#sneakykraken

Music and sounds in video games are always evolving. Think about it, it all started back in the glorious chip tune days where we had audio processing units that could render various waveforms (I’m looking at you pulse, square, triangle and sawtooth waves) into beautiful sound synthesis that covers both music and sound effects. Then it evolved into orchestration, both MIDI and a real life orchestra. While chip tune still has its place in video games today, most of the games you see today are recorded with a real orchestra. So when it came down to Planet Walk, I knew orchestration is where I wanted to go.

I’d describe the music as somebody that is wandering through space… lonely and longing for something… that is until the drum beats come in which transforms it into something else entirely! You’ll notice that there’s three versions of the song - title screen theme without the drum kit, in-game theme with a fast drum beat, game over theme with a slower drum beat, all of these combined create the ‘vibe’ of the game. Initially it was challenging to get the right ‘vibe’ for the game… but I felt I achieved it… well, after countless hours of frustration longing for an idea for the melody and harmony! Such is the composers life! I used FL Studio as my DAW to produce the music with virtual instruments and synths and I also used Logic X for the sound effects that you hear in-game.

by Ben Shabo.

Why should you use a digital task tracking tool for game development? Because you’re worth it..... but also because tracking tasks on a scrunched up piece of paper in someone’s bag, is a little inconvenient.

How are others supposed to access the scrunched up paper of truth?

How are people supposed to know what others are working on?

How are you able to fit everything neatly onto a piece of paper?

What happens if it gets lost, trodden on, eaten, recycled, used as a tissue or baked?

When does the madness end???

Towards the meatier end of development we decided enough was enough and we setup a Trello board for task tracking. This allowed us to easily assign tasks, track the progress of those tasks, and all be on the same page about the games progress from any geographical location. There is a whole bunch of other benefits, even for solo developers, so JUST DO IT!