Music of the Future
How the sounds of The Future Project are made.
Infinite Level game discussed: The Future Project
Perhaps one of the more underappreciated aspects of video games is its music. That's not to say nobody ever notices a game's soundtrack. People love the music from games like Super Mario Bros. and Portal, to name a couple. But I think it's sometimes hard to notice just how much video game music enhances the atmosphere of a given game. It's the kind of thing where you'll definitely notice if it's all wrong, but if the music is doing its job then you may not pay too much attention to it all because you're getting immersed in the world that the music is helping to sell. Music making is honestly one of my favorite parts of making video games, because there's not nearly as much technical know-how I need to juggle like when I'm programming, and it's not graphically related work so I don't have to stress about my art looking like something a kindergartner made. It's an area of game development I spend little time in compared to everything else, so time making music for my games is pretty sweet. So, how about we listen to a few The Future Project music tracks, talk about the thought process behind each, and discuss their use in their respective worlds.
Let's first talk about the decisions made about The Future Project's music that permeates throughout the soundtrack. The game's music goes out of its way to sound futuristic and alien, using the sounds of theramins and choirs as the main instruments, and then bringing in different sounds based on the theme of each world. So, Jeweled Tundra uses high piano notes to give it that chilly vibe, while Hand of the Water uses beeps and boops reminescent of what you may hear on an NES console to give off the feeling of an older place but with plenty of hostility. As The Future Project is focused primarily on exploration and combat, the game's music needs to strike a balance between contemplative, atmospheric, and exciting. Some areas lean more towards one feeling or another, such as the tutorial world that is almost exclusively contemplative, while the volcanic portions of Hand of the Water takes on a more sinister, dangerous tone.
Now we begin with the track that you've likely heard the most in The Future Project. A modified version of the song was used in the game's trailer, and the original is played during the alpha gameplay demo video back when the game was first revealed. It's the main theme of the first major world, Distant Sibling, and was actually the first music track composed for the entire game. Composing this song helped set the tone for the rest of the game's soundtrack, and thus went through a lot of iteration and tweaking to get right. Eventually, we ended up with the song we have now. As Distant Sibling is the first major world players will explore, this first song has to do a lot. It has to prepare the player for the adventure ahead, help set the appropriate mood for the game now that the tutorial is done, and of course set a tone distinct to the world it's in. It aims to be all those things I mentioned earlier – contemplative, atmospheric, and exciting, all in one song.
The idea behind Distant Sibling is that it's modeled after our very own earth as it would have looked back in the days of dinosaurs and cavemen. Comments made by in-universe characters mention that Distant Sibling is the "beginning of a new world", one untouched by humanity whether by flesh or machine. The choir in the background is meant to convey the majesty of the place, an earth-like planet in perhaps its purest form. But theramin and other "artificial" sounds is the robot the players control going through their exploration processes, making their mark on the planet. "Get out there and have a look around", the music says, but be mindful of the creatures who seem keen on making you their next meal. Of the three music pillars, contemplative, atmospheric, and exciting, I think the Distant Sibling theme manages to strike a pretty good balance between the three. As I keep mentioning, it is the first world, so it's perhaps most important that this song, of all the music in the game, gets this balance correct.
We've hung around the rather familiar Distant Sibling long enough now. Let's take a look instead at a song used in Jeweled Tundra, specifically its cave theme. Something I've been implying throughout this dev blog is that many of the worlds will have more than one music track. Today, I'm showing you what I consider the "main" tracks of the first three worlds, but there are other songs in each world that play in specific areas. For Jeweled Tundra, you'll spend your first several minutes inside an ice cave (unless you just immediately find where to go), filled with creatures and secrets to find. It's possibly the slowest, most atmospheric song in the entire game, though the occasional choir moments break that up a bit. It's also meant to sound really cold, so if you're listening to this in the summer and need to think cool thoughts, maybe this will help with that.
To me, there's an air of mystery in the song as well. While playing through Jeweled Tundra, players will likely notice a lack of life that they would otherwise find outside. There's a few creatures, namely the Dwellers, but what's found outside is more plentiful in comparison. The two music themes will correspond to the amount of life in each area, thus we have the quieter, more atmospheric theme here for the caves. I also tried to compose it with the idea that this part of the world, if not the entirety of Jeweled Tundra, is sort of frozen in time. Jeweled Tundra's ice caves probably paint that picture best, given the stillness seen throughout the area. Even the majority of the enemies don't mind lying in wait for their next target. There's a curious peacefulness to it. These caves probably wouldn't be such a bad place to hide out for a bit if not for the intense cold.
Finally, let's have a listen to the theme of the Hand of the Water, or at least the island portion of it. This song is played while out beneath the heat of the sun and near the bubbling river of lava that courses throughout the world. So, in contrast to the cold caves of Jeweled Tundra, this song has to be more exciting. One of my personal favorite parts of the song is the beeps and boops in the background, which will later be used in the volcano portion of the map to create a more dangerous feeling atmosphere. Here, I've used it to paint a more curiosity driven, explorative adventure. One of the ideas while writing the music was to make it sound like the bot would be sending back information to a human ship orbiting the planet as it explored. Of course, with The Future Project taking place across a variety of simulations, such transmissions are only, well, simulated.
Alongside those sounds is that returning choir, communicating a subtle message to the player as they listen and explore. My goal was to make the voices more or less represent the island itself, with the deeper voices representing the volcano specifically. It helps give a certain power and presence to the island, like it's something you definitely want to be respecting. This extends to the enemies, which are among the tougher enemies found in The Future Project, especially at the point in the game players will be in. But what I think I really love personally is the feeling of exploration that this song invokes. It's as if it's saying "we're on this strange planet full of odd new things, let's see what's waiting for us". The song evokes feelings of exploration and excitement, which is fitting as it's one of the livelier worlds found in the game with its lush scenery and large, imposing foes.
We'll leave our music sampling at this for now. All the soundcloud links above have been made public, so feel free to check them out any time you need a dash of Future Project music in your life. I'm not currently expecting to upload more tracks, but if I ever feel like talking about more music in The Future Project then I may change my mind. But for now, we'll leave it at this until the full game is out. There's still plenty of music that needs composing, namely for boss battles, so I'll be putting on my composer hat a few more times before the game is done. I've intentionally held off on writing music in favor of doing other tasks on the game because, in my mind, I'm saving one of my favorite parts for closer to the end. So long as things go according to plan, I'll probably be done making music for the game in a few months. It usually helps me to have my worlds pretty well fleshed out before writing the songs, and as some worlds and boss battles still need more time in the oven, I'm holding off on making the corresponding music tracks for them. Once finished, we should have a rather full soundtrack on our hands, probably the largest one I have ever made. I look forward to unleashing the whole soundtrack on you once the game is finally out.
Until next time!
-Lance T.