Alternatives to game music
by Joe Bourrie · in General Discussion · 08/15/2005 (1:55 pm) · 3 replies
I am currently finishing up my puzzle game Lemmon's Workbench, and I am considering various ideas for the sound of the game. I do not have a music composer, so I am thinking of various alternatives for the ambience.
The game takes place on a workbench where a character ("Lemmon") is building various electronic gadgets. It is seen from a top down view (through Lemmon's eyes), and my current thought is to have the sound be entirely the sounds of him shuffling things around, humming and whistling to himself, and periodically mumbling about what he's thinking. There would be no synthetic music, just the sounds of his workbench and his own "mouth music".
I'm looking for feedback on what people think of this idea. Would it be too distracting, or annoying to people? I think it would add heavy ambience to the game, but I want to make sure it isn't irritating the players.
Thank you for any feedback that you may have.
Joe
The game takes place on a workbench where a character ("Lemmon") is building various electronic gadgets. It is seen from a top down view (through Lemmon's eyes), and my current thought is to have the sound be entirely the sounds of him shuffling things around, humming and whistling to himself, and periodically mumbling about what he's thinking. There would be no synthetic music, just the sounds of his workbench and his own "mouth music".
I'm looking for feedback on what people think of this idea. Would it be too distracting, or annoying to people? I think it would add heavy ambience to the game, but I want to make sure it isn't irritating the players.
Thank you for any feedback that you may have.
Joe
#2
Though having him start mumbling "Strawberry Fields Forever" could be a great little mood piece... :)
(He is supposed to be a somewhat insane mid-forties inventor whose inventions have never really worked right... people just don't appreciate the myriad of uses for the Eyebrow Massaging Headband)
08/15/2005 (2:28 pm)
I've considered lyrics from well known songs, but I don't want to break any copyright laws. Currently, I'm more thinking about campfire and folk songs (Camptown Races, 99 bottles of ... milk? and such)Though having him start mumbling "Strawberry Fields Forever" could be a great little mood piece... :)
(He is supposed to be a somewhat insane mid-forties inventor whose inventions have never really worked right... people just don't appreciate the myriad of uses for the Eyebrow Massaging Headband)
#3
This is sort of like the music for Ghost Master, which I believe was comprised of lots of little music files that could be combined, creating horror movie tension.
08/16/2005 (3:56 pm)
What a great idea. There could be lots of possibilies for this. Something that just popped into my head here... make sure the sound effects for your game are percussive and rhythmic. A shuffle sound effect could do just that... start a shuffle rhythm. If a shuffle is followed by an attachment sound effect (snap), then maybe those two sound effects could start your insane inventor off on a little "improvised" humming. You could have lots of short humming files that could be combined. But any of those humming files could start the improv session, since each humming file could correspond to a short sequence of sound effects (like only 2 or 3 in a row) that are played, based on what the player does. Use that sparingly and no too up-front and it could be really cool.This is sort of like the music for Ghost Master, which I believe was comprised of lots of little music files that could be combined, creating horror movie tension.
Torque Owner Philip Mansfield
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Not too sure where things stand with regard to copyright, by maybe he could sing one or two lines from well known songs that fit into the theme (think Weird Science by Oingo Boingo).