When writing music for yesgamers.com or any other game for that matter, it is imperative that it supports the sound design in game. A lot of indie game composers have a budget being followed and known to perform multitasking. If you are onboard as composer on the other hand, then establishing a good relationship with sound designer is going to help a lot.
Expect Ear Fatigue
Whether you admit it or not, you have experienced ear fatigue. You play a game and hear this catchy part of the music to start getting into your head. It somehow becomes an earworm and even made you to tap your shoes and nod your head on the beat whenever you hear it. The only thing is, this piece is only 30 seconds long and is being repeated 14x and still, you are getting used to controls.
If you wish to avoid ear fatigue, then it is highly recommended to make that single piece to hit at least 5 minutes before creating a loop.
Understand Adaptive Music
Since the early phase of adaptive engines similar to IMUSE created by Peter McConnell and Michael Land that was written for Monkey Island 2, there have been countless of video game composers who have followed this format.
This isn’t really surprising for it delivers outstanding effect for video games.
Making several dynamic layers in the music to change depending on what the player is doing in the game made it more immersive. An example of this is the following:
- Layer 1: Low intensity like percussion and drums
- Layer 2: medium intensity such as strings, woodwind and brass that supports the melody or play chords
- Layer 3: High intensity where it uses main melody on brass/strings with the choir shouting the same random shizzle
For layer 1, it will be played like a warning to players that there is an imminent danger ahead. Basically, the first 2 layers oftentimes play together and it intensifies from low to medium. Then as you get into climax, the 3rd layer kicks in and will be synchronize with the first 2 layers.
