Posted October 24, 2022 by ZetaKen
Good day everyone,
Today for this devlog I’ll be posting an interview with the game’s composer Jeff Penny who has provided all the music for The Game of Fourtune.
I’m not just saying this, but I honestly don’t believe that I have a favorite. As an artist, I love getting to try out new musical ideas, and I was able to really get creative with this soundtrack. On almost every single track I tried out some sort of new concept, and it was an absolute blast getting to experiment with them all. I tend to get excited about chances to develop my voice as a composer, and am super grateful to you for allowing me to!
On a similar note, was there a particular track that was more difficult or challenging to make, and if so, what was the reason?
Oh, this one is way easier to answer! It was the main theme, Fortune Favors the Bold. Not because anything about it made it musically difficult, but purely from a psychological perspective. It is likely going to be the first music people hear in the game, the music that is most strongly tied to people’s experience of the game, and was even used in the trailer. So purely because of the insane amount of pressure I put on myself to come up with something that would make people excited to play, it was the most difficult to write.
I don’t believe that you’ve composed for a death game before, did the setting and atmosphere of the game help adjust the style for some of the tracks?
Yeah, this was my first time writing music for the genre and it was a lot of fun! As a composer, I tend to gravitate towards musical extremes. I love making music that is just pure emotion, and this style of game has tons of outlets for that. Especially really over the top, intense textures.
So for the most part my process was to find the emotional core of what needed to be conveyed to the player, and then crank that up to 11.
Were there any inspirations or other pieces of media that you referenced when making any particular tracks that you’d like to share?
Oh absolutely! You had so many great references for me in terms of what you wanted your game to sound like, and it was a blast working with them. I couldn’t possibly name them all because they influenced the music in so many different ways. That being said, I could give one example that came from my own tendencies.
A number of the pieces were conceived of as being related, built upon similar musical ideas, but split across multiple tracks. One example of that kind of pairing was Glimmer of Hope and Weight of Life. The two biggest influences for these pieces were the OST from The Promised Neverland (composer: Takahiro Obata) as well as pretty much everything by Hiroyuki Sawano.
The Promised Neverland soundtrack makes use of these really dramatic shapes. It does an amazing job of mirroring the emotion of the story, and that was something that really inspired me with these two. I wanted to take a lot of that feel (both musical and emotional), and bring those elements to my own work.
Then, Hiroyuki Sawano is just one of my favorite composers ever. His choices of textures always just hit so hard, and I thought that style would be a perfect fit for these tracks in particular. I routinely will find myself listening to his music, hearing a really cool musical idea, and finding ways to incorporate it into my own vocabulary.
If you could go back through all the tracks again, would there be any notable changes that you’d like to make to any ones in particular?
Oh that’s a hard question! As someone who is a massive perfectionist, and is rarely happy with my own work, I feel like I would have to always say yes. As a matter of fact, now that the soundtrack is complete, I’m working my way back through all of the tracks and touching them up so you’ll have some updated versions for the game soon!
In addition, the listening experience of what sounds good within a game, and what sounds good for listening to music isn’t always exactly the same. That’s why I’m also taking the time to arrange some of the music, and mix everything, to create a better listening experience for the complete soundtrack release as well!
Was there a process that you went through when creating or developing the tracks for the game? Did this process change for certain tracks over others?
The process kind of varied a little bit from track to track, but to give a very general overview of the process:
First, you would tell me the details of what music was next in the priority list. What it was supposed to convey in game, any musical references, etc.
Then, I’d think of how that music fit into the bigger picture. If it’s puzzle based music, it could be related to the other puzzle based music. If it’s around a main theme of the game, maybe I wanted to use some musical ideas from another piece I’ve already written. Those sorts of considerations.
Next, I would figure out how to take those elements from the big picture, and work them into the guidelines you laid out for me for the particular track. So maybe you told me how you wanted the track to feel emotionally, and I knew I wanted to use snippets of the main theme in it, as well as textures from some other tracks. So in this step, I would set those rules as the foundation for what I would write.
Finally, it was just a matter of composing, usually checking in with you a couple of times along the way to make sure I was hitting what you were envisioning.
It’s not exactly the most exciting process but I think it worked well for this project.
Last one: If you’ve played the game at all, do you have a favorite character?
Oh, I have many thoughts, but I don’t want to give any spoilers on the off chance someone reads this before playing the game! I’ll just say it’s Kishi, and leave it at that. But really, is that going to surprise anyone? We both have blue hair and play drums.
Currently you can hear a large amount of The Game of Fourtune's music if you just check out the game. But there are a few more tracks that have yet to be heard of for the final game. Please look forward to the full release coming to you early 2023!
If you'd like to know more about Jeff and his work on his other projects. Go to https://jeffpenny.com/. I'd wholeheartedly recommend it!