtrack. The choice will depend on the nature of gameplay and the actual genre. For instance, an RPG game would be incomplete without a perpetual soundtrack. Equally, a puzzle platform type game would require more sound effects over a continual soundtrack.
Perhaps the challenge in this issue is how to combine a balance of sound effects and dynamic soundtrack that responds to player actions. If the mobile device only plays one sound at a time, the soundtrack design needs to be created using a crossfade at both the beginning and end points of the waveform so that music can seamlessly fade out and conjunctively play the next sound effect when it is called.
The next challenge of mobile audio is the technological limitation of current available devices. Not only is the playback method limited by headphones that are inevitably used by mobile gamers, the audio speakers and file formats of smartphones and tablets inevitably stunts all audio quality. Immersive audio is not possible in this situation, so this has to be kept in mind that audio will generally not be differentiated between left or right speakers for surround effects as expected in console or pc games.
The technical capabilities of headphones on mobile platforms such as Android or iOS means that many of the sound assets are simply wasted resources, as the higher frequencies are never going to be heard in this case. In essence the quality of audio will be limited by the current technology.
Device Limitations
Games developed for mobile platforms are played mainly on iPhone or Android devices, be it smartphones or tablets. The devices themselves feature limited mobile audio technology for audio playback.
The iPhone 5s supports such file formats as AAC, AIFF, WAV, and MP3. An android device such as the Samsung Galaxy s6 fares no better, but does offer slightly more file format support, including AAC, FLAC, MP3, OGG, WAV, WMA, and XMF. This makes it possible to utilize a high bitrate Flac file at 24bit encoding with manageable file sizes, still only producing one sound file at a time. There is still no M4A lossless support. The main problem with the iPhone is its inability to decode multiple sound compositions. It operates using uncompressed audio files such as WAV and AIFF formats, taking up a lot of file space in order to play audio within a game.
When developing an audio track for the iPhone, the workaround is to sample sounds at 24 kHz, this will drastically reduce the file size and not be such a drain on the battery life. If the iPhone is your primary platform for development releases, sampling all your assets at this bitrate is the way to go.
On the tablet side, the Galaxy Tab S 8.4 supports WAV, eAAC, WMA, and Flac playback, but no support for OGG, and OGG files are crucial for the most optimal file size compression with a maintained sound quality. Ultimately this means the development team needs to focus exactly on their primary choice of platform to release for when choosing the mobile audio format to encode their soundtrack with.
Perhaps the most obvious challenge of sound design for mobile audio becomes apparent here, a lack of cross platform capability. The biggest obstacle to overcome is designing sound to work on as many platforms as possible. The S 8.4 may not perform well for games using the OGG format. If sound designers want to release across all platforms, the challenge becomes one of designing only in WAV format and using limited compression for sound effects. Looping soundtracks could not make use of ogg files if the release was targeted for the Galaxy tab. This presents a difficult choice sound developers need to make when developing sound FX or musical soundtracks across platforms.
So how do developers actually create small file size dynamic soundtracks for mobile devices? To overcome this challenging limitation of developing mobile audio, the execution has to be clever and precise. Creating sound FX and longer musical scores must be done by designing small loops and using cross-fading techniques at the beginning and end point of each sound file. This duplicates the same sound file onto itself at the end point in order to complete the full sound effect before looping for constant playback. By using this method with only one file, the need for multiple files taking up storage is completely avoided.
Although developing mobile audio has its problems, using some of these techniques does provide a solution and allows indie developers to quickly gain an understanding of sound design for mobile gaming.
In Part 2 we’ll take a closer look at addressing the file size limit for audio files in mobile games.
Gaming Conventions for Winter 2015
When the cold nights draw in and winter grasps hold, what better to do than stay inside and design games? There are a multitude of gaming conventions and game conferences all year round that offer great opportunities to show off your game design skills, test and improve your coding against others, or get your game demo exposed to thousands of potential fans.
The global game jam is soon to be upon us again in January, and over the coming weeks we’ll take a look at how you can prepare for the event. Until then, there are a lot of gaming conventions around the world this winter that promise some rewarding experiences.
Eurogamer Expo
Eurogamer hosts their expo at the NEC Birmingham in the U.K. The Rezzed zone is a must see for indie developers looking to network or demo their game. The chance to meet and chat with other artists, programmers and game designers is worth the visit. The event takes place at the end of September, with the eSports ranked tournament offering a $100k prize pot. The Career fair is a lucrative event that might just get your foot in the door as a game developer. Yoggscast will also be attending and hosting a merchandise booth and signing session.
Tickets for the 3 day gaming convention range from £17.50 to £20 and can be bought on the website at http://www.egx.net
VGU Con
The Video Gamers United Convention is a two day even on the 3rd and 4th October. Tickets cost $25 per day (around £15) and VIP entry is $110 (£68). A two day ticket costs $40.
Exhibitors can register on http://www.vgu-con.com to reserve their booth. GameStop, E.A, and Alienware are sponsoring this year’s video game convention. In attendance this year are Microsoft, Bethesda, and the W.I.G.I.
The VGU convention in Washington D.C is a great gaming event for aspiring game developers. It has a ton of panels on career paths, where companies like Bethesda are hiring talented individuals. There’s also a noteworthy Music in video games panel this year, with a discussion on getting your music licensed for video games.
The Retro gaming zone offers yet more events, and the chance to play big brand games, as well as indie demo games. Workshops will feature hands on game design, game building, minecraft modding, virtual reality, and surface gaming. This is one convention you just should not miss.
Play Expo
The Play Expo runs October 10th and October 11th in Manchester, United Kingdom. This is a virtual treasure mine for indie game developers as Play Expo is dedicated to offering prime location exhibitor stands to indie artists at low cost. This offers an immensely valuable opportunity for indie game designers to get their demo game shown to thousands of visitors. Developers can apply directly on the website for an exhibit booth. The weekend is packed full of events, with celebrity signing sessions, eSport tournaments, cosplay competitions, guest speakers, retro gaming, pinball, minecraft zone, and tons more.
One of the most exciting features of Play Expo is the education fair, where you can learn more about game design and speak with industry professionals, game studios, and colleges in their sponsored hands-on workshops. Tickets are available at http://www.Playexpo.net and cost from £16 a day for adults, or £26 for both days. A family ticket is £42 for 2 adults and 2 children.
PAX Australia
Penny Arcade Expo also runs an event down under on October 30th in Melbourne Australia. Penny Arcade is perhaps one of the most popular gaming conventions and draws in the largest crowd of gamers, fans, designers, coders and developers from around the world.
Event attendee tickets start at $60, and a three day pass costs $160. Booth exhibits can be registered at www.paxaustralia.com.au but you should act fast because this major event fills up quick. PAX events, if you’re not familiar with Penny Arcade are literally jam packed weekends filled with an immense choice of panels, keynote speeches, and live gaming streams. A wealth of game studios, developers and designers share their knowledge and demonstrate game design as well as showcase indie game releases and major AAA games. Developers can learn a lot from panels and workshops running all weekend. The most rewarding opportunity at PAX is making contacts and getting your soundtrack or game shown to millions of attendees.
Ohio Game Developer Conference
This event covers every aspect of game design and development. From graphics and soundtrack design, to porting and marketing games. The Ohio Game developer expo begins on November 6th. Interested designers who want to get their game noticed can register an exhibit at https://www.ohiogamedevexpo.com/
A standard booth is $200 and a large booth costs $450. Smaller exhibit space ideal for indie developers is available in the form of the Independent tabletop at $20.
The event is home to a massive range of over 50 exhibitors, including Extra life, the charity foundation. Gary Butterfield, musician, gamer and podcaster at www.duckfeed.tv is speaking at this year’s event. Also in attendance and speaking is renowned eSports event host Jess Brohard. Event tickets start at $15 rising to $75. Indie game developers will be very interested in the audio panel mentorship, and voice acting panel at this year’s event. There are also workshops and audio competitions serving up the chance to get your music licensed and included in game releases.
Dreamhack
Dreamhack is an amazing gaming convention experience to behold. The event is held in Jönköping, Sweden from 26th to 29th November. The winter hack this year offers great esport tournaments in Hearthstone, Dota 2, and Counter Strike: Global Offensive. There’s live music, and a cosplay contest. The atmosphere at Dreamhack is just surreal, with thousands of gamers joining the huge Lan party to game and compete professionally, just for fun, and for prize pots. $40,000 is up for grabs but the competition will be fierce. Be sure to watch the streams live online if you can’t make this event.
Tickets can be purchased online at http://www.dreamhack.se or at the event on the day. A table seat will cost 989 SEK, roughly £77 or $115. An event pass is available at 600 SEK, and a competitor pass also at 600 SEK (approximately £46 or $70).
Paris Games Week
Paris Games Week serves up aspiring game developers a unique jobs fair with its own internship forum that can land successful game designers a job offer on the spot. The event starts on 12th November, and there is a focus on French artists and games developed locally in France. The eSport World Cup is probably the biggest event of the week that draws in thousands of gamers to downtown Paris. Developers in the U.K or Europe should consider a jaunt over to Paris Games Week for the chance to network with professional game developers and visit some of the 300 exhibitors. Tickets start at €11 and can be booked in advance on the website.
That fills out the roundup for the winter season of gaming conventions and conferences in 2015. Which event will you be attending? We’ll take a look at more upcoming events in January 2016.
PGH Meetup Game Jam
This weekend, I had the pleasure of participating in a local game jam held at the soon-to-be-open space, Looking For Group PGH. Even before walking into the space, I knew something special was brewing as a group of neighborhood kids huddled outside the space looking to get a glimpse of what was going on inside. As they saw me walk in to the space, one of them said “You are so lucky that you get to go in there!”. They were absolutely right.
Location
The setup is a unique twist on a growing trend. Half of the space is a dedicated co-working area complete with a few tables, comfortable chairs, and other office amenities. However, what makes this place truly special is its dedicated gaming space. Each side of the gaming area is flanked with rows of gaming computers while the middle of the room hosts various flat screens hooked up to the latest console systems. Furthermore, newly arrived sofas and some slick-looking chairs are provided for furniture. It’s an incredible space. As we jammed throughout the weekend, you could see various people having a great time lounging on the sofas and playing Mario Maker on the flat screen.
The Jam
Compared to the Global Game Jam, which I attended earlier this year, this game jam was much smaller (comprising about 10 or so people), but much more intimate. It was started casually when one of the Meetup PGH Game Makers members proposed the idea of a game jam. The owner of the space replied back offering up use of the space and just like that….it was on. It was a great group of guys from the Meetup PGH Game Makers group that were all on the same page about one thing, we just wanted to make a game. Being the only music/sound person in the room, I had the pleasure of actually being a part of both projects that were made that weekend.
The Games
The theme of the weekend was KISS…Keep It Simple Stupid which was a great theme considering that we had only 48hrs to produce a game. One project was a fighting game with a twist. Simple button presses delivered special moves. For example, pressing X on the controller delivered a laser eye beam (a la Cyclops). However, button mashing or doing complex combinations resulted in a simple punch or kick. The intent was to flip the fighting genre on its head as it rewarded the player for simplicity over complexity.
The other game was a space game where you had to maneuver through rings in outer space while avoiding objects and the pull of gravity from nearby planets. The star of this game was a stalker asteroid that would follow your ship if you got too close to it.
The Verdict
All in all, the event was fantastic and brought together people from a variety of disciplines. In the end, everyone got together to make the games happen. Even though the place was still be worked on, we were all more than comfortable in the space. Furthermore, situated within walking distance from the space were a few restaurants such as Las Palmas and Pita Land. Perhaps the most inspiring and unique part about the space is that it is much more dedicated to the culture of game development as opposed to just playing games. Talking with the owners, the plan is not only to offer a space for gaming, but to do classes on how to make games, setup LAN servers, and much more. You get the sense that this place is looking to be a real home to Pittsburgh’s development community and a breeding ground for the next generation of indie developers. Awesome.
For all Pittsburgh game devs, be sure to check out the PGH Game Makers group. And definitely check out Looking For Group PGH and support their Kickstarter campaign. I know this will become an icon in the Pittsburgh Dev scene, as well as becoming my second home! I’ve found my group!
Frank
Amazing Game Soundtracks Of The Last Decade
There has been a huge advance in audio production quality and game development capability over the last decade. We’ve heard the spine tingling results in some breathtaking audio production for game soundtracks in many popular titles. Sure, a few duds left us wondering what the developers were thinking, but the clear superstars are doing it right, with audio production studio software. Giving it the Hollywood treatment, here’s ten of the best soundtracks from the last decade of gaming.
Max Payne 3
The Max Payne Theme is moody, atmospheric, and has a noire feel to the environment. In 2012, L.A based band Health took inspiration from Brazilian influence and instrumentals, and combined several stems to create a synthesized ambience that fits well in the world of Max Payne.
The track entitled ‘Tears’ is where the creativity of Health shines through in audio production. The track adds beautiful electrifying vocals that taunt your emotions. Synthetic, industrial, and well scored. The album is available from Rockstar and iTunes.
Red Dead Redemption
Rockstar are known not just for their amazing game development, but also superb soundtrack audio production in all their titles. The soundtrack for Red Dead Redemption is no exception. Mostly composed by Bill Elm and Woody Jackson. Of particular note is the track by José González called “Far Away – immediately conjuring images of the Wild West as you listen to the vocals and masterful score.
The entire soundtrack is produced at 130 beats per minute in A minor. The innovative audio production process involved the use of modern instruments played in an unusual manor to fit perfectly within the game’s Western theme. The daunting task of the soundtrack was to set the ambience using 5 minute loops that interacted with the player’s actions, really pushing the boundaries of stellar sound production in games.
Red Dead Redemption was critically acclaimed for its soundtrack, and went on to win Best Original Score at the Spike Video Game Awards, and José González won Best Song in a game for “Far Away”.
World of Warcraft Cataclysm
David Arkenstone is one of a large team of composers who created orchestral music for the WoW franchise, including Cataclysm. Creating a masterful soundtrack for a large open world mmorpg is no easy task. Each zone has its own theme developed from inception and then the orchestral music is composed around it in line with the theme. Every song in each zon
e is telling a story, matching the theme. Inspiration came from exploring artwork of the old world, and the new revamped environment introduced in Cataclysm to create an epic ambience throughout a vast online world.
Creating the soundtrack required composition of tracks in such a manner that mood could easily transition into other tracks as players crossed zones and left environments behind. David Arkenstone states that artwork and sound effects best helped him choose the right instrument to score with for each zone. Some of the most recognized titles and skillfully composed rendition include Nightsong, along with vocals by Laurie Ann Haus, and orchestral performance by Northwest Sinfonia Orchestra, and let’s not ignore the Night Elves theme from Mount Hyjal.
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
The Skyrim soundtrack is inspiring, evocative and uses beautiful orchestral compositions with draconic chants, and haunting primal vocals throughout. The Dragon language developed entirely for the game’s development features heavily in the audio production, as the theme in multiple areas of the game, and in several musical scores.
To provide orchestral and majestic themes, Jeremy Soule used a Nordic choir and primal drum beats to immediately set the mood with visions of barbaric heroes, vast wild landscapes and treacherous dragons and Viking hunters. The theme continues throughout the game as the tempo increases during mounting tension and interactive gameplay.
Dragonborn is a prime example of how game design and soundtrack production should be done by aspiring game artists. The Elder Scrolls V soundtrack features 4 CDs with 53 tracks, and is available on Amazon and iTunes.
Final Fantasy X
The acclaimed Final Fantasy franchise and OST won many fans the world over. It is open to debate and highly contested between many gamers over the best soundtrack of the entire franchise, there are so many to choose from and all have merit, being composed skillfully.
Nobuo Uematsu composed the original soundtrack for FFX using piano, flute and violin arrangements in 2001. Each piece of music was created by studying artwork of each location to develop emotional attachments and tell a story. The same approach was used to create themes and scores for rich character backgrounds. The soundtrack was made available by EA in late 2004 to early 2005. The soundtrack for Final Fantasy 10 was re-mastered in 2014 and dramatically altered with the use of synthesized music, electronically enhanced with modern day music production software studios.
This departed from the classical piano and violin composition so many loved about the original. Nobuo Uematsu’s original score remains one of the greatest video game soundtracks of all time. The four disc album features over 80 tracks, including Yuna’s theme, Besaid, and To Zanarkand.
Portal 2
Mike Morasky, lead composer of the Portal 2 music soundtrack created a truly spectacular dynamic soundtrack that reacts to the players actions like never before.
By designing the music into the interactive mechanics of the environment itself, players experience positional music relative to their movement and objectives. Morasky implemented both musical sound effects and scored music into the game’s audio production for unique experiences different in each individual player’s session. Indie game developers and aspiring music composers really should take note to step up their game, as Portal 2 has set the benchmark incredibly high.
Music from the soundtrack was created to suggest dramatic and cinematic themes that match a puzzle environment perfectly. Both melodic and synthesized electro-pop genres play heavily throughout the game soundtrack.
Dragon Age: Origins
The title track I am The One, written by Inon Zur and performed by Aubrey Ashburn won the Hollywood Music in Media Award for the “Best Original Song: Video Game” category in 2009. There are two soundtracks available, the Lelianna’s song 8 track DLC soundtrack, and the Official Soundtrack album featuring 35 tracks.
Inon Zur captured the essence of the entire game by using soothing string music, accordion compositions, and captivating vocal accompaniments to compliment the mood of gameplay. If a game designer wants to learn music composition within gaming, they simply must study each of the tracks from this esoteric compilation.
Shadow Of The Colossus
In 2005 Kow Otani composed this orchestral soundtrack that was purely poetic and moving. Kow Otani sets the mood during gameplay perfectly by composing a variety of slow melodies that meander throughout the game as a character wanders, and skillfully weaving transitions into speedy battle encounters so smoothly that your emotions react before you do.
Nothing speaks more powerfully than the fast tempo of Kow Otani’s orchestral production of the Battle Theme. It appropriately matches the mighty awe inspiring and yet terrifying battle against a huge colossus, urging the player to think and act fast, as well as instilling fear and urgency within the listener. The soundtrack is a perfect example of matching gameplay mechanics with musical scores.
Journey
This is like drizzling yourself in honey while you explore your favorite open world. The fact this composition was nominated for a grammy illustrates how intricately woven into gaming music soundtracks have become, and how intensely they affect emotion and experience just as much as any motion picture cinematic release. Journey delivered recognition for gaming soundtracks and drove innovation forward. Austin Wintory composes profound music for the game using flutes, harps and cellos across 18 tracks of somber, ethereal and lonely pieces that match the theme of Journey well. The music tells a story beautifully, subtly hinting that it’s not the destination, but the journey that matters. Journey won awards for Best Score Soundtrack for Visual Media, and won Best Original Score at the Spike TV Video Game Awards.
Civilization IV
An actual Grammy win for Christopher Tin’s Baba Yetu goes one step further than Austin Wintory’s Journey composition. Christopher Tin composed Baba Yetu originally and exclusively for Civilization IV. Several years later it won recognition through inclusion on a compilation release, to win a grammy for best instrumental arrangements accompanying vocalists. Technically it was an indirect win, but I’m sure any gamer would agree, this was a win for a song created solely for a game environment. It worked well thanks to Tin’s choice to use a gospel choir to sing through the rise and fall of settlements and civilizations, the score is operatic, inspiring, and humble at the same time.
What’s your favorite video game soundtrack of the last decade? Got questions about audio production? Let us know in the comments.
Working With Game Composers Part 2
In our post last week, we discussed some of difficulties in communication that can arise between a game composer and the dev team. We also talked about the importance of defining the purpose for music used in your game. This week, we will talk about the remaining elements that will allow you to get the best work from your composer, namely: Emotions and Feel.
Emotions
Since music is the language of emotion, it is much more natural to communicate about music by speaking about the emotions to evoke than it is to speak in terms of genre (although as we will see later, genre has it’s place). Emotion will convey to your gamer what they should feel as they are watching your cutscene or playing your level. Much like purpose, there are many options for the choice of emotion and often, a certain musical cue may call for a mixture of emotions. For example, motivation, determination, fear, mystery, are all emotions that a certain game may include. However, your game level may call for a mixture of emotions such as determination mixed with fear or fear mixed with hope in order for the musical cue to truly convey what the player should experience emotionally. Emotions are the wireframe, the base, and the foundation on which you want to build your music around. Get it right, and the player will care about the hero of the game, cry when a side character is killed, and yell out loud when they pick up the joystick when they go to battle. Get it wrong, and they will be unengaged.
Mental State/Mood
Sometimes, evoking an emotion may not be necessary. For example, for a puzzle game, you may not need your gamer to be charged up. However, there may be a mental state that you want to induce. Using the example of the puzzle game, you may want to induce a state of focus in the gamer as they concentrate on solving the puzzle. Other times, it may be specific mood such as tranquility or serenity. In either scenario, you need to designate what emotion, mental state, or mood you want to induce in your player so that the music can fill it’s role.
Feel
If emotion/mental state/mood are the foundation on which to describe your music, the feel are all of the other levels, finishings, and outer trappings that sit on top of the foundation. To clarify, when we mean feel, we mean the aspects of music that correspond to a time, location, or genre. For example, a song with Japanese “feel” can have many different emotions, but there are certain sonic elements that would give it a “Japanese” feel such as the instrumentation or the scales used. While the emotional elements of a song communicates how one should feel emotionally, the “feel” of a song conveys a certain time or place. For example, the feel of calypso can take someone mentally to an island or beach. Feel becomes important to game audio because if the feel of your audio doesn’t match the visual aesthetics of your game, the sound and graphics will be out of sync (which can be an effect in its own right but is beyond today’s blog post).
Knowing both emotion and feel makes it much easier to communicate with your composer and to decide on what you want. They become two variables that your composer can experiment with to compose tracks for your game. They also also become your toolkit for assessing what your composers provides you. For example, let’s say your song comes back and the feel fits your visuals perfectly but it’s missing the mark emotionally. Maybe it’s the wrong emotion, or rather the emotion is not incorrect, but needs another emotion mixed into it to make it really move the gamer. In either case, you now have an easier time communicating with he composer to get exactly what you want.
Purpose, emotions, and feel are the keys to communicating clearly with your composer. By keeping these 3 elements in mind, you get to the heart of what your music is supposed to do and make it crystal clear what you are looking for from your composer.
Working With Game Composers
The Challenge
There’s already enough challenges in your day. Meeting deadlines, monitoring budgets, and dealing with the countless emergencies that arrive during development all are challenging in their own right. However, another fundamental challenge in development is communicating. Communicating with someone that has the same role as you or background is is one thing, but communicating with someone from a totally different discipline, each with its own vernacular (Programming, Art, Marketing), is another challenge in itself. We’re going to discuss probably one of the most challenging conversations that a game producer/developer will have, and that’s with a composer. We’ll address the inherent difficulty in the dialogue between a game development team and a composer, but more importantly, we’ll also talk about how to overcome this gap. By the end of the article, you’ll be well on your way to getting the best fitting music from your game when working with your composer.
Why Talking To A Composer Can Be Difficult
Music, much like programming, is a language in itself with its own notation and vernacular. Although the notation of music may only be known by those with musical training, music itself is a universal language that conveys emotion. Regardless of background or musical training, a melancholy piece composed in Berlin will be perceived as a melancholy piece by an African audience. Despite this universality however, there exists a large amount of subjectivity with music that doesn’t exist in programming. Whether a song is good or bad is subjective. Even the attributes used to describe a song can be quite broad. Take “reggae” for example. It may sound simple to request a “reggae” song for your track, but do you mean Bob Marley? Sublime? Shabba Ranks? Technically, using reggae to describe all these genres is correct in a sense, but where does that get us in terms of actual sound since each of these artists sounds unique in their own right. However, there is hope…
Purpose
Before even thinking about music for your game, throw out any of your music-genre centric language such as orchestral or rock and challenge yourself to describe music in terms that we’ll mention below. In fact, before thinking about music, first consider the purpose of music in your game. Why do you want or need music in your game? What is the function of the musical piece? This is not a philosophical question, but rather a very practical one. In fact, you should be asking this for every instance that you plan to have music: the menu screen, the various levels, cutscenes, and stingers. Asking these questions forces you to think of music as another gameplay element in your game, which it is. A few examples are the following:
Narrative Support: Your game is plot driven and your game needs music to emotionally tie your gamer to the events occurring in the game (the plot).
Thematic: You want music to represent certain heroes, villains, or side characters in your game.
Mood Setting: Your game needs something to help induce a mental state or mood. Perhaps it’s a puzzle game where you want the music to help the player to concentrate. Perhaps it’s a fighting game where you want the player to be amped up. Perhaps you are just setting the tone for the game at the menu screen.
Game State: Your game switches between game modes such as exploration and action and you need the music to communicate this switch to the player.
Reward/Punishment: Something good has happened to the player (such as victory music), or something bad has happened (they lost). This is typically done via use of short musical compositions known as stingers.
One of our demo games on this site, Breakout, is a rendition of the classic block smashing arcade game of the same name. Before we opened up our musical tools to develop music for this fairly simple game, we asked ourselves, what is the purpose of music for this game. We decided music would serve two roles. First, it was to set the mood throughout gameplay. Secondly, it was to reward/punish play depending on whether they won or lost the game.
Stay tuned next week as we talk about the remaining pieces of the puzzle: emotion and aesthetics.