Video game development teams have always been known for being multi-disciplinary, conformed by people from different departments. Learning to communicate and understand each other is a continuous work in progress. However, there might be external collaborators who aren't always around, and communicating with them is even more complicated. Such is the tale of musicians vs developers.
In our studio we don't have any kind of sound designer nor composer, so when we're developing a project we have to rely on a professional studio; just like we did on Mucho Taco! Where we found allies with Soundscape Studio.
The musical composition of a game differs with that of any other piece of media and it is wise to keep in mind the following considerations:
The player is in control of the game's progression.
This means that that music track can change at any moment.
Music tracks must loop.
As the game can be left idling for an indefinite amount of time, some music tracks must be able to be played again and again without any noticeable interruptions.
Music tracks mustn't be lengthy.
Free space is a precious commodity, specially for mobile games. The amount of tracks and their duration must be kept at the bare minimum needed.
All these considerations were shared with Soundscape when we showed them the project and the art we had of it. They also played the demo version of the game. We shared some music tracks from different media (TV shows, movies, games) that we thought could serve as inspiration.
Using that information as a reference, the Soundscape team built different inspirational pieces to find the core concept for what would later become the main theme for the game. Here's one of them.
*You can listen to the tracks on the link at the bottom*
Once both our teams settled on a melody, we explained to the musicians how the tracks had to be exported. Communication between the programmer and the musician was going to be an arduous task, so I realized we would most definitely need a diagram to visually represent the game flow and the exact moment where each track should be played.
I started to build my own nomenclature so programmers and musicians could understand each other, and the result after some iterations was this:
Music diagram's nomenclature:
Music Frames
Track Frame
Displays the name of the audio file to be played.
Represents a single piece of music. Length may vary and can be either an intro or a loop.
Theme Frame
Composed by two or more Track Frames or Theme Frames.
These are used to combine small music pieces in order to create a longer one.
Track Options
Complementary information for Music Frames.
Left Side
Once
The Track Frame or Theme Frame will be played only once.Loop
The Track Frame or Theme Frame will play twice or more in a row. That way, the musicians will know that the track must loop.
Right Side
Number of Loops
How many times the Track Frame or Theme Frame should repeat.Infinite Looping
The Track Frame or Theme Frame will loop indefinitely until a specific event takes place (usually an action by the player).
Connection Shapes
Displays the intro and outro behaviors of a Track Frame or Theme Frame.
