The Game Composer’s Blog

Game music, a matter of life and death.

AIAS awards soundtrack category… wha??

Yesterday I learned that the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences unveiled their finalist lists for their 12th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards. One category stood out to me as being very silly:

aias_logo

Outstanding Achievement in Soundtrack

Guitar Hero World Tour – Activision – Neversoft Entertainment
LittleBigPlanet – Sony Computer Entertainment America – Media Molecule
Motorstorm Pacific Rift – Sony Computer Entertainment America – Evolution Studios
Rock Band 2 – MTV Games – Harmonix Music Systems, Inc.
Singstar PS3 Vol. 1 – Sony Computer Entertainment America – SCE London Studio

So what particular skill went into assembling these track lists? As far as I know, these soundtracks are just playlists of the producers’ favorite tunes or, more likely, tunes that they thought would help their games get more sales. Seems like nothing more than either personal preference or marketing decisions, probably the latter. How do you give an award for a playlist? Seems like nonsense to me.

Or even worse, this could just be considered to be an award for who can cough up the most dough to give to the record companies to license their tunes.

That said, I am torn on who I hope wins between two of the choices. I would love to see Little Big Planet win because their list seems more varied and includes a track from Prokofiev’s soundtrack to Alexander Nevsky. But Rock Band 2 has Weezer, the greatest band in the world (or something like that).

January 30, 2009 Posted by | News, Ponderings | , | Leave a Comment

Some sounds to avoid in your game…

How many times have you been driving down the road while listening to the radio and then heard a police siren suddenly come out of nowhere or a car start honking its horn at you? But then you realize it wasn’t coming from a real police car or angry fellow motorist, but rather from your own car speakers. Isn’t that aggravating? And it’s equally as aggravating to be instantly yanked out of a video game by similar types of real-world sounds coming from your game.

Of course, you can use any sound you want in a game but they have to be expected and unique. Most of the transgressions mentioned in this post involve sounds that are supposed to be ambient. If your game takes place in an office, then there will be phone rings and computer bleeps and bloops. These sounds are expected. But instead of using the most realistic phone ring sound you can find, you should craft a recognizable – but unique – phone ring sound. That way, the player will never be jerked out of the game and wonder who’s calling in real life. Similarly, don’t use computer sounds in your game that sound even vaguely close to Windows or Mac sounds. If a Windows “email received” or error sound is heard, the player will be tempted to alt-tab right out of your game.

You have to be very careful with traffic and neighborhood sounds as well. It’s not as disruptive an issue as the sounds coming from your car stereo but since everyone lives in some sort of neighborhood with its own real sounds, the ambient game sounds can possibly take a player out of your game. If your game takes place out in the country and you decide to have chainsaw or lawn mower sounds going on in the background, you run the risk of taking your player out of the game as they go to the window and prepare to curse at their neighbor who they think is mowing their lawn at 2:30am. If you do have these loud, disruptive types of sounds in your game at least make them unrealistic enough to not confuse your players.

We should always be striving to further immerse players into our games. Usually that means creating realistic and compelling sounds. But sometimes, especially with sounds that are common in our day to day lives, a little less realism is what’s called for.

January 30, 2009 Posted by | Sound Design Advice | 2 Comments

Daily burnout.

I’ve been experiencing something fairly frequently this month which I thought would be an interesting topic for me to write about on the blog (poor, neglected blog!). 2009 is off to a great start for The Game Composer and I currently have three projects going on at the same time, with a fourth and fifth soon to start. I love writing music and there’s nothing I would rather do.

But.

Kind of like being granted a wish, then asking for immortal life, but then having that wish turn into a curse by being transformed into a living block of immortal stone… be careful what you wish for. (Bonus points for those who know which classic Doctor Who episode this example came from.)

Actually, it’s not even close to being a “curse” and this blog is going to be full of hyperbole with just a grain of truth found within. I love every minute of my job and it would take a nervous breakdown to keep me from accepting new work. There’s always time to make music. It’s just that after creating brand new music every day, I feel like a vegetable every night. Sometimes at an orchestra rehearsal after a full day of work (I play tuba in a couple groups here in Seattle) I probably come off as the dullest person ever because I’m still decompressing from work. I don’t know how other composers out there do it, but when I’m composing, I pour every ounce of mental energy right into the music. I try to see every possibility flowing from every note. I am constantly accepting and rejecting the biggest and smallest ideas in a non-stop flood of creation. It’s quite taxing.

Luckily, the payoff for creating music is huge and it’s all worth it. Even when I’m drained at the end of the day, I feel satisfied, even when all I’ve gotten out of a session is a nugget of an idea to go with the next day. Sometimes that’s all you need. And with a good night of sleep I’m rarin’ to go the next day. It never fails.

Not sure what the point of this blog is. I guess I just wanted to share how a busy composer feels at the end of the day. I bet it’s not that different from anyone else who pours themselves into their work. I wonder how many other vegetables there are at the end of a long day out there. Maybe that’s why Americans watch an average of 32 hours of TV a day.

Or maybe this is all a roundabout way of explaining why this blog hasn’t been updated lately. I’ll see if I can change that…

Anyway, here are some tips I’ve found to help stave off that daily burnout, in no particular order:

  • Don’t listen to music in the car. Music is sometimes there only as background noise. Driving is a perfect time to give yourself a break from music, all music. I’ve been listening to Podcasts and loving it (TWiT and Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe, whoo!). Maybe start listening to books.
  • Take breaks during the day and give yourself at least one day completely off a week. It’s easy to try to do too much. That usually ends up being counter-productive. It’s amazing how much more quickly good ideas come to well-rested brains. This does mean, of course, that you must also give yourself a good night’s sleep every night.
  • Get some exercise. Yes, it will make you more tired in the short-term but in the long-term, your body is going to have a higher capacity for storing energy, creative and otherwise. And don’t ever discount the power of endorphins.
  • Just play music. Someone’s already done all the hard work of composing. Enjoy the fruits of their labor. This will remind you that music is still your friend, even if you had a slow day of composing.
  • If you have several projects going on at once, try to make sure they require different genres of music. This will keep you on your toes and happy. If you have a hard time coming up with one Baroque harpsichord piece, how re you going to do four? Oh, you trendy harpsichord game soundtracks… how I loathe thee.

Hope these tips help. Anyway, way past time for bed. Already broke one of my own rules…

January 15, 2009 Posted by | Ponderings | | 2 Comments

   

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