Oh, cool. Do you do Lyrics too? What about Jazz?
I am planning do a do a western horror roguelike set in Lousianna.
Where the main character is like this monster/supernatural hunter/troubleshooter as the family business. Going after his brother who went missing on a Job of his own. And he has a six shooter which shoots special magical bullets with different elements. (Which he can make himself in lore, not actually crafted in gameplay.)
I haven't been able to find much in the way of horror jazz though sadly. I have found some jazz, as well as some horror suited 'classical' from the rough period the game takes place in. originally I was going to do straight jazz, till I realized that the best way I could think of to develop my gameplay naturally lead to a more horror like direction... so I decided to shift the idea.
Although, maybe I need to be looking more at blues, as from my noodling around with blues scales, something might be workable there.
Even though it meant some of my original musical inspiration no longer fit. (I actually started my design by listening to music and trying to figure out how to make a game which would fit the coolest public domain music I could find.)
Level wise, I am planning on a swamp, a canyon, a mine, and some like ice and fire caves. (Maybe some sort of corrupted undeground area? not sure.)
I have considered making the swamps into more of a fire swamp and cutting the fire caves as distinct thing. but leaning against.
Already have some previous procgen stuff from an earlier project, so that should pretty much be tweaking, content, and enemies stuff mostly to integrate.
But I would be fine even with just one really good music track. (Could possibly take the same lines and swap instruments. if I want different level or context varations.) Or if I need to I can still use existing good public domain stuff for some sections and original for others. (as I think I have enough I could make it work even without any custom music, but I do know that would bring things to the next level.)
But like I could see moving the melody to the zylophone for an ice level. for instance.
Or maybe go more brassy. (or just throw the line on a melodica.) maybe in the mine or fire level? Not sure what would make it swampy.
For now, I am doing ascii, but like with animations for graphics. Although I do have sprite or other glyph support, so I might look into swapping it out for that. I haven't yet really, Although I did do tests to see if simple graphics would work. I would need to actually narrow down which 1-bit or 2-bit stuff to use.
But a more graphically styled UI. (so not pure text even in ascii version as it's just using letters as tiles rather than like an actual engine different.)
One idea I particularly liked is I found some recordings of some cool 1910s jazz versions of some cool classical songs.
Most notably the hall of the mountain king. (Grieg in generally actually has a lot of really cool works. I tried looking into it myself as I am also a musician, but right now trying to make a jazz version of most of his works would be beyond my current ability.)
I can play and improvise on piano either by sheet music or chords, Melodica, sing Baritone(I did choir for a long time both in college and before.), and have a couple other oddball instruments which I doubt we would want though. (like a kazoo and zylophone. I could see maybe zylophone though?) I don't have time to compose something and actually make the game. but if time allows I might be able to take some sheet music, or a chord sheet and take like an afternoon out of the Jam to record some stuff, either straight or improvised around.
But I found a couple other 'classical' pieces. usually romantic era which I felt like would really fit common roguelike vibes and might translate well.
(I found a couple with different tempo varations but still clearly more orchestral or chamber.)
I already have a basic music system, and some stuff I can build off of from an older project. (A remake of an older jam game.) which should help a bit depending on how things go. I haven't done anything fancy with interactive music before though. Other than like simpler stuff like having varient versions of things based on context. (Like say dropping or swapping instruments.)
I actually considering using a really cool public domain french song I found which has like amazing vibes for something like this. But when I looked up the lyrics I realized they were a poor fit. (Partially since Cajun french is spoken in Louisiana too.) I actually have a friend who is Cajun, who sadly is too busy right now. As I considered trying to get them to maybe sing a folk song which might be fitting or something. Or work on something as they are also a musician.
Sort of was wobbling about that. as maybe it would be too much, and just sticking to instrumentals would be better.
I have been particularly enamored by some of the compositions of french composer Ernest Chausson recently. both his instrumental and his french vocal stuff.
I thought about using this one, but I looked up the actual words and the meaning doesn't really fit, it's the one I mentioned before. I do absolutely love the vibe of the intro though sort of sounds like a haunting tenderness:
https://musopen.org/music/29178-2-melodies-op-36/
Maybe, we could steal the piano line of that intro and give it different words as a starting point? not sure.
Thought it could work as a main menu theme, and maybe at a point in a level? not sure
(I particularly like grave from this link.)
https://musopen.org/music/29096-concerto-for-violin-piano-and-string-quartet-in-...
Viewing post in Hybrid electronic/acoustic music for your game
Very interesting project, I do not usually do lyrics but I'm completely into jazz and the idea of makes more classical idiom into jazz sounds very cool to me. The chausson's pieces are very beautiful, I've listened a lot to the piano string quartet in the past.
Could you send me some pictures of your graphics maybe to see the vibe ? And I'm not sure I understand if you want more cheap tunes or more big orchestra.