So, AGDQ was fantastic this year! Did it still let me some time to work? Actually, yes! I have one more room, and a little section from the lobby. Let's start with this one!
Bar
There's a bar in the corner of the lobby. There's not much there, it's just a little place with some weird drinks and a bartender. I still wanted it to be musically separated from the lobby, while still being close to it. I thus decided to use mostly percussions, and a discrete piano. Each drink is represented by another percussion, and the bartender has a short organ solo.
https://vocaroo.com/i/s1kd5DJNdfaw
Ball room
After the lobby, the player has access to several rooms, including this one. I wanted to do this one because it has very different style from the lobby. While the music should globally be jazz swing, each room should have its own personality. The ball room, a large and spectacular place, has this sort of slow rock kind of like a spy movie theme. I'm pretty happy with the result:
https://vocaroo.com/i/s0d1gDlUh3u6
However, for the additional instruments, I changed my initial plan. I previously stated that I wanted each instrument to remain so that they all play together in the end. The idea is that the more you observe a room, the more you appreciate its whole. I composed this room this way, but I ended up with the same issues I had with the lobby: it quickly become too loud and confusing. See, there is 5 observable element in the room. Technically, adding 5 instruments is doable, but the problem comes from the fact that the player must clearly hear each one! If they click somewhere and are not able to detect the instrument because the others one are too loud, it would break their experience. So, each instrument must be clearly distinct from the others… But they can't all take the lead, otherwise they will just fight each other and create nothing but a musical mess!
So after several attempts, I decided that additional instruments should be heard separately, only when their section is read. This way they can all create different melodies, and don't have to worry about their volume! I think I will still keep the idea of keeping an instrument active after it has been looked: it works great in the lobby. I hope it won't be too confusing.
Anyway, now that I have two room, I can experiment the transition between them. Simply fading from one to another might not sound very pleasant. This is why I added plenty of corridors and vestibules in the manor! I will work on that next week.