Awesome music and mood for the game !

I have worked closely with one great studio for exclusive track and I also grab fantastic soundtrack from another studio. Haven't posted for awhile. Sometimes, it is just best to work on the project. I have been extremely busy working on the very boring phase of crushing bug and tweaking game mechanic. There is nothing too exciting to talk about that because it is just mathematic, algebra and code. When you are stuck in reviewing years old code to make thing work better and faster, you stay focus. At this point, the list of bug that kept growing and growing (because sometime you fix 1 thing that make your discover 10 other bug) is finally completed. Of course the game is not perfect yet, but the quality is quite good. Lately, I went into developing all the UI graphic element to make the game look better and more polish. Many 3D visual item were also added in the game to help you out with objective.

Current step is Audio, it can be divided in 3. First thing I needed is to have a kickass soundtrack, yes you can turn it off, but I wanted the soundtrack to be refreshing and enjoyable. Secondly, I wanted to have atmosphere music that would add mood based on action and location so that the gaming experience feel more dynamic. Finally, after multiple gaming session, I have figured out that I couldn't wait more before adding voice for AI. I didn't want to show the game without all the audio interaction because it doesn't feel the same when the only thing you hear is gunshot…

Music soundtrack

I'm super happy with the soundtrack, it come from a very talented artist Andrea Baroni from Cyberleaf studio. The soundtrack is very “retro punk 80s”. Will remind you Stranger Thing theme. The game is based on a underground cartoon book that have is own style. The story emphasis on the old style UFO movie absurdity (like Mars Attack did, but with non evil character). It is set in a strange universe with those wacky alien that face the reality of our world. Lot's of the humor reside in the fact that what is very common for us, human, may be extremely scary or dangerous for alien. For them, moving water could look like a strange enemy, flying bird could look like tiny ship, etc. So that old school arcade music I think will be enjoyed by player and fit very well with the game universe.

Ambience Music

Once again, we are extremely lucky. We have been working with Wayne Sampson from Crimson Worm Instrumentals and they developed for us some exclusive track that sets the mood in various situation. Boss encounter, discovery zone, enemies encounter, danger, sneaky path, etc. This is the music that react to your action, to what is going on and that attach the player to the game experience. I think having such solid audio for a underground game developed by an unknown Hindi studio is amazing. It will certainly make a big difference for player.

Voices

At the beginning of the development, since the game was based on a comic book, I didn't want voice over. I wanted the sound to be only replicated by comic bubble and 2D art. Sometimes, you realize that sticking on a concept that doesn't translate well on your medium just to stay focus on replicating the experience of the book isn't the best idea. Reading is no fun in a action-pack game. The interaction of the player with AI has to be dynamic and alive. One of the core mechanic on this game is how insanely difficult it will become if you don't play well (to a point where you won't be able to finish the game and you'll have to start over). Each time the global awareness is increased, your difficulty level increase and it cannot go down. This feature is directly linked to your interaction with AI and to your action so we decided it was mandatory to have audio feedback from that. We currently have recorded 450 audio clip. Many reaction are dynamically generated, which will provide an even greater audio count. Some randomness will allow you to not hear the exact same sentence over and over. Eventually you will, but not to a point that it become quickly annoying. Voices are not final but will at least allow us to test the full experience of the game with all the sound, bell and whistles it deserve. All the 3 main character also have the ability to talk to the player, they will be mostly reacting to your action (or inaction). Sometimes talking directly to the player sometimes between them. They still talk through the classic cartoon bubble too, but you get the chance to hear them too now. Everything has not been tested yet, but recording is almost done, all the coding is done, so in 2-3 weeks, I will be able to test it for the first time and hopefully it will make the game more fun and dynamic.