I have a confession. I really, really, really like RPG town music. Seriously. Town/Village music tops my list for all music in any RPG. Perhaps it is because of the longer themes and many melodies since the music will last longer while the player is walking around town and having conversations with other characters.
If I were to name this piece, it would be Conversations. Once you hear the piece, you’ll understand. Character conversations and interactions have always been a strong point in Arvale and I know I personally still spend up to 45 minutes hanging out in the towns just to talk to every NPC and see what they say (yes, even though I wrote it, I have a short memory 😉 ).
This piece centers around that feeling. With the pizzicato strings having the backdrop for a Clarinet starting up a conversation, to which a Flute replies (giving many different responses). This is a bit of a longer preview, as I wanted to show by the middle of the piece, a low-end Piano chimes in to add to the conversation (okay, it’s a Dwarf from Melonchi Mines, anyone who remembers that theme will love this). Throughout this music you get a sense of walking around a peaceful village and hearing the various chatter of the townsfolk.
I just finished the new Arvale Boss theme and I love Boss music. The tense, upbeat, scared-to-death, but still rockin’ out feeling you get when fighting a boss leads to some kick ass music which can span (and bend) all genres. Or perhaps because I just have a certain fondness for church organs and diminished 7th chords, but that is another story 🙂
Anyway, I’m quite proud of this Boss music. I’ll make a stupid pun and say this Boss music is boss. (From ye olde Wikipaedia, ‘A Scouse expression meaning cool or great, as in “That film was boss”‘).
The new Arvale game is well underway and now has its main battle music finished.
Along with the Overworld music, the Battle music is one the most important themes in the game (as it will be heard many, many, many, many times). As with Arvale 1’s battle theme, this music gives a big nod to 植松さんの (Uematsu)’s work in the earlier Final Fantasy’s (and touches of 光田さん from Chrono Trigger). That is, a brash, fanfarish trumpet melody, tense strings, complex bass guitar, and a solid rock beat. I can easily imagine Duncan slashing monsters (or killing garden weeds) to this. What can you imagine?
I’m still working away on the battle music, but I received a wonderful gift in my inbox this morning: some early character art for the new Arvale game. I personally think it’s fantastic and the artist really captures the mood of the Arvale characters perfectly.
That picture above is how Duncan looks in the new game. Duncan is a bit older (so he shaved his beard to try and compensate), a bit wiser, and wears clothes more suitable to gardening and adventuring. What do you think? 🙂
It took quite a bit longer than anticipated, but I finished up the Overworld music for the new Arvale. This is the music that is played when you exit a Town or Dungeon map and you’re wondering around on the actual continents. I can only imagine it was named Overworld because it is when the game is showing the overall picture of the world you’re on. Either that, or it is the opposite of the Underworld (which is where most dungeons used to be located in RPG games of yore).
I wanted to have a theme similar to Arvale 1’s overworld: overly bombastic and adventurous. But I also wanted to add the quirky, playful humor of Duncan’s character into the mix. I think the music accomplishes that pretty darn well. What do you think?
Finished up the two Dungeon songs and started on the Overworld music, as I said yesterday.
I love how eclectic the Arvale games are, which allows me to write music/dialogue/story which can span multiple genres and still suit the game perfectly. With the two Dungeon themes already, we have music ranging from moody, creepy, orchestral piece to a Jazz combo piece which goes from atonal to blues to… a solo violin? Don’t ask me, I just wrote it. 🙂
Something weird happened to my arm (I really hope it’s a bruise) and I decided to take a short rest last night. But still on schedule for today. Today is finish up the Overworld and get the Battle music written.
I have a doc appointment on Monday. Here’s hoping for a bruise 🙂
Yesterday, I started development on the new Arvale game. The name is still undecided. I’m thinking of something like Arvale: un/Limited, but I’m open to suggestions 🙂
The first thing I decided to tackle (because I can) is the music, yesterday I finished the first Dungeon music and I’ll post that when I have time. Today I should be able to get two more tunes finished (second Dungeon and Overworld music).
If you’re following me on twitter, you may have also noticed I have already hired two contract artists for the game, finished the story outline, and mapped out the music for the game. So things are already off to a good start. 🙂
I wanted to make the feel of the game similar to Arvale 1, so I made sure to go drinking the night before and have a massive hangover the first day of development to get the creative juices flowing. I think I accomplished that with flying colors.
And if you want to see how happy I am about beginning this new project, here is a video of me displaying my excitement for the new Arvale:
I promised on twitter that I’d post this. I’m pretty excited about the new UI in addition to the other new things that have been added to Arvale: Short Tales for iPhone.
I think it looks great! The game is really shaping up to be my favorite Arvale (along with all my other favorite Arvales) 😀
What do you think? Feel free to post any comments or questions.
Just Another Mobile Monday just released the second half of their interview with me today. You can check it out: here. The First Part was: here.
This time I discuss a bit about my music background and upcoming games from PDAmill Game Studios.
Apparently, the answers that I gave to their interview questions were so thorough that they’ve decided to break it up further into a Part 3 as well. So I assume, they’ll have more on me (that sounds weird) next week. Stay Tuned.
I won’t comment on the fact that they misspelled my name when they first published it (Sanguine… I’m betting a spell-check happened to Surguine). Whoops, I guess that was a comment. 😉
I’ve just finished editing all of the new dynamic music tracks (which resulted in over 70 files) for the iPhone version of Arvale: Short Tales, and I’ve been awake for 40 hours or so.
Oh, I never mentioned I was working on Arvale: Short Tales for the iPhone… so I guess I’ll post a bit of info on it’s progress.
All that’s left is, um… to implement the music into the game, again. I would go into the technical details of how much of a huge pain in the ass that will be (switching from xm files to mp3 files for dynamic music), but honestly, I don’t want to 🙂
By dynamic music, I mean music that changes -whether as a variation of the melody or similar- depending on the state of the player (similar to how iMuse system that Lucasarts used in their games). For example, when a character opens a door and enters a new area, the music will flow seamlessly into the new theme, or when the player enters a battle, the melody stays the same, but you get a steroid-injected, pulse pounding battle version of it.
I’m also modifying the story quite a bit, as we’re planning on pulling the 4 main characters apart to release them as separate games. This will hopefully result in a better player experience overall. The first character/game that will be released should be Varju, the Druid character.
