When I first came up with the idea of this puzzle game I knew that music would be a big part of the game. But from the start I basically figured that it was going to be easy. I just now realized that I overlooked two main problems: What songs are going to be in the game and who is going to make them. I figured that it would be mostly electronic music with a pulsating beat and what not. I also figured that I would be creating all of the songs myself. Well… There are some problems with that.
First the genre of music. Like I said before I was going down the path of a mostly electronic playlist. After thinking about it, I don’t want to go down that path of not being able to make a song because it doesn’t fit the genre. Also having only one type of song can get tiresome after a while as you may want to start having variety in your music selection. But this doesn’t mean that having one genre is all bad. You get to focus on that one genre. It is incredibly hard to please everyone’s taste in music; if you just focus on that one though you will have more songs catering to that genre of music.
I said in my previous post I want around 15 songs (probably more like 20) in the game. That isn’t including all of the other songs like menus among other things. This leads to another problem, who is going to make all of this music. At first I thought it would be me, but there is a lot to be done before the game would be complete. Now I think I am up for the task as it could help break up me just programming and do something else. But this also takes time away from programming. So the next step would be to try to find others who would want to put their music into the game. But then how will I properly give them credit? Would they get paid? Is it royalty free?
As you can see, there are a lot of things to think about when it comes to music. But this game is less about interacting with the music and more about building an atmosphere and having good music in the background. So for now I am sticking with the plan of I’m making the music and it is going to lean more toward electronic music. I guess, in a way, this post was more for identifying the concerns more than anything.
Have ideas on how I should go about doing the music? Should I be more afraid of doing 15 songs than I am now? Leave your suggestions, comments, and criticisms below.