Hey.

I've been working on my game for a while now and since I'm doing everything from programming and game-design to art and music myself, I thought I'd get an outside opinion on things. First of all, here's two tunes.

Flipping Burgers For A Living - The very first piece I wrote.
Musings Of A Disgruntled Busboy - I really like this one, I came up with a title and then decided to go along with that and write something that sounds a bit sinister.

I have a couple of concerns/questions:

1) Looking at the screenshots below, what do you think, does the style of music match the style of visuals? I know it's very subjective but I'd like to know. There are serious aspects to the game, like staff and restaurant management, contracts and recipes, but the story is fun I think and I try to put in fun things in the backgrounds and textual parts.So I tried making the music fun too, hopefully without sounding kind of childish. It's cartoonish, yes, but hopefully not childish.



(Click to see full sized)

2) I've been playing guitar in bands for 4 years now and I've really gotten used to writing "songs" with rather strict parts of verses, choruses, bridges etc. So I'm a afraid that my game tunes have the same thing going, they have quite separate parts and maybe that's not what you'd expect from a background music? Will it be distracting? Or maybe I'm worrying too much? As a one man project I know I can't get everything perfect but at least I can try to make things as good as I can.


Thanks in advance, I know there are very skillful and experienced people here in this forum

Take care,
Eigen

Hey.

I've been working on my game for a while now and since I'm doing everything from programming and game-design to art and music myself, I thought I'd get an outside opinion on things. First of all, here's two tunes.

Flipping Burgers For A Living - The very first piece I wrote.
Musings Of A Disgruntled Busboy - I really like this one, I came up with a title and then decided to go along with that and write something that sounds a bit sinister.

I have a couple of concerns/questions:

1) Looking at the screenshots below, what do you think, does the style of music match the style of visuals? I know it's very subjective but I'd like to know. There are serious aspects to the game, like staff and restaurant management, contracts and recipes, but the story is fun I think and I try to put in fun things in the backgrounds and textual parts.So I tried making the music fun too, hopefully without sounding kind of childish. It's cartoonish, yes, but hopefully not childish.



(Click to see full sized)

2) I've been playing guitar in bands for 4 years now and I've really gotten used to writing "songs" with rather strict parts of verses, choruses, bridges etc. So I'm a afraid that my game tunes have the same thing going, they have quite separate parts and maybe that's not what you'd expect from a background music? Will it be distracting? Or maybe I'm worrying too much? As a one man project I know I can't get everything perfect but at least I can try to make things as good as I can.


Thanks in advance, I know there are very skillful and experienced people here in this forum

Take care,
Eigen

From the pictures, I want to play the game. However, I'm not sure about the track selector. A better option is to have contextual music. I like the second song, you could have that playing while business is slow, then move to something more uplifting (in the same vein as the first song) when business picks up. Or something.

What kind of game is this? If it has a lot of sound, you need to make sure the music isnt drowning out the sound, e.g. by having sections in it which are similar to the sound.

Yeah, music based on what's going on would be great but I don't think it would work very well in this case. Let me explain the game. Basically it's a tycoon game where you manage your own chain of fast-food restaurants. It's a mixture of old-school management games, inspired by such games as Pizza Tycoon and Theme Hospital. But I'm trying to incorporate a backstory into the mix, which is that the city mayor is having a one year competition called Fast Food Frenzy (also the title of the game) taking place in a city. Four characters run a chain of restaurants in the city and the best performing one will be the affiliate of the food festival taking place next year (or something along the lines of that). There will be all kinds of things happening during that year.

Now, I don't see how contextual music would tie into this. Yes, there will be little sub-themes for the cut-scenes and whatnot, so that's pretty context specific. And yes, there are periods of time where business is going slow for example, but depending on the player, that might be a long time and that section would need several similar pieces not to get repetitive. The game solely depends on the choices of the player so there's no single winning formula. Also, how would you handle the transition from one section to another? I know some RTS games have dynamic music but that seems like an complicated solution ..
So my idea was to have the music play in jukebox mode, like in a lot of older tycoon/management games (Transport Tycoon eg.).
Thanks for the reply, I'll think it about some more.

There are regular beeps and bloops when pressing buttons and some coin sounds when making a profit, nothing that would drown out the music.

Any other opinions?

The pieces definitely remind me of Theme Hospital.

I loved the first one, and it really fits the feel of the screenshots for me.

The second one, while I really liked the melodies, sounded a bit too midi, I think. The electric piano sound is nice, but mixed with that whistle, the synth bass and the guitar (I think?) it all ends up becoming a bit 8bit to me. Whereas the first track sounds far more real. So I think that would be great with different instruments, unless you're going for that retro sound.

I'd definitely like to hear more of your music.

I think the first one is better.
The second one is a bit too fast imho for a point and click game, you probably get stressed out.
You might want to use the second song on parts of the game where you want to enhance the intensity, like a timed puzzle.

Thanks guys. Tom, you're right, it does sound a little 8-bit, but it wasn't something I was trying to avoid anyway. At one point I thought doing all music in chiptune, but it didn't quite fit.
I'm sure I can find a spot in the game where that tracks fits. As Molle85 said, someplace intense.
I'll keep your comments in mind when writing new pieces for the game. I have couple more but they aren't quite finished yet.

1) Looking at the screenshots below, what do you think, does the style of music match the style of visuals? I know it's very subjective but I'd like to know. There are serious aspects to the game, like staff and restaurant management, contracts and recipes, but the story is fun I think and I try to put in fun things in the backgrounds and textual parts.So I tried making the music fun too, hopefully without sounding kind of childish. It's cartoonish, yes, but hopefully not childish.

I think the first song fits the visuals better and the game description as it is more carefree and laid back. The second track has quite a bit more drive which may not match the intensity of the game.

2) I've been playing guitar in bands for 4 years now and I've really gotten used to writing "songs" with rather strict parts of verses, choruses, bridges etc. So I'm a afraid that my game tunes have the same thing going, they have quite separate parts and maybe that's not what you'd expect from a background music? Will it be distracting? Or maybe I'm worrying too much? As a one man project I know I can't get everything perfect but at least I can try to make things as good as I can.

I think you're worrying too much about that - I find good song structure (i.e. verses, choruses, bridges, etc) to be very good for background music in the right context. Perhaps those more elaborate composition structures are not needed for something with little depth, like an options screen, but for gameplay I think it's fine! Having said that your first song 2.mp3 is very repetitive to my ears. Basically I've heard 2 main ideas the whole time. They're not bad ideas but they are repetitive so I'm a bit confused when I read your statement "So I'm a afraid that my game tunes have the same thing going, they have quite separate parts and maybe that's not what you'd expect from a background music?" Is this in regards to other music cues you wrote because I'm not hearing drastically different segments here, to be honest. Please note this isn't a criticism but rather a clarification point. Your second song does have more variety of material.

Side point: without lyrics in a song, verses really just sound like repeated sections. If you're going to have multiple "verses" in a song without any words then I'd suggest changing instruments at verse to give a bit more variety. Doesn't always have to be drastic changes but something to give the listener something new to anchor on.

Thanks for sharing your stuff and good luck with the game!

Nate