Due to the limited nature of my original role in Lament, I have also started to create the sound track for the game.
Some useful software I have found is BeepBox.co
It is completly free to use with no credit required! Meaning we can use it for free in our game!
The first thing I want to do is create the main menue theme song. This is what every player is going to hear for the first time when entering the game and as such it should set the mood for the whole game. Some inspiratrion that I am taking for this is from Ori and the Will of the Wisps:
What I really like about these OSTs is the use of Strings and combined orchestra to make certain soundtracks feel full and lifelike, whereas, taking these away creates a more Minor and depressive theme.
The Depressive theme is definetly something that I want to focus on, however, as it is a main title theme I’m working on first, I also want it to feel grand, like the curtains have just dropped at the theatre and you’re seeing everything for the first time. I want to envoke that sense of curiosity and adventure that will await you inside the game.
One of the best things about beepbox.co is that the music is contained in the URL. This means that it is very easy to share quickly online and around. As such you will be able to follow my progress on music much easier!
The creation of the main theme took me around 4 hours as a rough initial draft, however, the feedback from my peers has been very well recieved and as such we have decieded to go with that first which you can find here.
We will be looking to get additionanl feedback from our wider range of peers in the feedback and playtesting sessions.
This is not only becasue we viewed the first draft as being good enough but also because we want to create more music and Sound Effects for the rest of the game and select levels.
The creation of the music actually was very interesting to me. I mostly had to research some very basic music theroy looking into Chord, Harmonies and Melodys, which you can find all 3 in my initial draft.
The link above is where I did most of my research. Given the depressive narrative I wanted to use the Minor Scale, given that is the most ‘down’ scale used in pretty much all music.
I only used triad chords instead of fifths or sevenths as I didn’t want the melody and harmonies to be drowned out. Similarly, everything was done in C scale just to keep stuff simple for my first ever bit of original music.
After absorbing some of this theory, I set off to create the basis for the rest of the song, which I made with a ‘choir tenor’ synth, which runs through most of the song. This choir is what the rest of the song is built off of and around as the foundation of the song. Most of the song is built around C and G chords that repeat somewhat interchangeably with some variying A chords. This was repeated for the Harmonies, however, the melody I just sort of experimented with until I found something that sounded ‘good’.
I still checked what I was doing with some of the pages on Music Theory from the link above, and I also followed along with some tutrorials that allowed me to find some footing in an otherwise very overwhelming role.
The Intro Cutscene Music can be found here.
Again I used a series of minor chord progressions to create this dark and ominious sound track that was meant to make the player feel the pressure of the tasks that they were about to have to challenge and overcome.
To emphasise this daunting emotion, I added a very low drum bass to the track, to feel like a heart beat. To make the player feel the suspense in their chest as they set off into the caves of Lament.
To create the main boss theme, I used a slightly different, edited version of Beepbox.co, Goldbox which is a modification of Jummbox. Both Goldbox and Jummbox specialise in editing ‘Chiptune Melodies’ which are meant to replicate the sounds and music of old 8-bit soundtracks. Goldbox is particularly good due to the range of sounds and control over these sounds that it provide.
Goldbox advances on the basic controls found in beepbox, but to compensate for this, it limits the range of instruments that can be used on the site. Goldbox’s key draw for me over Beepbox is the looping feature. This allowed me to create a looping music sequence after a preliminary intro. Similar to the encouter music in a pokemon game.
The boss music link can be found here. Key parts of the boss music that I wanted to include was a large build up that would occur during the dialogue. This build up would be the first of a few fights and I designed the music in a way that I would be able to build on the boss soundtrack for future bosses. I.e. the further in the game you got, the more developed and overwhelming the music sounds, similar to how the emotions present in Lament are designed to overwhelm a player and display the emotions in grief.
This piece of music is designed to be a short credits song. A sort of mournful piece where the player can enjoy the end of the game and feel fullfilled, however, the nature of a rougue-like to be replayeable, and as such this more depressive theme doesn’t just fit the thematics of the game but also fits the loss of the completed game, inviting the player to press play again and restart the journey.
The completed soundtrack can be found here.
The only fault with Beepbox and its creation modifications is the lack of actual recording software in the system. All the data is stored in the URL which makes the music incredibley easy to share, however, you can’t upload a URL to play music in a game engine. As such I also had to use Audacity to record my desktop audio and trim/edit the audio to work as a .WAV and .MP3 file. The biggest challenge with this was the loopability of the songs. I was essentially expanding the music and trying to find where the notes changed in the sound waves rather than playing by ear, because when I tried that, it was very hard to get the loop working seemlessly.
I did try my best to make these loops smooth but the hardest one was the boss music as the sound loop was contained in the song, whereas, the other music pieces could just loop from start to end all the way through.
Overall I am very happy with what I have completed in terms of the music so far, however, I plan to push myself further in the future with these soundtracks. Something I only considered at the end of this process was actually sticking to core instruments. I experimented with lots of different sounds instead of sticking with a core compostion and this can make some of the songs sound a bit ‘off’ when listening back to back. This doesn’t really happen in the game, however, this is something I will consider and look into more in the futre.
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