Underrail [PRE-RELEASE THREAD, GO TO NEW THREAD]

[Styg]

Ugh, that's so generic and uninspired and nothing like the other tracks in the game. Sure, they are pretty simple, minimalistic even, but they're also quiet, a bit drawn out and eery. Which was cool and suited the atmosphere of the game perfectly - Underrail is an extremely eery place. The best was probably that Azuridae theme (which always sounded near the Psyshrooms).

While this is... It took me a couple of sits to listen to the entire track because it's just so-o-o mindnumbingly boring. And those pseudo-piano accords near the end are especially insulting because, once again, they're just way, way too generic. Woooh, let's add an epic touch! And the rhythm is obviously faster than the other tracks (but I guess you'll just scrap them altogether) and the atmosphere is more "serious". Yuck.

I guess your average listener won't care at all, but for an ambient connoisseur that is incredibly disappointing. Well, at least I have my collection so I'll just play with the music turned of, not the biggest problem ever.

There will still be plenty of atmospheric music, it's just that for certain urban areas we're doing more melodic stuff and in case of the Foundry we did want it to sound a bit "epic?" (don't know if that's the right word, maybe "imposing") because of the huge furnaces, molten metal and stuff.

As for general atmosphere of eeriness and mystery - while I do plan to scrap the current drones, I intend to keep in the same style.

 

[Pope Amole II]

and expecting masterpieces in such a low budged game is silly.

The thing is, dark/drone ambient scene really isn't about money. If you want to do commercial music, it's hard to imagine a worse genre than these two. And even the small & relatively nameless game composers are actually not that cheap - so I'm not sure if you couldn't just hire someone proven from the scene for the same money. I certainly doubt they get lots of such offers.

There will still be plenty of atmospheric music, it's just that for certain urban areas we're doing more melodic stuff and in case of the Foundry we did want it to sound a bit "epic?" (don't know if that's the right word, maybe "imposing") because of the huge furnaces, molten metal and stuff.

As for general atmosphere of eeriness and mystery - while I do plan to scrap the current drones, I intend to keep in the same style.

Actually, I got the part that clanging = metal. But I still don't like the approach. When thinking about this, I immediately remembered a certain ambient piece from the original Disciples:



Still clanging & something metallic, but much more ambienty. But it's not even about tempo - it's just, I dunno, boring.

 

[Grunker]

Am I the only one getting serious 1eyedking vibes here?

 

[Canus]

Having played the first demo of this I decided that I'd hold off until final release to play through it.
Looking forward to it immensely.
Excellent work so far Styg.

 

[agris]

Styg the portraits look great, and the lighting idea was a nice touch. Would it be possible though to have the portraits background change depending on the tileset you are on? Something akin to Fallout's talking heads. Cave / settlement / bunker / urban backgrounds would fit most locations, no?

 

[Styg]

Styg the portraits look great, and the lighting idea was a nice touch. Would it be possible though to have the portraits background change depending on the tileset you are on? Something akin to Fallout's talking heads. Cave / settlement / bunker / urban backgrounds would fit most locations, no?

That's how it works, yes. Don't have backgrounds for all the tilesets done yet though.

 

[Ninjerk]

The portraits look fantastic. The music doesn't bother me, really, but I haven't opened up Underrail in a few months so I can't remember any of the other music in the game, really.

 

[Surf Solar]

Gotta agree with Pope Amole II here, probably lots of people dont care about it but the drone-y themes and general dark ambient are much better than the in your face approach IMO.

 

[epeli]

Apparently the new music is by Josh Culler (also responsible for NEO Scavenger's music), I trust he can create fitting melodic music for Underrail's urban areas to complement the existing ambient drones.

I do plan to scrap the current drones

Nooooooo I know you said they were just placeholders, but I thought you had changed your mind about that because they turned out to be excellent.

 

[tuluse]

Am I the only one getting serious 1eyedking vibes here?

What is the codex for if we can't nit pick low budget indie games?

 

[TwinkieGorilla]

So, so, so, so, so, so excited about the portraits and new music. I love you long time, Styg.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

This is great. I fucking love it all.

 

[Abelian]

Nice work, Styg. Keep on bringing the incline.

 

[MrMarbles]

There will still be plenty of atmospheric music, it's just that for certain urban areas we're doing more melodic stuff and in case of the Foundry we did want it to sound a bit "epic?" (don't know if that's the right word, maybe "imposing") because of the huge furnaces, molten metal and stuff.

As for general atmosphere of eeriness and mystery - while I do plan to scrap the current drones, I intend to keep in the same style.

That foundry music was right on! Really impressive stuff from Josh Culler.


The use of metallic tones reminded me a bit of the theme from Vault City in F2, and the background noise is like the foundry in PST.

Like Styg says above, it is possible to have a combination of music types in a game (ambient tundra, melodic, stuff with more drive). That just adds depth, variation and atmosphere, as long as the pieces are well done and have some common themes. Really encouraging stuff to hear from a developer that has obviously given this some thought.

 

[Junmarko]

Keep it up Styg

 

[agris]

I just saw the movie Gone Girl, which was surprisingly good for what it was, but I noticed two things immediately. Trent Reznor (of Nine Inch Nails) did the music, and the tone of some of the tracks would fit Underrail really well. The first song (up to 2:29) reminds me of being in a subterrainean cave, while the second is underground lakes / pond (starts at 2:30). Like a more subdued Aphex Twin - Flim, or less involved Boards of Canada.

 

[Amasius]

I wanted to brofist my favorite game dev but suddenly I can't... But I still can salute him!

 

[epeli]

Talking about portraits... I don't know what rathound faces are going to look like, but this is how I will always imagine them:

Spoiler

+=

(fanart by Eliasfrost on Underrail forums)

 

[Styg]

 

[Nael]

 

[polo]

Makes me wanna set them on fire.

 

[epeli]

Underrailers! I figured I could easily make Codex avatars out of the portraits once the next update is out, since I'm going to be fiddling around with the game files in any case.
I'm sure the target audience for these avatars is watching this thread, so tell me: how would you like them?

1.

Portrait picture only. I initially thought of simply doing this (with a background), but why stop there? Underrail deserves better!

2.

In-game style borders. Not the most subtle border, but definitely looks better than no border and makes it immediately recognizable as Underrail. (I don't know about you guys, but at this point I automatically associate anything with that peculiar shade of orange with Underrail.)
For the background, I could either A) leave it transparent, B) use simple black background or C) arbitrarily pick one of the tileset-based backgrounds.

I'm probably going with 2C but wanted to show others for comparison. Lemme know if you have any wishes or other ideas.

 

[Zdzisiu]

I would go with 2C too. And nice of you to do this on your own!

 

[I'm Big Into Anal]

yeah 2c

 

[Zorba the Hutt]

I'm probably going with 2C but wanted to show others for comparison. Lemme know if you have any wishes or other ideas.

Nice work. Have an agenda for your efforts.