Music Postmortem for Venture Arctic

Music Postmortem for Venture Arctic

Greetings GG community! It's been a while since I've posted anything here and for that I do apologize. I have been busy with lots of other game, film and theatre projects, including work on the sequel to Pocketwatch Game's Venture Africa, Venture Arctic!

Initial Design

For this title, Andy Schatz, of Pocketwatch Games, and I discussed some ideas for the music together early on. Andy knew he wanted the game to be "based in the seasons" and he had this idea of making 4 pieces of music, each that would play while a player was within a particular season. You are not actually positioned in that season for too long, typically, so the pieces had to be relatively short, but also interesting enough to grab the player's attention and serve as an instant reminder as to what season they are currently in.

In-game screen shot of Venture Arctic

Additionally, they had to be cohesive so that there were common elements between them all so as to let them flow from one piece to the next. To make things even more complicated, we both wanted to be as organic as humanly possible and involve as much "local sounds" into the sound as possible.

Choosing the instruments and finding the feel

Upon doing some research, I discovered that the native music of the people of the Arctic is very minimal. They don't do so much singing (becuse its very cold outside!) with the exception of throat singing which doesn't require you to open your mouth a whole lot but instead have lots of drums and dancing (possibly to keep warm!). Also, the extreme conditions make many instruments unpractical.

However, western whalers and other traders at the beginning of the 20th century brought other instruments into this environment and they have recently been integrated into the local "sound" of the area. It was these additional instruments that I used to give the soundtrack to "Venture Arctic" its unique sound. There are various frame drums, wooden flutes and plucked string instruments making up the core of the sound. There are of course, other instruments involved of a certainly western nature (brass, bass, etc.) though these simply compliment and do not dominate the sound.

Also, the melodies were designed to be somewhat angular and at first somewhat more sophisticated than your average tune. These were patterned after native melodies that I had listened to and studies to echo their "feel" though they represent no tune in particular. The angular nature of the melodies also helps them stay fresh after many repeat listens as the ear constantly hears and latches onto different pieces with each subsequent listen.

Old-school inspiration

In planning for the entire four-part, cyclical piece I looked to Vivaldi's Four Seasons. For the uninitiated, Vivaldi is a famed composer of the Baroque era who wrote 230 violin concertos (piece for solo violin with accompanying instruments.) This is a huge amount and he is not known particularly for making all of those particularly unique and as inspired as "The Four Seasons", the work he is probably most remembered for.

In fact, there is an old joke about Vivaldi I heard while in music school:

Quote:
Musician 1: All of Vivaldi's violin concertos sound the same to me! It's like he just wrote the same thing 230 times!

Musician 2: Oh, come on now -- that's not true! He actually wrote *2* unique concertos, and copied those 115 times each!

Musician 1 and 2:

If you are interested in learning more about this work, I highly recommend Gil Shaman's recording of it with the Orpheus enesmble. It's PHENOMENAL.

Shameless plug and ear candy!

So, let's hear some music! I've included a short sample reel below which features the snippets of the four seasons, in order, beginning with spring. I hope you enjoy and look for the game Q1 of 2007! Also, when the sound design is finished, I will also write up a postmortem on that as well.

Link to Venture Arctic Music Sample Reel

Cheers!

-John Seguin
Composer/Sound Designer
jseguin@seguinsound.com
www.seguinsound.com