In order to ensure that you get the very best game music soundtrack for your game, you will need to brief your composer as well as you can. As a game music composer myself (learn more about me), I have experience in working with many different types of people and clients – from indie game developers, small game studios, filmmakers, podcasters, tv producers and more.
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Interview By Ninichi | Contact | Follow
This week, I'm happy to be exploring Cat Quest, which is the latest game created by the award winning games studio responsible for bringing the popular game Slashy Hero to Android & iOS! Let's see what they have to tell us about the game.
Tell me about your team and your game...
'The team behind Cat Quest is none other than The Gentlebros. We're a team made up of veterans of the games industry. Having worked on console (PS3, PS4) titles in Koei Tecmo, we're all very experienced developers and we're looking to bring that knowledge to our own games.
Cat Quest is a 2d Open World RPG set in the fantastic and wonderful world of cats! Play as a catventurer as you explore a massive continent crafted in the unique style of tapestry! Relive the good old days of exploring an overworld map as you raid dungeons for epic loot, complete quests and meet the many furry denizens of this world!'
How long have you been working on your game for? How have you gone about developing it?
'We've been working on Cat Quest close to a year(including pre-production). We decided to use the Unity engine to make it as it is the most user friendly engine out in the market now, and there's a huge community working on the engine as well.'
What's different about it & why should we check it out?
'A streamlined open world action RPG set in the unique world of cats! Imagine a world where cats are the main inhabitants. How would things change?
Go to places like the Catpital where the Lion King rules, or experience delicacies like the catnip pie! Talk to the locals, some already on their 7th or 8th lives (what? not all cats have nine lives y'know), and go on a catventure through a world you've never seen before!'
What part does music play in your game?
'Music is an important part as it sets the mood and tone of the areas in the game. Its bright and cheerful when exploring the overworld, and dark and creepy when deep inside dungeons.
Music helps to separate these different areas from each other, and heighten the feeling we want players to have. Indeed, without music, the game would feel dead and flat.'
About the author: Ninichi is a game music composer and film music composer. She has worked on a number of games and is a great supporter of indie developers and indie games. If you're looking for music that will help your game to stand out contact her now to discuss your game music needs.
Follow her @ninichimusic
If you like beautiful games, here's one to definitely explore further! Arty Swirly Colourful is a game currently in development by the Owl Sanctuary Studios team, which I'm so happy to have connected with and worked with on the music to this stunning game. Discover more about them and their wonderful game now...
How did you all come together to make Arty Swirly Colourful?
'We met in University where we were all studying Games Design. We became friends towards the end of first year and eventually ended up working on a few projects together during the degree. From there if we skip the middle bits the three of us moved in together, setup a company and starting working on Games together. Also two of us are married, to each other, that was an important thing that happened.'
Where did the idea come from?
'The idea for Arty Swirly Colourful (ASC) came from an assignment during an experimental games design class our Lead Developer, Tom took during his final year in 2016. It was originally designed as a really simple relaxation focused experience. The world came together as a result of messing around with the Gaia add-on for Unity. Tom wanted a simple beautiful game world with dynamic seasons & weather that was just pleasant to spend time in.
After the course, Tom was asked to show the game at the Joint Conference on Serious Games 2016 in September. So development continued, as it did so we discussed the game with more people and the core idea of the game started to evolve. Somewhat nebulous ideas from the early days of the game were formed into coherent designs, more features and functionality was added and out of all that came the version of Arty Swirly Colourful shown at JCSG 2016.
Despite the fact that the demo we setup at JCSG couldn't be played by conference attendees and showed very little of the game's mechanics we received a very positive response. Once Tom graduated at the end of 2016 we setup Owl Sanctuary Studios and Tom went into full time development on the game.'
Who is Owl Sanctuary Studios?
Owl Sanctuary Studios is an independent Game Development Studio founded in 2016 and based in Brisbane, Australia.
Core Team:
Contractors:
Catractors:
Can you describe the game to us?
'In a nutshell Arty Swirly Colourful is a narrative driven game where the player takes on the role of a photographer sent to the stunning but ficticious Green Bay National Park in Canada. The player has the task of recreating with photos a series of paintings created in the National Park 100 years previously. To do this player's will have to explore the national park and work with the Park Rangers. It's also a game about reflection and the protagonist's emotional self-exploration.
Playing Arty Swirly Colourful is still quite a chill relaxing experience with gentle music and nice surroundings. There is plenty of things to take photos of, people to talk to and an engaging story.'
Is there anything special we should be looking out for in the game?
'Arty Swirly Colourful features a beautiful world populated with interesting wildlife and complete with changing seasons and weather. All of these things add an incredible amount of variety to the experience. We also think we have come up with some unique story telling mechanics to do with the protagonists emotional journey but it would be spoiling to talk about them now.'
Were there any big challenges that you've faced in your team or development journey?
'We've had a variety of challenges throughout development, working out design problems, performance issues and AI pathfinding being just a few. We have had a lot of big distractions going on this year which have made it difficult to get production going smoothly during the first half of the year.'
Where does the music fit into the game & gameworld?
'Quite early on during ASC's development we realised that music would be a vital part of the experience. We built a system that randomised the music based on a variety of factors. Initially we got simple royalty free music that did a reasonably good job of matching the different variables used by the music system. During our closed alpha testing it became apparent that while the royalty free music was ok it lacked consistency and just wasn't good enough for a full release.'
What do you think of the soundtrack so far?
'We love the custom soundtrack we have now for ASC, we were really impressed with how quickly it came together. The custom tracks while not entirely replacing the royalty free music has tied it all together adding consistency. The quality of the new music has also added impressive key pieces to the final soundtrack.'
How wonderful! It's been a pleasure working with you and your team. Here's a sneak preview of the soundtrack:
What are your plans now and where can we find out more?
'Well, we haven't announced our release plans for ASC yet but we are happy to say that Arty Swirly Colourful - Summer is on track for release before the end of 2017. The game will be an episodic release with three more Seasons to come in the months after Summer.'
For more information follow us on our Social Media sites:
About the author: Ninichi is a game music composer & supporter of indie games. She has worked on the music for numerous games, films, shows and more. If you'd like custom music for your game or project, contact me now to explore things further. See her full list of credits here.
Learn more About me (Ninichi) and check out examples of my game music.
Explore Ninichi's music blog further & follow @ninichimusic
If you’re working on your first game or perhaps you’ve done a few already but now you’re considering hiring a composer to work with you, this may feel like a big step! It could feel like a risk or a bit daunting to be bringing on someone new to the team, but it doesn’t have to be difficult or scary.
I’m a game music composer (see some of my music) and have worked with various indie game developers on their projects and have found it a very rewarding, fun and simple process. It could be this for you as well!
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I'm so excited to be introducing you to this wonderful indie game called Indie Developer Survival. It's a game created by the Fairy Axe team and is about the survival of a lone indie developer. As this indie developer you are trying to make a living by creating games. Will you survive? Or will you be lost to the madness of working in an ordinary store? Doesn't this sound familiar - and isn't this a great game to explore further!?
I had the pleasure of composing some music for this game and am now very happy to share my interview with Link Hirvelä, one of the creators of Indie Developer Survival...
Who are you & what is ‘Fairy Axe’?
'I am one of two developers of Indie Developer Survival. I currently do programming, art and design in the team. Fairy Axe is a team of two people. Me and Simon, who works with sound and music.'
How would you describe the game you’re making?
'The game we're making is a survival, management type of game. It is about a lone developer who lives in an apartment, trying to make a living out of making games. Going through the development hell, the stress and the need to actually have money to eat, pay rent.'
Out of all the games you could have made, why this one? What makes it special?
'We felt a need for a personal game. So this game has some relatable moments to our own lives as developers. We wanted to tell a story about the development and let people live through it. Everyone that has worked on the game so far has had some personal ideas from that come from ourselves. So we hope that other old and new developers will relate to the game. Also players that are interested in games and development get some insight. It is very target towards indie developers but we all have started from somewhere. That is what so special with it for us, it is not just a game it is almost a biography of development.'
What’s the game development journey been like? Have their been any challenges along the way?
'The challenge has so far been designing it both to be entertaining and interesting. There isn't too many games that you can get inspiration from and as always finishing games can be soo difficult. About the middle of development when you reach what we call here in the office as "The pit of despair". When you just have to bite the bullet and chip away at the work. But overall the journey has been so far great, we have learnt alot about ourselves and we're making a game about the journey. We have the luxury of seeing ourselves in stress aswell as in the game, such meta.'
Why did you decide to work with me on the music for the game?
'Why we wanted to work with you was to get some variation in the music that we have in the game. We were looking for something that could define what the games music could be, we had a few ideas how the music could feel. But not as much of how it actually would sound.
How important is music in your game?
'Music is greatly important, it is one of the best ways to contribute to the feeling that the player goes through when playing. An example of music being important is in Dark Souls, the enemies in that game has a 4/4 rythm of their attacks with exception to one boss with a 3/4. The music is embodied in the game. As a developer we can direct and navigate the players with music.'
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. Here's a sneak peak at that game music track I composed for you...
What do you think of the ‘Le Fairy Noir’ track?
'The "Le Fairy Noir" is the track that we absolutely wanted, we really wanted a noir track for the beginning of the game and it is lovely, it is great to start the menu just to listen to the track. It goes through the feelings that we wanted to feel. We hope our players also will love the track!'
I hope so too! It's been wonderful working with you on this. To find out more about this game and the Fairy Axe team check them out at:
About the author: Ninichi is a game and film music composer. She works on a range of freelance composing projects supporting talented game developers and film makers with their music.
Want some great custom music for your game? Listen to Ninichi's game music and contact her now to discuss your game music needs.
Follow her @ninichimusic
As a game music composer, I believe that the music that one chooses and includes in a game is really important. I think that in some cases, it is easy to underestimate the impact that great game music can have on a players experience and perception of a game. This is an easy mistake to make but I am hoping that this article will help to convince you of the real potential that well chosen and well placed music can have in your game.
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Where did the idea for 'The Whaler' come from?
'The idea has been around for about 6 months, and came from the love of naval games. I remembered playing my first naval game in the 90s, I don’t remember the name but you could be a commander on a galleon and you would shoot on other ships lined up next to you. So I was thinking “How cool with it to have a game where you could explore the whole ship and it all felt alive” and it kind of grew from there.'
What's the game about, how do you play it and what makes it special?
'The game is set in the time 17th – 18th century, and it’s a first-person trade sim from the booming of the whaling trade. You will command the ship and do various tasks such as transporting goods from A-B to earn money, hunt different whales for extra profit, craft resources for skinning and upgrade gear, upgrade your captain’s cabin to make it look all neat, open trade routes and discover islands where you can find some extra goods and do crew integration. You will also be challenged with storms and other NPC/Players going after your goods depending on the zone.
What makes it special is that there is not another game like that out there, if you like simulation games like truck driver, silent hunter and naval games, this will appeal to you.
The vertical slice/prototype will have the core gameplay design like ship navigation, crafting, trading and whale hunting. Since this is so ambitious we have to start small and add as we go.'
Who are you and your team?
'It's myself (Tommy) project lead and I do modelling, animation and texturing.
Mike: Who has over 10 years programming experience and worked on games like LOL and Resident evil.
Fab: A freelancer artist who is making the ship for the prototype, has worked on many Hollywood movies such as Narnia 3 (he made the ship).'
What are you using to develop / build the game?
'The prototype will be in Unity.'
How's this going?
'It`s going really good, we are working hard to get the VS out and ready. It’s going to be very powerful so it has to be done right.'
What are your plans for it?
'There are a lot of plans for this game, obviously, I can’t talk about all of it, that would spoil the fun. But the general plan is to get the VS ready and start looking at other funding methods so we can grow it the way we want to.'
What part does music play in the game?
'It plays a huge role, the music from that era is going to set the feel for the game so it must be top notch, this we can go more into when the VS and funding is ready. But we have a lot of options regarding this. There will be a demo of the OST sometime next week with some music.'
Great stuff! Here's a sneak peak of the track:
Is there anything you want to say about the 'Ocean calm' track?
'Luckily Ninichi has been very good to work with, and she works fast. I can totally recommend going to her if you are an indie, its definitely worth it!'
Where can we find out more about the game?
'You can check us out on http://www.indiedb.com/games/the-whaler-working-title and also on Twitter @trym_studios for more information.'
About the author: Ninichi is a game music composer & supporter of indie games. If you need help with the music for your game or project, contact me now to explore how we might work together.
Learn more About me (Ninichi) and check out examples of my game music.
Explore Ninichi's music blog further & follow @ninichimusic
As a composer for games, film and other media, I am often asked about sound effects and where to find some for various projects. I myself specialise in music only and so I don't create sound effects - however, there are many resources online which offer great audio clips for various uses. Many of these are free to use, some requiring creator attribution and some not at all. Others do charge for the sound effects but they don't charge much, so they're worth exploring too. I've attempted to list some of these sound effect libraries in the hope that this is a helpful reference for you...
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