Ignosco wrote:With the soundtrack, how closely did you collaborate with EVO for it? ... Are there some tracks that you give more guidance for than others? ... (For example, do you describe the scene you want to music to represent, or the emotion, instrumentation, style etc, or do you give them the script to read etc etc)
Probably my advantage in this is that I was composing music myself (I just dropped out of it), so it's very uncomplicated for me to tell Evo/Renesis what I want and he will usually understand what I mean.
For GR, I made a selection of songs that he has already done, and then we sat down and tweaked them, replacing instruments, setting the tempo, adding this, removing that. I loved the mellow trancy atmosphere of those, and that's why I wanted them for the R-Type part of GR - which is basically a soundtrack within a soundtrack, to further separate that part from G- and F-Type.
For the two other parts, it was again music that was composed, that I liked the atmosphere of - and we then tailored it to fit. Some tracks were also specifically composed for GR, and of course, the last part of the story had a completely different approach to background sound, that was also done to fit as good as we could.
Generally though, it's the atmosphere I look for - then we try to make the instruments harmonize to give it a coherent feel (easiest way is to use the same instruments in all songs, but that can quickly feel cheapish). In GR, I wanted to use those trance tracks because it was going to be a lot of reading, and apart from a very few situations, I didn't really want the music to be situation-based, representing or underlining the various moods - the nature of trance music fits very well, at least with R-Type, I wanted to isolate the player, and the music to support the reading atmosphere. So we made it very soft and kind of "flowing". It's probably hard to explain, but the good thing is Evo knew what I meant and it came out juts like that.
So,... some tracks I leave for the musician to make, some I want to be there when they are created.
As for the other question, no Evo doesn't read the script, he isn't really into that. But it doesn't matter, since we understand each other very well and he will create the sound that I want - crucially, I can come over and we can sit over the notes and tweak the important parts of the songs. I guess as every musician he has an abstract feel for a certain mood and I really like the depth of the sound he creates for his songs.
So if anything, it's the abstract emotion that I talk to him about - usually I phone him and we talk - the instruments and script, or particular scenes are not realy described. Often he doesn't know what the game is about - I bet you anything he hasn't played O3, IT and not even GR.
Ignosco wrote:Actually, that's another question... is there a reason for limiting the number of save slots for your games (particularly for GR and O3)?
No, this is purely a style thing in GR and EbG (9 instead of 10, because the two digit number would stand out). In GR, it's also due to the space - I didn't want multipage saves and thumbnails, to go with the simple nature of the menu and more or less the game as a whole.
For O3, the situation is the same, but slighlty different. There are style concerns, yes,...
but while there are only 3 names of save games (Part 0, 1 and 2), in 5 places in the game, if you save them in that specific spot, the names of the 5 special save names will form the "motto" of Ori's love.