Possible OCR soundtrack project for a game I'm working on

[anosou]

I could do - Training/Demonstration Area theme if you want?

I have no soundtrack to work on atm (just finished a thing for a Community Game and the other game I was composing for is on hiatus).

What do you want, when do you want it, how do I go about sending it to you?

[Zephyr]

so, when are you changing the title of the thread?

Haha, to "Definitely an OCR soundtrack project for a game I'm working on"

And how far are you in the actual level design?

Oh and I also just thought about this, what are you doing for sound effects? Or do you have this covered? Are there gonna be some small scale cinematics? Voice acting? I'm just thinking about some stuff that Iji had because Iji was awesome, it had branching story paths, cinematics, and a ton of bonus features. You should check it out for ideas sometime if you haven't already. Of course, Iji was also 4 years in development...

Iji

[FireSlash]

You should check it out for ideas sometime if you haven't already.

Iji

Iji is what inspired me to even start this project.

However, I don't know if I can be quite as ambitious with my current team size. Cinematics are pretty much out of the question.

Level design is more conceptual right now. I've built a few test levels to test with, but nothing has been finalized. I could actually use a level designer, but I don't know any.

@Another Soundscape

DJ Mokram has already gone as far as to send me a wip for that track. You're welcome to cage fight him for it though.

Right now though, I'd rather everyone hold off on any further work for a few days pending some possible changes. Time table is huge though, no need to rush. Even if I get all of the graphics, dialog, levels, and sound effects tomorrow I still have at least a month of code to do.

[anosou]

Nah, then it's cool. Enjoy your project!

[Dj Mokram]

@Another Soundscape

DJ Mokram has already gone as far as to send me a wip for that track. You're welcome to cage fight him for it though.

Nah, then it's cool. Enjoy your project!

Whew... seems I've just avoided being musically cage-butchered by an OCR judge, one month in the making.

I'm obviously thankful Fireslash for having listened to my wip, even if you end up never making a training stage.

Good luck on your coding process.

[Zephyr]

Well, since no-one's up for it, I'd love to take the yousuck.ogg too, then I'll have a matching set to balance out my win theme.

[FireSlash]

Ok, here's what's going on.

I'm looking for someone to step up and take the reins of this soundtrack. Basically, someone to sit down, manage who does what tracks, and give it the musical direction they think is necessary. I'll fully admit I don't know enough about music production to head this kind of project.

If the end result turns out well, it may end up posted on OCR as an album.

With that in mind, most of the current assignments may change or be removed entirely, depending on if the person taking over wants to do things like auditions.

[Gario]

That's neat... did you go over this with DJP or the J's? I'm sure they're the ones to talk to about this kind of stuff.

One thing that bothers me, though - if this goes as an OC project, people my try to conform to what the OC standards are. I have nothing against the OC standards, but they may conflict with what you want for your game. I'm just throwing that out; if your fine with all of that as the creator of this, then that's fine.

Good luck with this! Bring up what we need to do as soon as you can - we're all waiting on this

[Rozovian]

News, finally.

Might I suggest myself?

meaning: "Pick me pick me!"

[FireSlash]

Yes, I've discussed this with the proper authorities.

And with that, rozovian wins. I was going to ask you directly but I thought you said at some point that you didn't want to. Oh well, maybe I'm just becoming senile.

In the interest of organization, we might want to move this to a new thread?

[Rozovian]

All right... Update, March 30th.

Skryp, Mokram and Gario have more or less OK tracks for this. They've got the right sound at least.

Willrock, Vagrance and I have tracks don't don't mesh well with Skryp's and Gario's. I'll have to figure out how to fix that.

Zephyr's and Monobrow's I haven't heard yet.

Abadoss is waiting for me to figure out the sound we're going for.

Forgot someone?

--

Technical details:

- Track must loop from start due to slow update polling on slower machines. *IMPORTANT*

- Tracks may be split into separate ambience and music tracks. *LATER CONCERN*

- Tracks should contain two melodies, melodic ideas... we want them to have remix potential. *YOU KNOW YOU WANT IT*

--

Also, please include your name/stage and date/version in the filename, and other relevant info (like if it's with/without ambience, boss/stage). It'll make my job easier.

Those are the ones I've heard. Monobrow, Vagrance, Zephyr, Prophet, and Abadoss... show me what you've got so far. if and when you got something.

Should something open up, Hemo, Darke, Tauce, Red9, and Cerrax are next in line for tracks. Not sure in what order.

--

This is the order of my priorities for the project:

- Cohesive sound

- Area tracks

- Themes (including any main theme material)

- Boss and other non-area tracks

- Ambience/Secondary tracks for areas

--

Recap:

The soundtrack:

I'd like to build a soundtrack for this with nothing but OCR members, for cross advertising as well as because I <3 you guys.

Each area track should also include a secondary, more aggressive theme for the boss.

(Assignments may change)

The track list I have in my mind would be:

- Menu track ( the prophet of mephisto )

- Wartorn City. ( Gario )

Quiet and abandoned save occasional cries of people fleeing and hiding from the droning hum of blimps. Spotlights scour the streets. Dogs bark in the night against the sounds of distant car alarms, left to fend for themselves. Aluminum cans clatter past the few televisions never broken or turned off.

- Frozen Facility ( Skrypnyk )

Whistling arctic gusts sliced by the sharp fingers of broken glass, a groaning and settling superstructure yielding a hollow and metallic ghostly wail. Cracking ice punctuates the sullen lifeless cacophony, echoing down the slick frosted corridors like gunshots. Snow shifts and falls into the deep crevasse.

- Spaceship ( Rozovian )

Shining metal, the sound of a billion hearts beating in near-perfect unison, and a billion breaths taken in slumber. The ever distant hum and cadre of machinery working away, muffled by soundless space and carried only by a thin lattice of steel to the air inside the ship- what would seem deafening otherwise.

- Sand City ( Willrock )

Millennia dead, a once great city consumed by desert, chewed to pieces by violent flurries of biting sand. The soft patter of grains settling and flowing from the precarious heights of the city that tremble under the weight. Desert life has hold, the sounds of snakes and scorpions watching from the shadows.

- Sinking Facility ( Monobrow )

Fighting the waves, the old rust structure floats alone. Roughly encrusted by coral and brilliant fish where once there was only frozen steel. A thing alive, cascades of sea water breach the walls and periodic gushes vitalize the halls, popping mollusks clustering over the walls stealing momentary breaths.

- Warzone Spaceship ( The Vagrance)

Arcing lightning, blasts of steam. The unnervingly close clamor of machine guns, screaming and wailing. The deep pounding of marching feet and the shouting of angry voices in a hateful chant of death. The scratching of steel on steel, and the quick, desperate hiss of vital air succumbing to the vacuum beyond.

- Level Clear short ( Zephyr )

Doesn't need to be long, doesn't need to loop, doesn't even have to smell good.

- 'Game Over' jingle thing.

yousuck.ogg

- Final boss theme

Should be full of epic

Optional tracks (These aren't needed, but if we have extra manpower I know I could put them to use)

- Training/Demonstration Area theme ( DJ Mokram )

This can just be a short 1 minute craptastic loop that will drive you insane if you spend more than a minute learning the two concepts that actually might need to be taught.

- Credits/finale ( Abadoss )

I'm uncomfortable listing this since I'm still not sure what we're going to do for the finale anyway. But it's there, if someone wants to spawn camp it

Each area track will be used for around 3 levels. Possibly more depending on how our mapping routines scale once we start getting past our simple 3 layer test builds

I don't have a deadline set, The development is generally run pretty loose between myself and the graphic artist, we're doing this as a fun hobby. Audio is currently being handled via Ogg Vorbis, but I could probably add support for a different format if you needed something specific. The game is freeware so I'm not offering any compensation, but you'll get a spot in the credits. If you want. If not, I can just say it was composed by my cat.

Interested with no track claimed

- DarkeSword - Claimed a track in IRC at gunpoint, not sure which one

- Hemophiliac

- Geoffrey Taucer

- Cerrax

- Red9

[Zephyr]

One thing that bothers me, though - if this goes as an OC project, people my try to conform to what the OC standards are. I have nothing against the OC standards, but they may conflict with what you want for your game. I'm just throwing that out; if your fine with all of that as the creator of this, then that's fine.

What could be bad about following OCR's standards? It only ensures quality, it doesn't change what kind of style or anything that you can do.

[Gario]

What could be bad about following OCR's standards? It only ensures quality, it doesn't change what kind of style or anything that you can do.

I don't mean that the standards are a terrible thing (making production up to their standards is a great thing to do for this), I just didn't want people to treat the music like they would a remix. For example, a remix that involves ambiance would be terrible for OC (I believe they actually make a note of that in their submission standards), but would be an excellent track for the game. The point I was trying to make was that this still should be 'Game first', 'OC next' in the line of priorities when writing for this.

It came across the wrong way with my earlier post, but I was tight on time, there

Grats, Rozo, for director's position. Now who is working on what and when ?

[FireSlash]

Ambiance can be a secondary track, or generated.

I prefer it this way actually, since this lets us play around with the volume of it based on where a player is.

[The Vagrance]

I would like to mention that I've already started on the boss theme for the Warzone Spaceship...

[Zephyr]

Ambiance can be a secondary track, or generated.

I prefer it this way actually, since this lets us play around with the volume of it based on where a player is.

I love systems like this, for example the SSX series, when you're going really fast doing crazy tricks the song is busy and intense, and as you hit a huge jump the mix thins out and it get's mellow as you soar through the air. Probably a hard thing to do, but it's really cool when executed properly.

[Monobrow]

Hey, just wanna let you know I've tinkered with stuff, but I really kind of want to hold off on doing this until I've got a feel for what everyone else is doing. So when you guys get that stuff together, let me know... IMO the soundtrack would probably work best if it were more cohesive and each level wasn't a completely different off the wall sound/ambience/style... But that's just my op.

[Rozovian]

For this to work, I gotta hear your stuff. I've heard some, but it'd probably be best if you'd all send me your tracks (preferably mp3 if they're wips). I'll check which ones work together.

Also, everyone with an area track, are you up for making a boss music version of it?

--

some info/impressions:

Skryp and Gario have more or less OK tracks for this.

Willrock and I both have tracks don't don't mesh well with Skryp's and Gario's. I'll have to figure out how to fix that.

DJ Mokram's track... idunno, need a music player that can handle both ogg and mp3 to compare his to the others more easily. or rather... Mokram, gimme an mp3 of it.

Those are the ones I've heard. Monobrow, Vagrance, Zephyr, Prophet, and Abadoss... show me what you've got so far.

Should something open up, Hemo, Darke, Tauce, Red9, and Cerrax are next in line for tracks. Not sure in what order.

[Dj Mokram]

DJ Mokram's track... idunno, need a music player that can handle both ogg and mp3 to compare his to the others more easily. or rather... Mokram, gimme an mp3 of it.

Doesn't Winamp do this kind of job? Otherwise, you got AIMP2, and it's free.

Well Fireslash requested OGG format at first. And the OGG track was converted from the mp3.

So sure, no problem. Where do you want me to drop the file?

[Abadoss]

- Credits/finale ( Abadoss )

I'm uncomfortable listing this since I'm still not sure what we're going to do for the finale anyway. But it's there, if someone wants to spawn camp it

I hadn't done anything yet because I was suppose to wait and see what would be done for the finale. If need be, I can still put something together...

[Zephyr]

For this to work, I gotta hear your stuff. I've heard some, but it'd probably be best if you'd all send me your tracks (preferably mp3 if they're wips). I'll check which ones work together.

need a music player that can handle both ogg and mp3 to compare his to the others more easily. or rather... Mokram, gimme an mp3 of it.

Those are the ones I've heard. Monobrow, Vagrance, Zephyr, Prophet, and Abadoss... show me what you've got so far.

Might I recommend Songbird?

[/shameless plug]

I'll get you a WIP as soon as I can for Game Over and Winning theme.

[Rozovian]

Songbird looks good. Now I have a reason to get it.

PM me with an url to the tracks, if you got any. I'll put 'em in a central location and pm you with the url there so you can see what you're all doing and keep the same sound, maybe use some of the same melodies or ideas.

[Abadoss]

To do a finale, I'll need main themes and whatnot...

[Rozovian]

I'm gonna focus on finding the sound first. PMd you a link to the tracks with more or less the right sound, maybe you can pick some melodies from there. Details in the pm.

[Abadoss]

No worries.