Music ideas

Adam Fergler was kind enough to help me once again with the creation do a melody for the background of my game.

I've never been good to choose myself a soundtrack or even sound effects, but I do appreciate the importance of them.

I know Adam is busy with his own projects, therefore I never thought about anything different to a single simple melody looping in the background. 

After the first few days of talking about what kind of mood I was looking for the game, what the story was, the game play and the main characters personality, he started coming up with ideas of what could be done.

Because at this point I barely touched any sound related topics for the engine, I didn't know what restrictions I would encounter. My original IDE was to have a tune per stage of courage and simply fade in and out between them. 

After trying for a bit I couldn't find a way to make a smooth transitions and having sudden changes of music was not a good idea.

After some talking and considerations we came up with more practical ideas to represent Kamea's courage increase that in this level's case it increases 3 times plus the initial state:

A) have a the same melody 4 times with the exact timing, but with more and more instruments on each level. The idea was to have them all runnin at the same time in the background on mute and just turn the volume up after each courage checkpoint was reached. This created a kind of layering and would avoid an abrupt change of music.

B) have smaller melodies that sound good looping but that the ending of one is the beginning of the next one. With this method, we expected to be able to loop one until a courage point was reache, stop the looping and once the song is finish switch to the next one which then would loop until the next courage point is reach, and so on. 

I decided to make quick and rough testing playable levels to see if they would actually work. It turns out that the 'coding' behind it was pretty simple and managed to get both ideas to work.

Here's idea A and idea B

(Note that A doesn't line up properly, but that's because one song starts slightly later than the other, but the concept is there).
(Also! just noticed that you sometimes have to refresh at least once the browser window to get the audio working properly!) 

I think the easies way for Adam was to go for option B. He said he had more than one idea that he was already working on, more like Kamea's theme song! 

Maybe that melody will be used for the titles screen :D 

Really looking forward to hear more of it.

Eternal Sonata

As part of the result of my compulsive eBay-biding face I got my hands on Eternal Sonata by Namco Bandai for the PS3. 

As a single-player RPG that I usually go for, this one has a strong anime style which I think goes really nice with the cel-shading graphics and despite the weird plot that spins around the story of the pianist and composer Frédéric Chopin and a fantasy dream that happens just before his death, the graphics of the game is what capture my attention. 

After I started playing it I discovered that the amount of detailed they put on the scene was absolutely fantastic for its style. It's good to see some games stepping aside from the dark realistic graphics once in a while, and this one features an incredible well use of colour the whole time. 

The game itself is based around musical features, so the sound design is well appreciated for someone with some musical background, although I naming the characters after music styles is a bit too much (I mean, come on! Polka, Salsa, Allegreto...really?) 

I heard bad reviews about this game, but to be fair I haven't found anything wrong with it, and in fact I think it has a decent level of difficulty and I really hope it carries on like this. (I haven't finished it yet) 

Might not be everyone's cup of tea, but I certainly helped me to carry one with my scene and inspired me to work more on my detail levels. 

Journey

If anyone asked me to describe the latest game developed by the famed-indie studio thatgamecompany, Journey I would say: Deep.

Ever since I saw the trailer for it I became curious about this title, reasons being the fact that it's only a 3 hour game, no status bars, no "bad guys" or monsters and narrative based on images (no text through the game or voice at all).
After downloading it from the PS Network I started the game and there you are; in the middle of the dessert with no one to tell you what to do or where to go, on the distance a mountain with a bright light on the top.
Regardless of this, and with out spoiling anything important, the game posses a very clear plot, but it is something else that captivate me all the way until the end.
I believe that Journey is a tale of devotion, persevarance that shows you the power of determination and the cyclical continuity of life.
With a fantastic online feature, as long as you have internet access, the games automatically puts another player along your side (randomly) so the feeling of not being the only one in the whole world seems to be shared between two, but saying this, the only way of communication is a single-note whistle. Might not sound like much, but I couldn't believe how "attach" you can become to a complete stranger that follows you along side your journey.
Deep...

Graphically speaking, and despite the minimalistic style of the game, the whole scenario and levels of the games are an orgasmic feast for the eyes (seriously). The feeling of a boundary-less vast world rarely changes and you get straight away the idea of being in a unique post apocalyptic world that yet is gorgeous.

Sound wise... I'll just say that I'm eagerly waiting for the soundtrack to come out; already pre ordered...that's how good it is.

Certainly Journey quickly became one of my favourite games of all times. I hasnt come out of my head and I'm eagerly talking about it to everyone, yet no matter how many time I try to explain it, it just doesn't sound nowhere near as how good the game actually is.
It might be just me who got obsess with it, with the concept, with the music, with the playability and re-playability, and it might be just me who gets really attached to games that go deeper into the user's emotions, but I'm sure that everyone can fit the game to more than one episode of their lives and therefore make of this 3-hour experience into a unique journey.


(It even inspired me to do some fan art lol ... still working on it) 

Wicked Animatic

Defying Gravity Storyboards from Heidi Jo Gilbert on Vimeo.

This is an animatic I found from Heidi Jo Gilbert, a CalArts artist. In it is a possible representation if the play Wicked was transformed into an animation. The concept is awesome and obviously the songs are fantastic.
I found it interesting because it gave me a good idea of what actual professionals take as storyboarding and animatics and it helps me to race my standards on my own work.
(I did not download this song for my ipod after this... ) 

Outline your implications - II

Because the video had no lines at all we thought the music composition should be something important to consider and luckily a friend of mine, Dr. Adam Fergler, agreed to help us with it.
The video below is a quick animatic that I made for him estimating the timing for most of the shots that would give him a good start for the melody creation.

This is just a short preview of what the final melody will be like. Basically he's waiting for the real footage to be done and once we get closer to the final product after some editing he'll be able to finish some details to fit the video correctly. 

So far Adam is also going to work on the melody for our second poem. Can't thank him enough.

Visit his website!!! : http://adamfergler.eu/