WFA :
Music for games workshop
Examples of music I've written for games:
Goo Easy was a game about a sentient slime blob that escapes from a lab and into the jungle. Having to navigate through trees, swamps & sewers to find safety.
I wanted to portray the slightly cute design of this little slimeball on an adventure as well as the reflect the casual nature of the gameplay in the music. Using background ambience & a lot of reverb to give the track a more relaxing feel
I used a handpan as I thought it best represented exotic origin of the slime. Hanpan's originating from the Caribbean
At the end of the game you escape to find loads of slime friends waiting for you out in little haven full of blossoming trees with plenty of food.
The main melody at the start that plays over the piano is a hand pan with a bit of reverb, the aim for this track was to emphasise the tranquillity of the final area & celebrate them escaping
Planet rebirth was about a spaceship carrying prisoners between galaxies that crashed on an alien planet, you would explore & harvest resources to power your ship; using the power to awaken sleeping inmates to help you
I used the main themes of the game to guide the instrumentation.
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Synthesizers because it's set in space & they're always a great start to help give a more sci-fi sound to your song
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Battle-drum percussion for the hostility of the planet, it also helps push the idea of some sort of grand adventure
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Handpans, similar to Goo Easy, there's all sorts of exotic creatures to come across so I felt the handpan helped with that theme
Interspersed was a game set in a sci-fi world, corrupted by creatures from another realm.
For the main theme, I called it 'Valiente', which translates to 'Brave'.
I used this track to portray the vision of the world before the corruption ruined it all. Rolling hills, busy towns, etc.
I made use of battle drums in most of the tracks for the Interspersed soundtrack as, even in the cheerful songs, they help push the narrative of a grand adventure
At around 1:18 I created a section that includes some bells as I thought they gave off the impression of a busy town in a progressive society
This track drew a bit of inspiration from Sea of thieves & Pirate of the Caribbean, here are the trimmed clips:
The Liberator was written to serve as background music for the final battle at the end of the game. The idea behind the track was that every chorus represented a battle, the middle of the track. Portals start opening up again as the tension rises & then one final battle.
The battle drums in the middle section have a moment where they play in quite an unpredictable pattern, this was to parallel the unpredictability of the battle
Tremelo strings help maintain the tension during the calmer areas of the track as I wanted to maintain the feeling of a persistent threat lurking in the background
The sound effect that leads into the chorus was the sound I designed for when you destroy a portal, this helped push the story behind the song
In-game, each instrument is separate and playing from a different mushroom near the player. I wanted to give some sort of weird, but ethereal vibe to the area as you walk up a floating mushroom trail towards a wise slug king. I wanted to merge the spacey elements of the game with a bit of trippiness.
I think this track represents the journey the player takes throughout the course of the game pretty well. It starts off a little bleak and sad but ends up quite grand & cheerful.
Latch was a game where you controlled an alien that had broken into a moon base. You would sneak around to latch on to people's heads to control them and use their abilities to your advantage.
For this, I created a really dark & creepy track to represent the death & destruction this alien was creating. The video above was what the menu screen background looked like as this music played.
I used a kick with a lowpass filter over it to sound like a heartbeat
At the start of the track, I used a bass layered with some violas that were recorded through a spring. This gives it that creepy, metallic reverb. I also pitch shifted the violas so that they just start falling in pitch as they finish playing. This was because I felt it helped amplify that eerie feeling
I used a fire alarm I recorded in my old Uni flat, slowed it down a little & layered it in the background to add more context of some sort of disaster.
I recorded myself deeply humming the bassline of the track to help add a more ominous sound to the track
More battle drums! To push the hostile context of the alien
At the end of the track, I made the kick go offbeat & used a lowpass filter at the end of the song to muffle the heartbeat until you can't hear it anymore to symbolise getting killed by the alien
I wrote some music that would play diagetically, within the game world via a radio object. For this, I made up a few band names, 'The Bungaleers' & 'The Foutons', that each play their own genre of music.
I then created some tracks that would be playable by a 4-person band as well as purposefully adding imperfections into the music. One being, that I added a room reverb to pretty much every instrument on the track to represent a non-idea recording environment by a less-professional band just making do with what they've got. Better yet, it was a convolution reverb I'd created myself of my parent's bathroom. Convolution reverbs are super easy to create and really useful if you want to capture the reverb of a real-world space and use it in your music.
There's a subtle pitch warble & distortion to the sound as I'd processed the instruments to sound like they'd been recorded onto tape using a tape emulation plugin.
I didn't write much for Codeslicer as I'd just joned Dovetail so didn't really have the time anymore. I did have time to write a short intro track for the splashscreen.
I wanted to create a super nostalgic sounding intro. It's fully synthesized as it helps reinforce the retro-futuristic theme of the game. I processed the sound using various tape emulators to create that warm, vintage sound you get from recording sound onto tape.
S&Box is a game being developed by Facepunch studios as a spiritual successor to their game 'Garry's mod'. I wrote this track to match a video they posted of some floating boxes, matching the peaceful nature of the video as the boxes bounce and float around the screen.
The percussion is made entirely out of tools like wrenches & scalpel blades that I found in my parents' toolbox
I tried to convey a sense of nostalgia with this track, as Garry's mod was the 2nd game I ever bought, the first being Minecraft.
The idea for the game was never really fully formed in terms of the environement, so I wrote this track, imagining something vast & full of greenery. It almost starts off a little sad, but I was able to change the mood of the song completely by just raising the bassline up by a few notes
The piano isn't real, however I wanted to create a track that sounded as real as possible. To do this, I recorded myself playing the track on my MIDI keyboard as to capture the sutble timing & velocity changes between notes that you get from playing it live.
The entire piano part was free-styled, which I think added a great flow to the track. it's probably one of my favourite classical pieces I've written. I also have a MIDI foot pedal for my piano, so was able to record my foot pedal movements into the DAW as automation data. The piano vst I like to use also comes with foot pedel sounds that play in relation to the midi foot pedal movements, which adds as a pretty cool detail.
I then automated the tempo of the track throughout to add a nicer, more emotive flow to the track. Similar to how an actual pianist might pace themselves when playing something like this
I wanted to capture a lot of tension in this track, which is helped by the fast pace pizzicato bass
On the routes in Train Sim World, there tend to be concerts, clubs, etc somewhere on the route. We didn't really have anything to add to these except for some terrible royalty free music. So I decided I'd write some music to use for concert & club music
The score itself, was written by Ben Symons; at the time, our community manager, but now our creative brand strategist. I made a first draft, which was an EDM version of the Train Sim World theme he'd written, and sent it to him on Microsoft teams, Ben loved it and wanted me to create the full version and sent me the original score. I then ended up starting from scratch using the original score and turned it into a drum & bass track.
I think the track works really well with the game as it makes me think of the weight and power of the trains we feature.
I also incorporated some sounds from the game into the track, like using a CSX train horn to transition into the final chorus or using a level crossing bell to keep rhythm
I used a lot of old instruments for this track as it's supposedly set around 850 AD. Although Catan can become a little competitive as you fight over resources to build roads & settlements, I feel like the game gives of quite a chilled vibe, just as that little island floating out in the ocean. I tried to reflect that in the track.