Composing the Themes
Forest Area
*It is reccommended that the FMOD project is downloaded from the "Project Download and User Guide" page as FMOD does not have an inbuilt bounce function. Therefore the capture software may have slightly downgraded the audio quality for the below examples*
When composing for the forest area, the safe hub of the game, I wanted to balance a sense of liveliness evocative of the many living beings that inhabit forests with a soothing, tranquil aura that would make the player feel at ease. Naturally, this balance is verging on oxymoronic, but I believe I composed for it well, achieving it using a combination of exciting, percussive textures, warmer instruments such as woodwind and piano, and largely uplifting and diatonic harmony. For example, the opening A section features a bouncy spiccato double bass line paired with a flute melody and tremolo string swells, sounds that I found to have a birdsong-esque quality that more timbrally evoked a woodland setting, over a C#m-F# vamp. Harmonically, I found the switch between Aeolian and Dorian modes perfect as the unexpected addition of the major sixth added a sense of brightness and lift to the piece, especially in the B section where the Amaj7-F#7/A# syncopated progression displays this chromatic shift more vividly (at 0:36 in the above audio). I also aimed for this section to have a slightly hypnotic quality with the rhythmic regularity in the main melodic motif and the use of occasional 7/8 bars to add a free-flowing feel representative of wildlife’s freedom in the forest. On a more practical note and as with all of the pieces, I ensured the loop point was seamless by making both sides of the loop region start and end at the same point in the background ambience to avoid audio pops.
As this section acts as a safe place for the player with no real objective, adapting to progression would be pointless, so I instead decided to adapt to the the amount of rainfall in four intervals. The first three of these were done using vertical re-orchestration, largely by reducing both the instrumental density and treble content in certain instruments using plugin automation. While this does have an aesthetic purpose, adding a calmer quality, this was mainly done for two more practical purposes. Firstly, this would allow for the rain sound effects added by the sound designers to be much more audible and, secondly, reducing the piece down to a more piano based arrangement will make the subsequent transition to a solo piano variation more fluid. The process of creating this transition will be detailed in the “FMOD Logistics and Testing” section later.
In addition to this, I also wanted to make the forest theme adapt based on the player’s proximity to the other three areas, mirroring the shift in visuals and making the transition between the pieces smoother due to timbral similarity. I achieved this by having a separate proximity parameter for each area, on a value of one to four with four being a signal to transition to the new area. Compositionally, these largely involved adding textural elements, such as the ominous drones from the tomb, or melodic fragments, such as the panpipe motif in the A section borrowed from the ice area, to the forest theme.
Forest Theme Adaptation Example Video
Fire Area
The research I completed regarding “Freezeflame Galaxy” was especially useful when conceptualising this score, giving me a baseline for how fire is typically evoked musically. However, I didn’t just want to use typical sounds of Eastern tonality and instrumentation, so I also decided to take inspiration from the ferocity and drama of classical harmony and orchestration in the B section to add musical variety and represent both facets of the element. This involved using less contemporary instruments such as the harpsichord, writing a six-part string section over quasi-Romantic harmony, and utilising relevant compositional techniques such as secondary dominants, as seen when a C#m7/E-C#7/F-F#madd9 progression is used to molduate keys (at 0:45 in the above audio). The A and C sections feature the use of more traditional Eastern instrumentation, such as the Erhu violin and Gamelan Gongs, as well as modes such as Phrygian, with the flattened second degree being very evident in the unison string motif in the C section (at 1:07). Complex percussion patterns were also used throughout these sections to add a sense of pace and danger, a trait I find intrinsic to fire areas due to environmental hazards, as well as to timbrally and culturally evoke the sound of pickaxes and mining; an evocation important to foreshadowing this area’s adaptive qualities.
This area’s musical adaptation is based on the player’s depth within the caves located in the area, with a value of one representing the surface and four representing the lowest possible depth. At depth two, high frequencies are filtered off most non-percussion instruments to realistically emulate the frequency drop-off due to the cave walls, adding to immersion. Depth three completely removes most non-percussive elements from the surface music and replaces them with a low choir evocative of mining workers humming, along with an overall increase in reverb to create a sense of ambient space. The final depth adds even more of this reverb to most elements, fades in an ambient wind sound and pitch-shifts the choir down an octave, adding an ominous, unnatural quality, as if the player isn’t meant to be this deep in the cave.
Fire B Section Adaptation
fireDepth=1
fireDepth=2
fireDepth=3
fireDepth=4
Ice Area
Once again, the “Freezeflame Galaxy” music was of assistance in composing the music for the ice area, especially in how it used chime-like textures to sonically represent the crystalline ice, as well as instruments associated with cold climates due to their origins, such as the panpipes’ cultural links to the Andes mountains. These soundscapes, as well as reverb-soaked high piano and synth pads, formed the basis for this composition but, much more than the other pieces, I wanted this score to have a dramatic build as the player ascended a mountain in the area, shifting from synthetic and glacial to organic and symphonic. This was largely done by gradually adding orchestral elements like the dotted spiccato double bass part at height three and the choir at height five in the B section.
Additionally, a way I increased the drama of later heights was by evolving the harmony, especially in the B section. At the lowest height, the section is largely stagnant harmonically, with only a low synth drone and a reverb-heavy, modulated glockenspiel giving small hints as to the later chord changes. By starting the section at this level of musical sparsity, I was able to organically build the harmony and relieve the harmonic tension over time, with heights two and three adding some quiet strings, and heights four and five fully filling out the chord changes with an expansive orchestral arrangement and several counter-melodies based on the initial glockenspiel motif.
Ice B Section Adaptation
iceHeight=1
iceHeight=3
iceHeight=5
Tomb Area
Unlike the other areas, I envisioned the tomb area music to be mainly based on atonal ambience rather than traditional harmony, and for what harmony there was to be very dissonant. For many of the textural elements in this piece I used Cecelia5, a granular synthesis program that allows for the input of audio files. Throughout the composition process, I recorded many sounds, such as creaking metal and heavy breathing, and inputted them into the program. The final soundscape is a mosaic of these granulated sounds, which I individually processed to fit in with each other. I was inspired to take this approach by an analysis on the sound design of “Dead Space”, where the music and ambient sound are so homogenous that it makes it difficult for the player to distinguish what is diegetic and what is non-diegetic, adding to the unease.
I was also inspired by my research into “Skyview Temple” and how it was able to create a musical narrative through adaptation. Therefore, I attempted to create a different atmosphere on each of the four floors, all with the goal of facilitating a transition from an ominous burial ground to the remains of an ancient civilisation. Floor one is almost entirely textural, only including dissonant bass drones and a low-volume plucked santoor, with the second floor being the first to introduce major harmonic content in the B section. My goal with this section was to slowly contextualise the apparently dissonant notes of this section to gradually reveal the complex, jazz-influenced chords underneath, representative of an advanced yet lost society. However, I decided I wanted one floor to have a distinctly different tone from the others, and as such I designed the third floor’s score around a partial flood. Most of the initial textures were removed and replaced with watery, undulating pads with little treble content, evocative of being underwater, and some additional elements from the ice theme were borrowed, such as the glacial glockenspiel. Floor four completes the narrative of the area, adding a horn and wind group to the B and C sections to add a slight jazz-influence over the complex, chromatic chords.
Tomb B Section Adaptation
tombFloor=1
tombFloor=2
tombFloor=3
tombFloor=4