Introducing the Game Music for Arty Swirly Colourful

By Ninichi | Contact | Follow

This is the second of my 'insight' articles which aim to offer a bit more of a glimpse into how I created the music for different games. This one is called Arty Swirly Colourful and I was really excited when asked to work on the soundtrack for this game. Everything that I learnt and discovered about the game was quite inspiring and so I wanted the music to reflect the calm and beautiful world as well. See what you make of it...

What kind of game is Arty Swirly Colourful?

Arty Swirly Colourful is a beautiful exploratory game created by the talented game development team at Owl Sanctuary Studios.  It’s a narrative driven game where you take on the character of a photographer sent into a stunning park – the ficticious Green Bay National Park, where you are tasked with taking photos. These photos are meant to recreate a series of paintings created in the park 100 years previously.

The game is set in a beautiful world populated with interesting wildlife, park rangers and other people to talk to, amazing surroundings and more. The music therefore is designed to reflect the gentle and calming nature of the surroundings as well as the emotional journey that one takes through the different areas of the park.

What is the music like?

The main mood for the music and for the game is that it is relaxing and soothing. The team at Owl Sanctuary Studios were very clear that they didn’t want any heavy electronic sounds and that they wanted a relaxed yet fun vibe. Playing the game and moving through the park is meant to be a chilling and gentle experience and so I’ve tried to make sure that the music supports this.

The first set of tracks composed for the game, are designed for the summer scenes. There are plans to build out the soundtrack further as the game develops and grows but for now we have focused on making the summer tracks fit the various settings and areas within the game.

What are the different game music tracks?

There are 5 tracks that I worked on:

Swirly Summertime – which is meant as a track for the daytime in summer, within the game. It’s therefore on the cheerier side yet still calming and soothing to listen to.

Early Sunrise – is meant to have that feel of awakening, discovery and a sense of wonder around what might be and what opportunities lies ahead

Summer Sunset – is at that beautiful shimmery time of day, when the light is it’s most beautiful. This is important for the photographer / player of the game and so hopefully the music reflects this sense of beauty.

Open Terrain – is meant to feel more airy than the daytime Swirly Summertime track.  Who knows what you’ll find in the open areas! It’s a mystery but a fun one!

Forest Trees – is a track that would play when you’re in the forest terrain. Here, I was trying to blend a sense of magic, mystery and calming quietness.

Have a listen to them and see what you make of them! Hopefully you’ll find them just as relaxing as the Owl Sanctuary team do!

A few other things that could be interesting to share about how I worked on these with the Owl Sanctuary Studios team:

• we communicated via a combination of emails and Discord

• there was a good range of tracks to use as inspiration, ideas and as references

• the team listened to each of the tracks to make sure that they all agreed on and liked them before signing each one off

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About the author: Ninichi is a freelance indie game composer and music enthusiast. She has composed the soundtracks and music to several indie games. Contact her: to explore working with her on your game, film or media project.

Check out examples of Ninichi's game music compositions and soundtracks & read more articles like this on the Ninichi music blog. 

Follow her @ninichimusic

Introducing the Short Film: The Waiting Room

Interview by Ninichi | Contact | Follow 

Towards the end of last year, I had the pleasure of working on the music to an inspiring short film called The Waiting Room. I connected with experienced filmmaker Dexter Goad, who runs ShadowDogProductions, and am now excited to share with you a short interview with him, which offers some insight into the thinking behind this production...

Who are you and how did you get into film production? 

'My name is Dexter Goad and I've been writing, producing, and Directing films for 15 years.  I got into filmmaking because I tried getting my novels published for 10 years to no avail.  So I looked into getting one self published.  What I discovered is that if you finance your own novel you're considered a hack, pathetic, a loser.  Your novel isn't good enough so you had to pay for it yourself.  However, if you finance your own music album, your own paintings, your own movies, you're respected as an artist MAKING IT HAPPEN!  I've never figured out why this hypocrisy exists, but its a real thing.  So, at the time, I was young and I cared what people thought of me & I didn't want to look like a loser.  So, I decided to finance a film based on one of my short stories instead of finance the publication of one of my novels.  The film turned out horribly, but I discovered I loved filmmaking way more than I'd ever loved novel writing and I've never looked back.'

Wow amazing! Thanks for sharing your story with us. Let's now take a look at your short film The Waiting Room. What can you tell us about it? 

'Waiting Room is about how we lie to our loved ones to "protect" them.  How that can be good or bad, and how our loved ones can often figure out that we're hiding something despite our best efforts.  In my experience, people who lie to protect their loved ones are almost always doing so to protect themselves as well.'

Who's involved in the film?

'The only nationally known actor in this is Lilianna Ketchman, from the reality show "Dance Moms."  She's only ten years old and her background is in dance, but she has an innate ability to act that I think people are going to be impressed by and enjoy.  She was impressive enough to me that I shot another short film with her right after Waiting Room and she will be my lead in a mid sized budget horror film we're shooting this summer called "Death's Delay."'

Where did the inspiration for The Waiting Room come from? 

'I thought it would be interesting to explore the concept that everybody in a medical waiting room has their own story and in most cases they're going through something stressful or they wouldn't be there.  Even if you're just there for a routine checkup, you're always afraid that they'll find something bad.  If you could see stress as a visible thing, I'd imagine a hospital waiting room would be the most thick with it.  After this I added in the layer about lying and protecting people with your lies.'

What do you hope people will take away from it? 

'I don't approach my work in this way.  My approach is always to pour as much of myself into the writing and production of a work, then get out of the way and see what happens when people experience it.  Because what invariably happens is people will take things from you'd never imagine or expect.  That's a really fun part of the process for me.'

Awesome. Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this. Now let's talk about music! What part does the music play in a film do you think?  

'Music in film is like clothes:

1. Absolutely vital part of the process
2. Can't imagine it absent
3. When it's working properly, it accentuates what's there, hides what's necessary, reveals what's desired to be revealed, but doesn't get in the way.
4. You should never be conscious of it being present

I often talk about why filmmaking is the best creative field because its the ONLY creative field that uses all other creative fields.  You have writing, acting, music (writing and performing, including singing), photography, sculpture (set building and props), architecture (set building), painting, makeup, hair dressing, clothes making, dance (straight or as stunt choreography), and technically creative fields such as computer graphics and design, editing, and color correction.  Literally any creative field you can imagine has been used in film somewhere at some time.  I love collaborating with creative people in all these different fields, but I must admit that musicians are some of my favorite people to work with.  Probably because I don't have a lick of musical talent myself but wish I did.  I'll be producing a musical short film this year and I can't wait.'

How about in Waiting Room? 

'For Waiting Room I needed music specifically composed to the footage because it's such an intimate, personal story - (sometimes you can buy precomposed tracks and drop them in and it's fine for certain types of projects, but this is a character driven piece, so it was important that the music be specific.)  Which is why I sought out a professional like Ninichi and I'm very glad I did.'

It's been amazing working with you on the music to the film. Thanks for trusting me with it. Here's a sneak preview (on the right) of some for the music for those wanting to have a little listen. 

Now onto other things. What were the biggest challenges in creating Waiting Room? 

'This was actually a very smooth, easy shoot.  I've been doing this a long time and there used to be some major struggles getting the days shot, but since about 2014 the accumulation of experience and adding really good crew members to the team have combined to streamline the process.  For instance, it was nothing in early years to start at 8am and not finish until midnight and that with having had to forgo several shots we really wanted.  In the past few years we've been able to start at 9am and finish around 7pm.  So it was with Waiting Room.  Experience really can be the best time saver there is.

It all starts with the writing.  I knew I wanted to shoot this in a single day, so I wrote what I knew we could get within that time frame.

Even the post production has been without drama because the music came together really fast and our color correctionist is somebody I've known a long time and is really good.'

Where can watch it?

'We'll be doing a special internet premiere within the next couple months.  Stay tuned.'

How exciting! We'll definitely keep a look out for that. Also, are you working on any other films and if so, where can find out more?

'We've always got something going on.  You can follow me on Instagram or Twitter at ShadowDogProd'

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About the Author:

Ninichi is a freelance composer, creating music for film, games and other media. She has worked on a wide range of projects and is available to commission now. She creates custom music for films, commercials, tv shows and more, and also have a catalog of music available to license.

Discover more of her film music or explore her royalty free music now.

10 Places to Find Beta Testers for Your Indie Game

By Ninichi | Contact | Follow

One of the challenges before launching your game is finding people who are willing to test it and offer you useful feedback on it.  Getting friends and family to check it out is certainly useful but isn’t always enough. Understanding your user and ensuring that the user experience is as good as it can be before releasing your game into the market, is a hugely important part of the process.

As a game music composer, I’m not really able to offer much advice on how to develop your game but from my experiences in working with many amazingly talented indie game developers (see my credit list), I know that one area which is often tricky, is in knowing where to source those beta testers.  So, I’ve had a go at compiling a list of places that could be useful to be aware of and to check out.

I know that the game development journey can be a long one and hope that this article helps you a little bit along the way…

1. Alpha Beta Gamer

Alphabetagamer is ‘the worlds biggest beta testing site’. They cover alpha and betas on all platforms and do so for free, however they will only play your game if it’s free or if you give them some keys to distribute and offer through their website. They aim to add new games to their website each day.

2. Indie Quality Assurance

IndieQA was created in 2015 by a group of playtesters wanting to support Indie developers with their games. They offer a free service to beta test games as long as you provide keys for your game for your preferred platform.

3. Beta Family

Beta Family has over 65,000 testers that you can invite to test your game and target based on demographics and device. They have an easy to use test builder and 3 different price plans (from free to $399/month) for you to choose from.

4. PreApps

PreApps is a site that helps people to discover and test new apps before they are released. They cover apps on both iOS and Android and offer various services to help with the launch and promotion of your mobile app. This includes submitting your app to over 150 sites for review.

5. UberTesting

UberTesting provides access to real users to test and offer feedback on apps, websites and more.  For mobile game developers it can be a great way to get feedback on your game. You don’t need to integrate SDK, you can target specific user segments, set up surveys, interviews, focus groups and more.

6. Betalist

Betalist is a place to discover and showcase new startups. It’s a community of creators and early adopters. If your mobile app or game offers something exciting for early adopters to get their teeth into then check it out.

7. Playtest Cloud

PlaytestCloud offers a one-stop solution for playtesting mobile and browser games during all key stages of game development cycle i.e. prototyping, development, soft launch and after release.  You can easily set up a playtest, specify your target audience and then watch and listen to videos of people playing your game. There are 4 different products and various prices associated with the kind of survey or test you’re looking to implement. Prices range from $9 per response right up to over $1000 for longer studies.

8. Roast My Game

Roastmygame is a site which encourages indie game developers to post their games so that they can gather ‘sugarfree’ feedback on it.  Anyone can post a game and anyone can offer feedback.

9. Reddit

There are various subreddits, which allow you to share your game and ask for feedback. Check the rules for each subreddit to make sure it’s ok to post something there before doing so. Here are a few to maybe take a look at:

• /r/gamedev
• /r/playtesters
• /r/playmygame
• /r/inat
• /r/gamedevclassifieds
• /r/gamedevscreens
• /r/testmyapp
• /r/alphaandbetausers
• /r/androidapptesters
• /r/startups
• /r/indiegaming
• /r/iosgaming

10. Twitter

There is a huge gaming and gamedev community on Twitter with many people very willing to take a look at and support your game. Find me there @ninichimusic! If you have a strong following on Twitter, then ask your followers if they want to beta test your game. As well as that, here are some hashtags that may be useful for you:

• #gamedev
• #indiedev
• #indiegame
• #indiegames
• #indiegaming
• #betatesting
• #betatesters
• #testmyapp
• #apptesting
• #mobileapptesting

Read next: How to Promote Your Game on Twitter

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About the author: Ninichi is an experienced game music and film music composer. She creates music for games, film and other media, and would be delighted to help you create the music for your game or project. 

Contact Ninichi to explore working with her now and follow her @ninichimusic

Introducing Shakey’s Escape Original Game Music Soundtrack

By Ninichi | Contact | Follow

I ran a poll on through my Twitter account (@ninichimusic) asking what people might like to see more of on my blog.  The top votes went for ‘Updates on my music’ and ‘Game music tips’.  So, I’ve been thinking about what I can share about the music I’ve been working on and here is the first blog of hopefully a series of them, which offer a little bit more insight into the game music and other music projects I’ve had the privilege of working on, and how they’ve come together.

I’ve also done several interview style blogs, which have generally been received well and so although it may be a little strange interviewing myself – I’m going to use that kind of format to hopefully make these easy and fun to read!  So here’s goes my first one!

What’s Shakey’s Escape about?

Shakey’s Escape is an adventure game about a cat, Shakey whose owner kicks him out of the house and from there on, your journey begins! You wander the streets coming across various puzzles, villains and much much more.  

It’s a game developed by Smashing Pixels, also known as Doobly HQ. Earlier on last year I wrote an article taking a closer look at the game just as it was about to launch: Introducing the Game: Shakey’s Escape.  It’s now available on Android and i0S and is free to download.

What’s the soundtrack like?

The original game music soundtrack consists of 10 tracks, which I would probably separate out into 3 different styles and/or moods:

1. Dreamy and relaxed

For the main menu track I tried to create a dreamy feeling. It’s when Shakey the cat, is snuggled up by a lovely, warm fireplace. In the music I tried to make it feel cosy and relaxed, and I think that the harp helps greatly in achieving this.

2. Light and sneaky

A lot of the game music that I composed for this game fall into this category. This is because the bulk of the game is when Shakey is exploring different places. There’s sneaking, discovering, playing, jumping, getting into trouble in lots of different ways – and I tried to reflect this in the music.

Since Shakey has just been kicked out by his original owner, everything that he sees and discovers through the various levels of the game is a new experience. So, there are elements of danger, mystery, uncertainty and cautiousness in the music too.

A few things that you may notice when you listen to the game music, is that a lot of the soundtrack is in a minor key and I’ve chosen to use a lot of pizzicato strings.  To me, that was a way to create that sneaky, jumpy, cat-like feel.

3. Fights & Action

As one may expect, there are some fights in the game! Shakey’s adventures aren’t all just wandering around and discovering new things. There are villains that cross Shakey’s path and that must be dealt with!

So, for the levels and sections where there is more action taking place, the music becomes more intense to reflect this.

You may also notice that the music style changes as you get to the higher levels. It becomes more energetic, urgent sounding and retro. These are the tougher levels, which are much more difficult to get through and everything that Shakey is experience is really out of his comfort zone e.g. trying to fly a helicopter!  The music, therefore, is more intense and faster to reflect this.

What did I enjoy most about working on this soundtrack?

Shakey’s Escape is the first original soundtrack that I’ve released and so I’m really honoured to have worked on it with Rob, the developer of the game.

It has been such a fun and rewarding journey to see the game develop and the music develop alongside it. I saw lots of clips of the game as I worked on the music for each level of the game. That really helped to give me an idea of what I needed to make the music work well with, and it was also just really stimulating and fun to see how the game was coming along.

By the time we finished working together, I couldn’t wait to see the full game released!  It has been really well received so far and I just hope that the soundtrack does the game justice and gets just as well received as the game itself!

Is the soundtrack available and what’s next?

Yes indeed it is. Shakey’s Escape Original Game Music Soundtrack is available:

• To purchase via bandcamp

• To listen to on Spotify

• To get on Tidal

In terms of what’s next for me – well, I’d love to do more game music soundtracks as well as other music projects. So, if you need some help with your game music soundtrack, let me know (i.e. contact me here)! I’d also love to release more of the soundtracks I’ve done (check out my discography here) and sharing more blogs/information on them too, so watch this space!

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About the author: Ninichi is a freelance composer and music enthusiast. She has composed the soundtracks and music to several indie games. Contact her: to explore working with her on your game, film or media project.

Check out examples of Ninichi's game music compositions and soundtracks & read more articles like this on the Ninichi music blog. 

Follow her @ninichimusic

Introducing the Gaming Channel: The Loading Crew

Interview By Ninichi | Contact | Follow

I'm delighted to be introducing everyone to The Loading Crew, this week. I was honoured to work on the intro music for this channel and to get to know the wonderful couple behind this channel. Here's my interview with them...

Who are you and where did The Loading Crew come from? 

'TheLoadingCrew is a husband and wife team made up of 2 independent artists. The husband Stuart is in charge of the YouTube channel and producing video content while the wife Alexandria produces the Web Comics Momma CQ, Jelly Realms Adventures, and the upcoming comic World View.'

What made you decide to set up this channel? 

'We actually had the channel open since 2009. We used to do competitive Yu-gi-oh! content but decided to rebrand as a tabletop channel in 2016 when we started uploading our Pathfinder/D&D videos he played with a few internet celebrity guest friends of ours.'

Tell us a bit about your channel and what sorts of things you cover?

'TheLoadingCrew produces mid to high quality Tabletop RPG games framed as a web series. We live stream long form Pathfinder and Dungeons and Dragons style games. After the live streams, we will take the footage and cut them down into 10-60 minute easy to consume episodes.

We do several things like clean up audio, add animations, and special music to enhance the viewing experience. As of right now, our most popular series are our Sands of Horren Pathfinder Campaign and our Pokemon Tabletop: Utopus Region Campaign series.'

What are your plans for your Youtube channel? 

'Currently, our Pathfinder, Sands of Horren series is over, while Pokemon is still going strong. Currently we are working on creating a new Pathfinder/Dungeons and Dragons like show in the next few upcoming months. This series will have a much high production quality than the other shows on the channel without a set schedule. Currently the project is still largely secret and in the early production stages but we are confident our audience will enjoy.'

Why should we watch it?

'As of right now, there are very few approachable and understandable tabletop shows on the internet. There are a few that are quite excellent and entertaining, but there are many whose barrier to entry are still reserved for fans of TTRPs. Our shows are designed that most people can enjoy it without any need to understand the game that they are based in.' 

Why did you decide to work with me (Ninichi) on the music? 

'I remember reaching out to you, Ninichi, when we dabbled in the Indy Game Scene for a while and when we were looking to commission a cover of a song for our channel in the past. I had heard of Ninichi's work through a few indy game groups and understood she did professional quality work very quickly. We were eager to work with her and her talents. The tune is quite good, we look forward to using it and we hope to do more with her in the future!'

Thanks so much for finding me and trusting me with the intro music to your wonderful channel! It was a real pleasure working with you on this, and here's the track (see above) for everyone to check out.

(Check out my intros & jingles section if you want to hear some other jingles and/or get some help with your own)

Now, hopefully everyone is excited to learn more, so here are some links where you can find out more about The Loading Crew:

• Our YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/TheLoadingCrew
• Discord ► https://discord.gg/smDTvrv
• Twitch ► https://www.twitch.tv/theloadingcrew
• Our Twitter ► https://twitter.com/loadingcrew
• Our Website ► http://www.loadingcrewcrafts.com/
• Our Patreon ► https://www.patreon.com/TheLoadingCrew
• Alaina Prana's Tumblr: https://alainaprana.tumblr.com/

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About the author: Ninichi is a jingles composer, 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

6 Ways to Pay a Game Music Composer

By Ninichi | Contact | Follow

If you’re working on an indie game, there will come a time when you need to start thinking about the music for it. If you want to explore commissioning a composer or collaborating with one on your project, then it’s useful to understand what your options are when it comes to paying them.

I’m a game music composer and have worked on a variety of indie games (see my credits). I’ve enjoyed each and every project and love working with the indie developers and indie studios that I’ve connected up with. Whenever I speak to a new potential client– the same question arises around how much I charge and how to pay for the music.

So, hopefully this article will help you give you some ideas of what the options are and how, from my own experience and understanding, game music composers get paid…

To summarise the main options – you can pay a game music composer:

• per hour

• per minute

• per track

• per project

• royalties / revenue share

Or some combination of the above.

1. Paying for time

Some composers have a price per hour. In some ways this is fair in that they are effectively billing you for the time they spend working on your music, however, different composers work at different speeds – as well as offering music of varying quality.  Therefore, if you decide to work with someone based on their ‘per hour’ fee, make sure that you have some kind of understanding of how long they tend to spend on a piece of music – otherwise you could be receiving a much larger bill than you expect.

Composing music has various complexities to it and different composers will use different methods / processes / tools and techniques.  You could be getting a bargain if their price per hour is low and they’re quick, but you’ll have to make a call on that.

2. Paying per minute

This is very common as an option and is often what tends to work well for game projects. This is usually because most music tracks in a game will be a minute, a minute and a half or two/three minutes long – on average. Some are longer – for example title tracks, or music in story-based games where the player might be stuck in an area or on a particular level for quite a long length of time and so a 4-5 minute track, could be an option but generally from my experience, most tracks have been between 1-3 minutes long, and by working based on this per minute rate, it seems quite fair for everyone.

The composer can judge or estimate roughly how long they would need to spend to create a minute worth of music – and they will base their price per minute on that, and you can decide how long you want your tracks to be based on your budget as well as what fits the game.

Feel free to browse through some of my game music tracks to see what they sound like, what their average length is and just to get some ideas!

3. Paying per track

This is best to do when you need quite long tracks otherwise working with a per minute rate could get quite costly for you. Having said that longer tracks do take more time and so when offering you a price, the composer is likely to take this into account. 

If your game soundtrack requires many different tracks, then the composer is more likely to be happy to work with a per track rate. They will know that the project as a whole has multiple tracks that they can get their teeth into and you may find it easier to manage your budget and payments if you’re paying the same amount for each piece of work.

4. Agreeing a price for the whole project

If you have a large project and a large budget then this is a great method to use. You can agree upfront how much you want to spend on the music elements for your game (or project) and you can hire your composer there and then, to do all of it.  That way everything is agreed and you’re sorted. You can have the peace of mind that you’ve hired a professional to deliver the game music and that you’ve agreed the pricing – so the budget for that is all sorted.

5. Royalties & 6. Revenue Share

Many indie game developers decide to build their teams and to work on this basis. If I’m honest, I’ve been invited on several occasions to work with this type of deal, but I have mostly turned them down.

Although some of these projects look really interesting, unfortunately – the reality of it is that working based on a payment model, which has no guarantees is just not appealing, especially when I have other paid projects to get on with. Also, I have a greater belief in the success and potential of a game or project when the person I’m working with (i.e. the indie developer / indie games studio or filmmaker), is willing to invest in it. To me that shows that they really believe in what they are developing and that they’re willing and keen to do what it takes to make it the best that it can be.

So there you have it! There are lots of options and opportunities for you to explore in terms of how you can work with a composer. It’s definitely worth asking them how they usually work, what they prefer and telling them what your own preferences are.  By having that conversation you will also probably get a sense of what they’re like to work with and that should help you to decide if they’re someone you actually want to work with at all – or not!

If you want to explore working with me on your game or any other project, please contact me now and we can get talking! 

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About the author: Ninichi is a freelance composer and music enthusiast. She has composed the soundtracks and music to several indie games. Contact her: to explore working with her on your game, film or media project.

Check out examples of Ninichi's game music compositions and soundtracks & read more articles like this on the Ninichi music blog. 

Follow her @ninichimusic