#devil town fic

Devil Town Theme Concept

this was the very first track i wrote for the project, but i ended up not liking it very much and wanted to rewrite it, which is why i have it labeled as a concept. i threw this together in about 2-3 hours one night when i found out there was a concept for a devil town game. i desperately wanted to work on it with the group, but i'd convinced myself i had to prove i had something to offer. and so, the theme was born!

the first idea i had was a motif for quackity. quackity's arc revolves around the notion that he is cursed to never leave his hometown. he tries time and time again to escape, but is always pulled back to where it all began no matter what he does.

you can hear this in the melody that the guitar plays at the very beginning.

the first note of the melody starts on the root note, or "home" note, of the chord (g minor). then, it raises to the minor third (b flat), only to immediately fall back down to g. the melody continues to rise little by little, but always returns to the home note.

the bass also follows this pattern, never being able to fully deviate from the root note.

another subtle way i tried to convey this theme was by writing the track in 6/8 time. this allowed me to write the melody in a dotted eighth note + sixteenth rhythm. it gives the sense that quackity is trying to leave for as long as he can, trying to hold on to whatever new location he traveled to each time the melody rises and gets a little further from the home note.

the second melody we hear is the motif that represents time is a circle. much like quackity's curse of returning home, time is doomed to repeat itself over and over. i planned to use this motif a lot throughout the game's soundtrack, as it's one of the central themes of the story. ultimately, i ended up going with a different melody, but here's the one you hear in this track!

Tension/ Searching for Karl

this one is my darling beloved. i adore it so so so so much.

i originally wrote this track with the purpose of having it play whenever a particularly tense moment came up in-game, but after playing around with it more i decided it would fit best in the scene where the group is searching for karl in the woods.

there's a ton of stuff to dissect in this one because i love it when music reflects the story and i cannot control myself

first off, the pulsing eighth-note rhythm you hear in the bass was intended to be what you hear whenever shit was about to go down. it's a very simple musical idea that can be played around with in a ton of different ways!

my plan was to introduce it in its own song, which would be a "mood" track that plays during tense moments, in order to make the player associate that musical idea with a feeling of apprehension/ anxiety.

then, i would incorporate it into "situational" tracks (which would be a song meant to play only during a specific scene) like this one. because the player has already connected that theme with stressful scenes, they're likely to feel anxious before the dialogue even starts.

in the fic, the woods are viewed by all the characters negatively. they all see it as being not quite right; there's something wrong with it, but they can't figure out what. i really wanted the soundtrack to reflect this as well, so i originally planned for the woods to be the only location in which a synth was the main focus of the track. (of course i was using a free music notation software so all of the instruments were synthesized, but whatever, shut up) this also extends to anything associated with the woods, including the voices/ the egg, the mines, badboyhalo, etc.

speaking of the woods, this here was intended to be its theme! (yes, i really tried to give a theme to pretty much every element of the story including the locations. i know.)

(also, the notation is a beat off from the recording because the synth was wonky)

and now for my absolute favorite part of the track, the motif for the voices!

gonna be real, i Do Not know what this chord is called! pretty sure i just slapped a couple of notes together and moved one of the notes around in half steps until i got something that sounded creepy and vaguely dissonant. but i ended up really liking it and it's become my favorite thing about this soundtrack!

by having the synth fade in and out quietly in the background, it simulates the voices calling for techno, occasionally getting louder in his head before backing down once more.

the synth used for this chord was supposed to sound like human whistling, which i thought is perfect for having it symbolize the voices! it sounds vaguely human and obviously not at the same time.

near the end, the guitar finishes its melody on a simple octave + fifth chord, but it has an augmented fourth on the bottom.

the fifth (a) and the augmented fourth (g sharp) are a half-step away from each other, which creates this really nasty sounding dissonance and makes it sound like the musician made a mistake while playing.

this was done so the player still feels as if something is off about the location/ scene, and they haven't reached a satisfying resolution quite yet

The Mines

i'm going a bit out of order and talking about the track for the mines before i get to my favorite one!

as you can tell, this was the location track for the mines, which would have played near the very end of the entire game. my goal with this one was to create an atmosphere that really fit the spookiness of the mines and the situation that put the characters there.

the track opens with the same chord that "Searching for Karl" ended with (to give it an instant unsettling vibe), followed by a super super low note. this low note was really just meant to reflect the fact that the characters are deep underground. (fun fact, the instrument that plays the note is a sitar that i pitched wayyyyyy down)

immediately afterward, we get this unusual bouncy rhthym in the bass marimba (which i also pitched way down for the purposes of the track):

this rhythm and instrument was meant to simulate the sound of wooden support beams creaking under the weight of the earth (remember this, it will be important later)

afterwards, we get a couple of callbacks to earlier themes, like the chord + synth i used for the voices, as well as that tension motif i talked about in the last track.

then, the voices motif comes back again, this time with the top two notes of the chord descending in half-steps. this reflects the fact that the characters are descending deeper into the mines, and also that the voices are pulling techno further and further.

we then hear this melody play on top of the tension motif and the sound of the wood creaking:

remember how i said i ended up using a different melody to represent the idea of time is a circle? that's this.

along with the ascending and descending melody, it also crescendos and decrescendos similarly to the voices, giving it the sense of an endless loop.

on top of this melody is a high-pitched percussion instrument that hits on the third beat of every measure. (according to my soundfiles it is something called an "agogo".) this was meant to simulate the sound of pickaxes striking the stone as miners extracted coal.

the rest of the track isn't anything special, just some more generally spooky vibes and repeating a few ideas we've already heard at the beginning.

Dream Sequence

now THIS is my absolute favorite thing i have ever written. i listen to this sometimes and go "damn i really did that /egotistical"

per the title, this track was meant to play whenever techno had a dream involving tommy and the voices, and it is filled to the brim with symbolism and fun little details!

let's start with the actual arrangement of the beginning.

the synth being used here is the same whistle sound i used for the voices motif! that's because these notes are the same ones as the voices, the chord is just in a different inversion/ order

the music box was used so that you could distinctly hear what notes were being played and their rhythm since there was so much reverb

the reverb, the slow fade in, and the odd chord are all meant to create a dreamy/ floating feeling that reflects the way techno felt when having these visions

“Something winds around his wrists, up his arms, pulling him down. Not roughly; it’s more of a coaxing, not commanding. They call him. They’re gentle.”

“The walls are close around him, something is ever so gently dragging him down, and his mind is far from his reach, but he can’t bring himself to care. He’s tired. It’s warm here.”

“He stays there, not asleep but at rest all the same, and time drifts lazily by. That tangible grip around his arms continues to wrap around him, coaxing him further into the darkness, and he lets it. Why would he fight it? It’s not going to hurt him. They wouldn’t hurt him. He’s not truly himself, anyway - he’s them too, or they are him, and he’s safe here.”

my favorite fun fact about this track is that the entire thing is out of tune. the majority of western music is tuned to 440Hz, but this score is set at 425Hz, which is smaller than a half-step, meaning you can't play it on a piano and have it sound exactly like it does in the recording (unless your piano is out of tune). making it microtonal really helps to drive home the idea that, while these dreams are not necessarily threatening at first, there is something inherently wrong about them.

then we have the melody:

this melody is played by a piano in a high octave, which i did purposefully so it could be clearly heard through all the reverb

the notes being played here are taken from the "time is a circle motif". this reflects the fact that techno is not the first person to hear the voices. he is part of a cycle.

after the melody repeats, we get a sudden rhythm in the bass marimba

this is the same rhythm and instrument used to represent the mines!

this is meant to hint towards the fact that tommy is in the mines, which he was trying to tell techno every time the two met in one of techno's dreams/ visions.

then we get two cluster chords while the melody takes a break. these are all of the notes for the "time is a circle" motif smashed into one chord and transposed up one whole step (to better fit with the rest of the music).

there's not too much left after that!

the music grows louder and louder, with the bass becoming more prevalent and the synths drowning out the piano. then the whole track is pulled down to a b flat bass after so long of sitting on an e.

all of this goes along with the constant imagery of the voices "pulling" techno down, and letting himself be taken as they grow louder.

and that's pretty much it! i had two other tracks that i didn't care for as much, since they were just simpler version of some that i shared here. i had a ton of fun working on these and i'm really proud of what i came out with!