The Wasteland Wailers Reporting on Music

In the previous posts on music we outlined the technical background of the adaptive music engine. We also gave a preview of one radio song, and one ambience track. This post will preview more of the background music we have made in the meantime.

Game music is made for various situations and gameplay states: Theme music, background music, incidentals / stingers, musical sound effects, etc. The effect of these sounds are multipurpose: It supports the genre of the entire title. It delivers the emotion of the scene to the player, from easygoing and happy-go-lucky to sad and depressing. It sets the expectations of the game’s complexity, and it gives the player an idea how the situation progresses.

While music is very important for atmosphere and tone, the background sounds should not claim too much of the player's attention, and it definitely must not interfere with other in-game audio. It also should be clear which sounds belong to the music, and which sounds are diegetic (originating within the scene) to not to confuse the player.

Stable 2 Background Music

It’s no secret that the Stable 2 will be the very first level of the game. You probably heard a preview of the background music in our telekinesis video. However, that was just a single environment. There is much, much more in the Stable 2 soundscape.

Outside the Stable

We already have shown our New Appleloosa trailer and we are excited about the positive feedback we have received so far. Since then, we’ve been hard at work to create more tracks for the wasteland. We have sounds for dusty trails with wild creatures shouting from the distance, as well as sounds for grim dark dungeons.

What's Next

Of course, this blog post hasn't shown everything we have so far. At this point, the Wasteland Wailers have produced more than 50 minutes of music. We’ll be back with some more contents in the future but we’re still keeping most of it unreleased before the actual game is out.

Thanks for listening!