I was also very inspired by the work done by House House audio team in Untitled Goose Game and what they did in terms of music by deconstructing various Claude Debussy’s Preludes. This was quite unexpected for the Zelda franchise - and it worked like a charm, giving this significant feeling of being lonely and isolated in a vast landscape. It somehow combines the feelings of vastness with its open-world map with a soundtrack that is almost intimate, using piano as a key instrument. The Inspiration CornerIn terms of influences, I won’t lie: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild was a mind-blowing experience on different levels, particularly in terms of music. That’s why I went for a virtual instrument simulating an upright piano, but in which a stripe of felt has been placed between the hammers and the strings, resulting in a softer timbre that matched the mood and the sensibility we were aiming for. I needed this intimacy, this feeling of being close to the instrument. I also went for a particular kind of piano: I didn’t want to have a classic and bright concert-hall grand piano sound with a lot of reverberation. Used carefully in its higher register, it may very well evoke loneliness, emptiness, and fragility. I felt that in some way that could be a good metaphor for our characters’ situation: lost in the snow, their tracks bound to disappear sooner or later. The same goes for the guitar, harpsichord, harp, or any plucked or struck string instrument. But, as prominent as it is in western music, a major inconvenience remains: notes once played don’t sustain for long, that’s to say once you play a note, it can only fade out and disappear. It came from a strange thought that didn’t make it to the end, if you saw the artwork we used for the soundtrack DLC: I imagined that the cover art for it could be the black and white keys of a keyboard slowly transforming into the cub and the fawn, from left to right - a bit like in the paintings of Rob Gonsalves [It sounds kind of stupid when I explain it, but at that time it was so clear in my head that I went this direction, despite never having really composed specifically for the piano before - I am foremost a guitar player, but I always loved listening to solo piano music. When it comes to writing music, I feel I am automatically attracted to nostalgia, slowness, introspection, and darkness rather than brightness and joy.Ĭhi va piano, va sano (?)While searching for some musical ideas, I saw clearly in my head that the piano needed to be the core of Blanc’s soundtrack. Little by little, the tone of the game became more light-hearted, logically the musical exploration and research I did followed this same path. The mood of the game, the ambiance we wanted to convey, and the kind of stories we wanted to tell changed from time to time. We went through different stages of prototyping a few months after the jam. Silence (or at least the absence of music) needed to be a powerful tool narratively speaking, instead of forcing players into a mood of nothingness and solitude. I already had this very clear idea that a strategic silence in the music at key times could emphasize the characters' loneliness. The game was called “La Piste” at that time (”The Trail” in French), and I think there is one musical track from this very early version of the game that finally made it to the final game. I've always loved the area, so I would've loved to see DR additions.First NotesThe first things I wrote for Blanc trace back to the spring of 2018 when we created the first prototype for the game during a game jam in Québec City. I agree, I think that the DR has been more or less ignored for a while. And if I'm not mistaken, I though Forts of Fortune were supposed to appear at Molten Sands Fortress? Which should have things going on there more often. Sea forts would be very broken/beat up places that live on the edge of a big volcano's eruption radius, so that there are falling rocks every now and then. A Ghost Fleet should have volcanic eruptions during the encounter, that would add another edge of difficulty. They would be turned off for Ashen Winds there's already eruptions going on with that. For the rest, eruptions would play as part of the difficulty, like it always has. Rare would only have to place shrines in those areas. Which is wrong, there are gobs of places you can park without getting hit by an eruption. It's like, isn't that the point of it all? The reason they are saying that is because they believe that shrines/sea forts could never work because of eruption radii. I love the most about that post is the comments saying that the volcanoes should be turned down.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |