Save the World Dev Blog 3 - Music and Characters
(publishing date should read 10th Jan)
Since the previous blog update, the project has progressed significantly.
Music and Sound
On my first meeting with Robert Logan and Daniel Rogerson, we decided upon the segments of music that we wanted, and discussed the aspects of each different section. We decided to create a piece for the main menu, a piece for above ground, a piece for below ground, and a piece for the combat encounter.
I knew that I wanted the background music to focus on reflecting the ambience of the environment, such as the temperature and space, rather than the characters’ mood. I wanted there to be an aspect of chiptune music, as a nod to the 2D characters, but with a full and ambient backing to the track that could represent the environment, such as the echo-like quality of the below ground track.
Here are some of the references that I shared with them:
Tostarena: Night by Koji Kondo, Shiho Fujii, Naoto Kubo
Bombing Mission by Nobuo Uematsu
There are five different tracks used in the demo; two separate tracks for the main menu, and then one track for the above-ground environment and one for the below-ground/cave environment, followed by Anala’s Theme. The two menu tracks were taken and altered from ‘Sky Gardens by Firehand’ - a videogame inspired music project that Rob and Dan had already done together. The two environmental tracks and Anala’s Theme were created especially for the game.
One of the most important aspects I had in mind for the music was for it to fit the visual art style of the hybrid between pixel art and 3D stylised art. This effect is captured in the music by using chiptune melodies sampled from retro 8-bit games, supported by a full-sounding electronic backing.
The intention for the level tracks was to capture the ambiences of the area they represented, and therefore they had to strike the right balance between sound-scaping and mood reflection.
For example, in the underground track, it was important to have a sort of ‘echoing drip’ sound like would be heard in a cavernous underground cave. Rather than just adding these sound effects alongside the music, we tried to incorporate this sound into the melody itself. One of the motifs features an echoing drip-like timbre, and there is also a constant, rhythmic dripping sound quietly in the background of the track
Dialogue System Code/data updates
As is so often the case, the dialogue plugin has proven to be more complicated than initially anticipated.
The blueprints included in the plugin were all made for 3D characters , so these needed to be altered to fit paper2D characters. There were also so many components to this plugin with no explanation or tutorials available, and after having spent about 7 hours experimenting and trying to get it to work to no avail, eventually I decided to just create my own dialogue system.
Although not quite as complex as the other dialogue system, my own one integrated with the components I’d already made much more smoothly. Without the ability to have custom NPC responses based on the player’s dialogue choices, I had to rely solely on a single path dialogue string array for each NPC, with the NPC dialogue suggesting at what the player character responses are. I am keen, however, to implement a player response system with a more complex response tree, once higher priority tasks have been completed.
UI/UX Implementation
To make navigating within the demo easier, I have now created and implemented multiple user interface features. The demo now contains a start menu, a ‘how to play’ screen, an ‘about’ screen, and a pause screen. During gameplay, Gustav’s Journal and Inventory can each be opened and closed by pressing ‘J’ for the Journal and ‘I’ for the inventory. I have written some journal entries in the journal, but I intend to make it so that these entries update after Gustav has had certain encounters or conversations, so that there is a journal update for each NPC he talks to. Also, the inventory is yet to update with each item collected but I also plan to implement this feature later on.
Environmental Additions/Changes
I have also altered the environment to make it more fitting to the storyline, and to help make it clearer to the player where they should and shouldn’t go in the map. The environment is now snowy and wintery, which involved editing the textures for the grass, leaves, rocks and water. I also added a snow particle effect to show snow falling from the sky, and adjusted the lighting to make the environment seem colder. Below you can see the snowy environment compared to the lush green environment in the previous entry’s screenshots.
I also added borders to the map, made out of rock meshes that I built together to construct rocky walls to stop the player from exploring too far above ground from the starting area.
View from above of the borders in the viewport
In-game view of Gustav by the border wall
Below ground, I made the place where Anala is found stand out more, as well as adding a hill with lights leading to where Artemis is waiting to talk to Gustav.
Meeting Artemis
Finding Anala