Developer's Journal 2:6

Hey everybody.  I'm posting this week's developer's journal a day early because I'm not sure I'll be able to tomorrow night.  Post-worked renders are at 227.

Reminder that if you want to make a suggestion for Erin's Dream scene in Part Two the deadline is Wednesday the 30th.  PM me here or post in the supporters-only channel on our Discord.

I want to talk to you for a few minutes about music.  Music can be a powerful tool for a storyteller.  I think most people don't really appreciate the value of having someone like John Williams or Hans Zimmer score a film.  It can add so much to the experience of watching the movie.  Think of Williams' haunting theme from Schindler's List, or the way Ennio Morricone almost single-handedly ratchets up the tension in the famous standoff in The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.  Without Howard Shore, the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy could have given off a totally different vibe.  And Tron: Legacy without Daft Punk?  Nope.

But I'll point out a very obvious fact--each soundtrack that enhances the movie for which it was intended could be awful when attached to another movie.  NWA for Straight Outta Compton is fantastic.  But what if you turned off the NWA songs and played the Schindler's List theme instead?  Or if you turned off the Schindler's List theme while watching that and listened to NWA in the background?  Terrible, right?

Obvious fact #2: These movies with great scores and/or soundtracks have a lot of silence in them.  Music is played during specific parts of the film for specific reasons.  And there is silence in other parts of the film for specific reasons.  We accept this fact in movies and television.  Sometimes, adding music would just totally ruin the vibe of a scene.

But we seem to have different expectations from video games.  Probably most of the games we play have music playing in the background constantly.  A little inspirational beat to keep us going while we pwn noobs (did I do that right?) in Call of Duty 78, or some frolicking fun ambience while we go about our day-to-day activities in the latest slice of life adult visual novel.  (One reason video games are different from tv and movies is because a game developer can't time the score precisely because players progress at different speeds.  That's a tangent, though.)

This expectation can lead some adult game devs to throw music on top of their game as an afterthought because they feel like there has to be something playing.  In turn, that leads players to either switch off the game's music and listen to their own in the background, or to just put up with the sucky music because they are trying to experience the game the way the dev intended.  On the other hand, there are some devs who do have music playing throughout their games and it really enhances the experience.  DrPinkCake and Drifty are two great examples of this.

Alright, why the hell am I talking about this?

In LDNA Part One I included 16 music tracks.  Each was triggered to play at particular moments where they would be impactful to the story.  Emotional piano music for a conversation about MC's mom.  Lighthearted and energetic rock for the first part of the bar scene, comedic piano music for Armin's goofy story, and then...SILENCE during the incest conversation.  I make no claims to having any kind of experience in music that make me any more competent than the average joe in selecting this music, but I do think the music in Part One was fairly effective.

Nevertheless, I have had several people comment about LDNA that they feel there should always be music playing or at least be more music playing and that I have too many silent parts.  I am, of course, always open to suggestions on how I can improve the game.  But I reject the suggestion to always have music playing in LDNA.  That is because the presentation of LDNA is closer to a movie or tv show than it is a video game in that its focus is on telling an emotional story.  Throwing in music just for the sake of having music can ruin whatever vibe I'm going for in a particular moment.

For example, let's take the scene where Aghavni and MC go to interview Cobra.  First there's an argument over who drives, then there is (potentially) an awkwardly silent car ride with your ex-girlfriend, then an interview with a murder witness/suspect, and then a return to the police station with some follow-up conversation.  So what kind of music belongs there?  Is it suspenseful?  It's not meant to be.  Is it a laid back good time among two old friends?  No, they are going to interview a murder witness/suspect and they are arguing.  Is there some police investigation music that's appropriate for the entire sequence?  That just sounds cheesy.  In my opinion, silence is the best option for that scene.

In fact, I believe that silence will usually be the best option in LDNA.  If music is playing it's because there is a scene for which I believe that music will help shape the emotion I want the player to experience for that scene.  Ultimately, if a player decides to play Led Zeppelin in the background while they are playing LDNA, cool, but they need to understand they are not going to have experience I intended them to have.

FYI I do spend a lot of time listening to different tracks trying to find stuff that's perfect for the game.  Even before I published the demo I already had a dozen songs selected for specific scenes that go all the way to Part Eight.  But those haven't always worked out.  For Jamie's introductory scene, I intended one that I ended up not liking after the scene was rendered, so I tried about eight different tracks there before I decided silence was the best approach.  (By the way, I'm never going to publicly announce where any of the songs come from because I'm worried about anti-porn fanatics trying to get my licenses revoked.)

Alright, damn this is another long post.  Probably nobody actually read this far anyway, but I promise these will get shorter when I eventually run out of stuff to talk about.

Thank you for your support!

--Monk