Jóladagur!

Or whatever you like to call it (christmas day?) anyways, another day that calls for just chilling the fuck out. I was meant to go to my grandmas place today, but the snowstorm on the mountain between here and there forced us to turn 180° and go back home.

Yesterday i played and finished outlast, i liked the game, but i think i learned more about things not to do from it than things to do. I would've liked the ending if it had made any sort of sense for example. Same deal with Swapper. I can promise you this: Any game i will make will have an ending that at least makes sense (whether it's good or bad)

I will not make a nonsensical ending even if my story makes no sense right from the start!

With that, i have decided to relax for the rest of today too, this will probably happen tomorrow too. I'm using this time to play games :3

Next in line after outlast is... Oh right, Contrast! i should finish that already.

Today was not completely wasted on not thinking about my games though, i figured out something cool. I like to link atmospheres to music (for example like i've compared the ending song of amnesia to have that exact "feel" i would've wanted the player to get after finishing Yrja's Torment.)

And i realized that i can use this. I can use songs as concept for emotion. For atmospheres...

I'll make some examples with my favorite musician.

Character: For example, this song can be used to give me a rough idea of how i want the player to experience a character, say... A pretty cute girl. First impression is that she's so innocent and cute, then you look into her past and see a pretty sick and twisted story, and when you actually get to know the character she's actually a massive sadist and not so cute anymore when she's got you tied up, gagged and cutting you with a knife just to see what kind of expressions you would make.

Just as an example of the emotional flow i feel from the song. That's a high concept of a character based on what pops up in my head when i hear that song and try to create a character with these thoughts.

Scene/Environment: This is pretty straightforward, i can imagine for example a trade caravan with some shady (understatement) merchants trying to sell something illegal acting like it's completely normal. To convince you that they aren't evil and their merchandise isn't suspicious at all. (But for all you know they might be selling cursed or stolen items, or have people robbing you as they keep your attention on their merchandise, or they could be smuggling people/slaves or illegal wares (like drugs) in the places they make sure you aren't looking) This could be a caravan, this could be a trade district somewhere in the Tainted areas of Necembel.

Atmosphere: I realized just today (and this is where these thoughts started coming up) that this song is about her sleeping problems when she was a child, she kept hearing voices in her head and silenced them by focusing her mind on music. Anyways, there's a certain atmosphere in the music, and there's a character in the vocals. I'm talking about the atmospheric music, this could for example set a base for how i want an undead city to feel, melancholic, mysterious, dark, some pretty sad characters, etc.

Nobody else has to see these things the same way as i do. Nobody has to even understand what i'm talking about, since this way i can use music to help myself get my imagination flowing. So for example... Alfinil! Magdolon! Jokland!

Alfinil has wood elves and rat people, it's kind of inspired by Trynton. You can hear resemblences in that track and the track that i chose to represent Alfinil or more specifically a certain part of it. The wood elf part of it. The "Fae" part of it might be more like this or even maybe a bit of "Lumsk" (Band name)

Dwarves...

That song i linked to Jokland (sorry for low quality) seems to fit quite nicely. It's supposed to be the most dangerous area in the game. Everything is relatively chaotic. Humans, Undead, Snow Elves and Dragons constantly battling for territory and the animals that naturally live there will be monsters like tundra wolves and polar bears. It's essentially a survival of the fittest continent. Not seeing it? that's fine. You might see the resemblences once i've made it.

Magdolon is going to be dark, it's like Jokland mostly survival of the fittest but it's less fierce than Jokland in many ways, for example there isn't a constant war there. But the more aggressive and maybe even evil Fae live there, everywhere that isn't rock is sand (usually black sand except for in the far west next to kalhiri), and in the far east (near Alfinil) where we might even see a few small trees. Everything there is likely to attack you, but it's never certain that it will, it depends on the mood they're in.

I'm trying to say i can use music (for myself) so that when i'm designing something i know what sorts of feelings i would like to deliver to the player when they meet a character, progress through a certain part of the story or get dumped in a strange dungeon. Using this also means i can more easily know what direction i'd like the soundtrack to go in certain scenes or areas.

For a true masterpiece <- that song has an emotional flow i'd love to recreate in a game, i'm thinking i could try it in the undead game. To give you a rough idea this scene is where a brother that has fought hard against immortal foes gets rewarded by seeing his beloved sister torn to shreds by the same immortal demigods he fought + 1 other guy named "Váli". This song brings me the most ecstatic eargasm ever. Every time i see them live and they don't play this song i feel bummed.

Another cool piece is this battle theme. Gets me thinking about the most epic bossfights ever, fitting for Kalhiri too, i couldn't find a themesong for kalhiri probably because the fel'du are peaceful and nice, and even cheerful so the atmosphere in their towns and cities is generally going to be pretty light, whereas the desert itself is .... well... a desert. Deserts are pretty merciless in general so that's a polar opposite of the atmosphere for the cities.

Music that does this job well is generally soundtracks and trailer music, but most of the examples i made were from well.. more general music media like bands, or certain artists not aimed at being a soundtrack. Maybe i'm just crazy but hey... whatever gets my imagination flowing right? In my head this works out, for now :)

Oh yes and another thing i thought of, to avoid making bad characters, avoid making "normal" characters.