Burning Ambition Part 8-A: The sound of beautiful music
by at April 16, 2008 11:00 am
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One of the problems in game design that I find is, that production has a lot of surprises, and I hate surprises. Thankfully, when it has come to our music and sounds, the work has been consistently outstanding.
I count Burning Man Studios very lucky to have found some amazing talent in the fields of music and sound design. Each of the people working on the music are very professional, not only in their work and background, but in their attitudes and drive for making the music for Conquest of Heroes truly unique and original.
Music in video games has always been something that has been left towards the end of production. It is only in recent years that more attention has been given to a game’s sound and score and, while the industry has come a long way, it still has quite a ways to go. Thankfully, all of us at BMS have realized the potential of the media and have from day one been determined to make our sound effects and soundtrack truly stand out.
It wasn’t always like that though. Early in our production of Ruthless Earth, there was no clear direction. Our two main composers came from different backgrounds: one from rock/techno and the other orchestral. It seemed impossible to really get the two to connect and, as a result, many of the early sounds for Ruthless Earth never seemed to hit the mark. Of course, that can also be due to the fact that there were no clear leads or a solid theme for the game at the time. It seemed that no matter the work they put, the game by its very nature just had too much going against it for any real theme or melody to take root.
During the restructuring phase that BMS went through toward the end of 2007 and we shifted towards Conquest of Heroes, one of the main goals was to nail down the dominate theme and soul of the game’s sound early. Thankfully, as I had always done for my books in the past, I had already mixed together my own micro soundtrack for CoH. Since about 85% of my music collection is movie soundtracks, I knew what theme and music styles were needed for the game. Thankfully, our two composers perfectly matched that style.
Working together with a firm grip of the music’s direction, they were able to merge their styles together. Although each would create individual tracks for a promotional demo that we have planned, they would will mix and add their own elements into the other’s pieces. The results have been better than anyone involved with BMS expected.
Developing music for a MMO is certainly more challenging than for a single-player game. While Conquest of Heroes will have many of your basic roaming, ambiance and adaptive music, our goal is to insure that the player is completely submerged into the overall score and theme of the game. We hope they might, at points, just sit back in their chair, turn up the volume and listen to the background music. To say that we want the music to be epic would be an understatement.
I think it is important for any independent game developer to take in account: Much like programmers, a good sound designer is worth their weight in gold. Don’t let music be something that is left for the end of production. Think ahead of time of what you want, how you want it, and how to implement it into production from day one.
It also should be noted, that it is more then likely that your composers will speak another language, and I don’t mean a language based on the country they may come from. While a lot of people might know what they like or don’t like in music, very few of us know half of the effort and work that goes into the creation of an original piece. This means that your composers, especially if they are really professional, will talk about music elements and sounds that you might not understand.
It is very important that your composers are brought into the production stages of the game. Let them get to know the game and its story as well as any team member or designer. Hear what they have to say about how elements should go into your game and – I can’t stress this enough – make sure you write everything down that is related to your goals and demands when it comes to putting together each piece of music.
In the end, you can have a great game that has terrible music, but it is so much more rewarding to play something that has amazing sound and music. Your audience certainly won’t complain, either.
Read all 10 weeks of “Burning Ambition: How to make your mark on the videogame industry:”
Site [Burning Man Studios]
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