Grid Sage Forums
Cogmind => General Discussion => Topic started by: Kyzrati on April 04, 2017, 06:51:10 PM
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It's time to consider what to do about the music situation for Cogmind! You can read my thoughts on the dev blog (http://www.gridsagegames.com/blog/2017/04/music-for-cogmind/), and reply here or leave a comment over there.
(Also more discussion has been happening on r/Cogmind (https://www.reddit.com/r/Cogmind/comments/63kjh2/music_for_cogmind/))
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Unless it would be as good as say System Shock etc I would rather not.
I like the ambient noises that different machinery generates. Sometimes it adds to the tension by an order of magnitude.
(Do scouts & mercs make noise when patrolling? Perhaps they should?)
I just got the game and have fallen head first. This is great.
Back to topic - a lot of work and there will be a wide array of preferences. I suspect more would be turning it off than utilizing it.
Little flourishes might be workable. The short 5 note riff or a sound when a particular action is triggered.
Combat - dun dun dun
Finding something special - tinkling
Running away
In each case you could write something very simple that works without having to writing or licensing complete songs.
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I've played Cogmind for so long without built-in music that I would probably find it very strange. People can already put on the music they think suits it best, or just play without music. I quite like the idea of just adding so many ambient sounds that the game never sounds empty (except perhaps when it is supposed to ^^). Every machine with its own sound, ambient sounds for all the robots too (is this asking for too much? and would it give an advantage to players with sound on?)...
Regarding the flourishes idea above, I imagine it getting old pretty fast though. I mean it works well in real-time games when you need to be alerted of certain things quickly, but in a turn-based game I think it might be out of place.
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Yeah that's the main concern, it's a turn-based game where the pacing is set by the player, and that pacing can vary greatly from player to player, and from situation to situation. Ambient is probably going to be the most appropriate approach.
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Hey, old topic, but was just thinking about the potential music and noticed it was an upcoming feature too.
Seems like you're probably going with the local ambient drone-ish approach? I think that would be a good way to go; it would round out the sound atmosphere, but not get stale with many or long play-throughs, and contribute to and keep one engaged with the game's sound based info, rather than covering it up.
Also, in that vein, had to mention these albums, which are almost eerily on point for cogmind's ambient atmosphere:
https://karlrecords.bandcamp.com/album/organism
https://karlrecords.bandcamp.com/album/organism-evolution
Artists:
https://noise.poryahatami.com/
https://arovane.bandcamp.com/
Cheers
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[...] pacing can vary greatly [...] from situation to situation.
Well, now you have the situation analysis code, which can crossfade between tracks of different intensities corresponding to the severity of the situation. :)
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Hey, old topic, but was just thinking about the potential music and noticed it was an upcoming feature too.
Seems like you're probably going with the local ambient drone-ish approach? I think that would be a good way to go; it would round out the sound atmosphere, but not get stale with many or long play-throughs, and contribute to and keep one engage with the game's sound based info, rather than covering it up.
Indeed an old thread but you're right it's coming back around to the forefront now. I've actually been doing some listening around these days, thinking of drone-like stuff.
Thanks for the recommendations, I'll give them a listen!
[...] pacing can vary greatly [...] from situation to situation.
Well, now you have the situation analysis code, which can crossfade between tracks of different intensities corresponding to the severity of the situation. :)
Heh, quite true but that's more of an approach with full-on music, I think, plus if there's a limit to how much we can have (there is :P) it'll be better to make it thematic by map/area rather than by situation (since having both is kinda out of the question--too much is required!).
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Yes. It would be cool to get more sounds of working mechanisms. And different music in the zones is also a great idea.
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I've been torn on the machines part lately, since I kinda like the fact that currently it's explosive machines (most, but technically not all) which produce sound, another form of feedback when you're around them. That and there are a few other very special machines with ambient sound, and this clearly makes them more special! Once everything has audio, they lose that indicator of their uniqueness...
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I can imagine how hearing a new soundtrack whenever you discover a new branch is going to feel awesome. Or music for W/R17 events (maybe played only once, before it fades back into ambient for the floor). There could be a separate music for high security and for having SW (maybe those can have actual music when different areas only have ambient?). What are other important events in Cogmind? SGEMP quest, boss fights. Should actually meeting NPC (like W) trigger a special soundtrack? This appraoch might work better in Zh than just triggering it when entering the level, but then again, maybe we want a different ambient at the start of this level to hint on something being different on this floor.
There's so much that could be done.
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I was going to make a post about this on the steam forums but decided to take a look at here. I think ambient will work for the type of gameplay cogmind excels in. Also, I think maybe having different themes of ambient music for each environment. For Combat, I think a Fast Tempo would work but not too fast. I have seen a game do this before where it will switch different music themes from a not in a battle situation to a battle situation. Whatever the music was in the alpha cogmind trailer. I think that works for a fast tempo battle theme.
I was thinking about putting this in the steam forum post but not sure if this will correlate with the current topic. Even tho we are all against DLC's for cogmind. Do you think it will be possible to have an OST DLC so users can buy it and listen to it directly on steam? I kinda thought that would fit just right for a cogmind DLC.
(edit 1)
I just saw the announcement of DLC's for Free Expansions. Though I guess the Cogmind OST could be free too?
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I've been torn on the machines part lately, since I kinda like the fact that currently it's explosive machines (most, but technically not all) which produce sound, another form of feedback when you're around them. That and there are a few other very special machines with ambient sound, and this clearly makes them more special! Once everything has audio, they lose that indicator of their uniqueness...
I completely agree.
At the moment I'm playing and I'm in "proximity caves"
I really like the music here. Very atmospheric. I would like to have something similar, but with unique features for each location.
And how do you feel about robovoices in the game? For example, when an alarm is triggered, we hear a sound and receive a text message. Maybe in some cases make voice announcements? In a special atmospheric robovoice :D Or when the security notices us, they might say something
Or it does not fit into the style of the game and in the world of robots, there is no need to communicate via voice?
I have not spent so much time in the game.
But the fact that the game is made of very high quality with great attention to detail. And I think that everything you decide will be good for the game.
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I can imagine how hearing a new soundtrack whenever you discover a new branch is going to feel awesome. Or music for W/R17 events (maybe played only once, before it fades back into ambient for the floor). There could be a separate music for high security and for having SW (maybe those can have actual music when different areas only have ambient?).
There's so much that could be done.
And that, Valguris, is the problem :P
Ideally we'd have a huge amount of different stuff for locations and events, but I don't see that happening because there's just so much content!
Also one of the other things I have to keep in mind is that if we were to go an "everything has unique audio" route, this is also a drag on and/or limits future expansions because each would then need to add yet more music for consistency. This would be easier if I already had a quick and easy go-to source for the perfect music, but I don't...
This is why it's sorta nice that I can reuse robot tiles to represent different/unique robots (even though ideally some of these would have their own look), but even those are about at their capacity and I've in some cases had to limit ideas because of it. Eventually we will be getting more tiles, but it doesn't happen as frequently as it probably should, and I don't really want music to end up the same way.
In that case it would seem that basically there is no event-based stuff at all, it's just mapwise ambience which itself doesn't change.
I just dug up my old notes on this, and an absolutely minimum requirement would be something like 8 different tracks, a decent variety would require about 12 tracks, and a wide variety would need at least 18 tracks! (all assuming there are no more new areas, which there will be...)
18 is quite a lot of tracks, at least assuming they'll not be super short, which we wouldn't want. They'd need to be at least 4-5 minutes each, which is over an hour of audio.
Even tho we are all against DLC's for cogmind. Do you think it will be possible to have an OST DLC so users can buy it and listen to it directly on steam? I kinda thought that would fit just right for a cogmind DLC.
Oh sure when I say no DLC I mean for Cogmind's main content itself. OST DLCs are a completely different matter, and actually not really in my hands since that depends highly on the composer. Some composers like to sell their OST separately as a source of revenue, on Steam or elsewhere. This is a matter of contracts and whatnot, and I don't even have a composer so I have no idea.
At the moment I'm playing and I'm in "proximity caves"
I really like the music here. Very atmospheric. I would like to have something similar, but with unique features for each location.
Yeah I've been liking the couple of "test" ambient tracks that are in the game so far, too. Very subtle but nice and appropriate. Almost don't want to get rid of them at all xD (just expand on that)
And how do you feel about robovoices in the game? For example, when an alarm is triggered, we hear a sound and receive a text message. Maybe in some cases make voice announcements? In a special atmospheric robovoice :D Or when the security notices us, they might say something
Or it does not fit into the style of the game and in the world of robots, there is no need to communicate via voice?
Well technically we have "voices" already, but only for special NPC dialogue, and they're not actually saying anything we can understand, just each one has a unique style of audio bleeping that represents them. I wouldn't want any English in there though, for sure. Not the right atmosphere for that. Now maybe one day if there are humans involved... ;)
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what about adding Alex Yoder as the composer for Cogmind. Recently saw his name in the Alpha Cogmind Trailer.
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Yeah I'm sure he'd be interested, too, or at least he was back in the day. Not sure what he's up to more recently in terms of work. As an experienced US composer though he's not cheap, so cost-wise is probably too prohibitive for this. I do like his work, though!
In the end the cost will also highly depend on how many unique compositions are necessary... More is cool, but then fewer probably ends up being more flexible in the long run.
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It seems like Caves of Qud might just come out of early access. Are you thinking about seeing if the music artist could work on Environmental-like music for cogmind.
here is some of his works (just realized you don't have Caves of Qud but sharing a link might help)
https://soundcloud.com/craigoryham/sets/caves-of-qud-sessions (https://soundcloud.com/craigoryham/sets/caves-of-qud-sessions)
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Yeah I've heard their stuff before, it's okay. Still not quite yet looking into this, though definitely have to before long...
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New article up on the blog covering the progress on this topic: "Building Cogmind’s Ambient Soundscape (https://www.gridsagegames.com/blog/2020/06/building-cogminds-ambient-soundscape/)"!
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New article up on the blog covering the progress on this topic: "Building Cogmind’s Ambient Soundscape (https://www.gridsagegames.com/blog/2020/06/building-cogminds-ambient-soundscape/)"!
Awesome! Looking forward to it. :D
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And I'm looking forward to getting it out there :D
The main portions of Beta 10 are more or less done, including all the audio, but I've since gotten a little sidetracked adding some significant new content that wasn't originally in the plan for this release, so it's coming out later than I'd intended...
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And I'm looking forward to getting it out there :D
The main portions of Beta 10 are more or less done, including all the audio, but I've since gotten a little sidetracked adding some significant new content that wasn't originally in the plan for this release, so it's coming out later than I'd intended...
So there will be some pleasant surprises.
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As usual, you bet ;)
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Maybe I'm late, but instead browsing hundred and hundred of samples you may synth them using any VST plugin... in that way, you may easily create variations for these sounds, it should be easy enough to learn it in few hours. If you want, attach here a sample, tell me its purpose, and I'll tell you if it's easy to synth and obtain variations.
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Well as I mentioned above in the thread, everything's already done :P
Been done for a while, just working on other non-audio stuff right now.
Either way, in terms of audio I like to source material from pros since I can get a wide variety of inspiration that way, then tweak as necessary.
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Well I'm not a pro, but someone has worked a lot with VA/FM synths :)
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Yeah it wasn't a comment on you, just mentioning that there are huge collections of things already out there and it's a much faster process to start with that rather than doing any kind of back and forth with other people (SLOW.... xD)
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Recently I watched a great film called Bushwick.
It has the kind of intense yet glitchy ambient kind of soundtrack that would be a perfect fit for Cogmind.
It is by Aesop Rock. Who knows, maybe they would pump something out low-budget?
Would really add some style.
Just a thought.
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Ah yeah I saw that, an interesting movie, though I can't say I even recall the soundtrack! (Actually that is often a complement as far as this sort of soundtrack goes--adding to the atmosphere without being too present :P)