Sound and music?

[Human Shield]

What are you going to use for background music? What are you going to use for fighting sounds?

 

[Volourn]

It's being made in honour of of the silent picture early days of film so no sound or music at all..

 

[Shagnak]

It will be loop-track of VD singing in the shower, punctuated by Volourn shouting "r00fles", and the drunks from this forum doing a rousing chorus of Monty Python's Lumberjack song.

Honest.

 

[Human Shield]

It's being made in honour of of the silent picture early days of film so no sound or music at all..

Silent films had music running.

 

[Volourn]

"Silent films had music running."

Let's say it togther for VD:

I N N O V A T I O N ! ! ! :shock: :shock: :shock:

 

[Naked_Lunch]

It will be loop-track of VD singing in the shower, punctuated by Volourn shouting "r00fles", and the drunks from this forum doing a rousing chorus of Monty Python's Lumberjack song.

It would be more than appropiate for the setting, no doubt!

 

[Vault Dweller]

"Silent films had music running."

Let's say it togther for VD:

I N N O V A T I O N ! ! ! :shock: :shock: :shock:

That's plan B. As any other developer, I'd like to innovate the fuck out of the genre, evolve it, push it forward, and do all kinda progressive things to it.

Currently I don't have any sound effectz, which doesn't mean that there will be none when I release the game. It doesn't mean that there will be something either, so keep your favourite soundtracks handy.

 

[Rabby]

In my opinion, forgoing music altogether would be a bad idea, since plugging in sound probably won't require too much effort (just have to find the right tracks), and the return you get on atmosphere is immense.

The world is loosely based in Greek/Rome, is that correct? As far as I undrestand, ancient Greek and Roman music were never notated precisely and much of how it actually sounds is completely lost. Before 500 B.C. or so, it was single-line melody, and harmony developed after that. It also sounds very modal. So, one can extrapolate: "ancient Greek and Roman music" probably consists of modal plainchaints, much like Gregorian Chant. I found one recording on eMusic. It's essentially a choir of men singing in unison with occasional chords and pedal tones. The intonation was also terrible in the recording, but I guess they can get away with that kind of stuff since it's early music.

Two other albums on eMusic include Zorba the Greek, which apparently is film score by Mikis Theodorakis. The two tracks I listened to consisted of light, but dancy guitar-like music. Also on there is Woodbridge Suite Flute Quartet playing wispy Greek-like music.

If desperate, there is also some New World Music, with a track labeled as The Greeks. It sucks big time, in my humble opinion, and New World is just a synonym for cheese.

Not saying that going for actual Greek music is mandatory, but if you're interested, these might be places to start, and the links could give you some ideas as to what possibilities there are in the ancient Greek or folk genre.

Rabby

Edit: Oh, there's a Greek contemporary composer named Iannis Xenakis. I don't have much of his recordings handy, but that might be something to check out as well.

 

[Elwro]

Edit: Oh, there's a Greek contemporary composer named Iannis Xenakis. I don't have much of his recordings handy, but that might be something to check out as well.

All pieces of this guy I heard were... truly contemporary as in "Ambitious, feeding more the brain than the ear, totally unlistenable to for people who are not interested in recent classical music". It may be great music, but I doubt it would fit the game. But maybe I just heard the "wrong" pieces.
Vangelis is Greek, too, I think :D

 

[Andyman Messiah]

Music or not, I'm still just going to run the mp3-player in the background as I always do. Unless, of course, you plan to get some licensed thrash metal in the game?

 

[MF]

http://www.personal.psu.edu/users/w/x/wxk116/muse/

Romans had quite intricate musical theory. Closer to 17th century modern harmony than to midieval modal harmony. (Polyphony was definitely in, considering they had a chord harp close to a modern citer) Stereotypically, Romans are associated with pompous, bombastic music. Usually trumpet ensembles. This is also used in a lot of films concerning ancient Rome. And games (play Caesar II for example). Quite easy to do, but not very interesting.

Since you're adding a fantasy element, you could focus on the mystery of harp based music. Harp works for this kind of thing.

http://www.contemplator.com/midimusic/171s.mid An O'carolan piece. 17th century Irish harpist. Nothing to do with romans, but the instrumentation is very, very ancient and the ambience is quite universal. Besides, he's public domain

 

[Rabby]

Edit: Oh, there's a Greek contemporary composer named Iannis Xenakis. I don't have much of his recordings handy, but that might be something to check out as well.

All pieces of this guy I heard were... truly contemporary as in "Ambitious, feeding more the brain than the ear, totally unlistenable to for people who are not interested in recent classical music". It may be great music, but I doubt it would fit the game. But maybe I just heard the "wrong" pieces.
Vangelis is Greek, too, I think :D

Maybe it'd qualify more as sound effects instead of background music then, eh? :wink:

Rabby

 

[Vault Dweller]

Thanks for the links.

 

[Mulciber]

What about a plugin similar to FoxyTunes (for Firefox) that allows you to hook in your music-player-of-choice to an unobtrusive set of navigation buttons?

 

[Fez]

How about just letting me alt-tab and I can play in the background what I want to, if you are not including music anyway?

 

[Sol Invictus]

Alt tab will probably crash it.

 

[Fez]

It might do, I've had a few games die with alt-tabbing, but if it's stable enough it shouldn't upset it. Geneforge and Avernum didn't mind me alt-tabbing to use players in the background. I'm hoping VD's game will be stable enough for that.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Music will be in. We'll try to make sure that alt-tabbing works too.

 

[Fez]

If the music is good enough then alt-tabbing won't be a priority. Though with a few games which have engrossed me I found that I didn't even notice that it was lacking background music for some time after it stopped.