Welcome to my first Aground Zero Dev Log on how I designed the latest track of Floor 5 - Communications (for video game Aground Zero)

I really enjoy some devlogs and do not feel that music is highlighted or valued as much in games anymore.

My direction for this piece was that it should be reminiscent of “The Blue Marble”  from the Aground Deluxe Original Soundtrack

https://chasebethea.bandcamp.com/track/the-blue-marble-2

The hardest thing I’ve been learning the past several years as a video game composer is to write better than myself. However, many walks have opened my mind to ideas when I listen to music I composed before on those walks.

It was in those moments that I discovered the quickest and easier way to incorporate the “Blue Marble” was to

1. Use music stems of my previous works

2. Use the same synth, if I could, with the MIDI information so that I could transpose the melody quickly.

Once I did this it became a lot easier to have a building block. That’s what you hear here (Watch both videos to compare)

It wasn’t until (2:00) [Listen here---->https://chasebethea.bandcamp.com/track/up-with-down-without] that I discovered the theme is related to communications. Since this is the focus of the area it seemed fitting. There are nuances of communication within the piece and I felt this was brilliant.

Players would appreciate the multiple musical layers of things happening. The callback to the bombardment mixed with the sounds of communication.

Every sound especially around (0:25 - 0:47) [https://chasebethea.bandcamp.com/track/up-with-down-without] exhibits a sonic theme of continuous devastation with the booming drums and the synth texture rhythms. Literally every synth edition movement is a communication reference to the scenes and tasks in the game.

View video below to see the meteor falling and how I got the inspiration to correlate to the booming drums

Although I had some revisions, I took a week to break away in between each revision to cleanse my ears to be sure I would achieve the fervor the player would feel. I was asked to increase the tempo, which is a composing technique that almost always works, but I did something else too. I thought I would have to add more sounds to give the feeling of euphoria and to be transpicuous. I did not think I could make it more exciting.

My belief was that by this (1:54) [https://chasebethea.bandcamp.com/track/up-with-down-without] the track was already in a happy place even though it was a slower tempo. The player just spent several floors deep and who knows how many hours battling wyrms, bots  bats and who knows what else. You can hear this at this (timestamp) it just takes some optimism .

So for this by 3:10 [https://chasebethea.bandcamp.com/track/up-with-down-without] for the freedom feeling after the tempo was revised I played three happy chords but I got stuck.

Then, I decided what if I took a little bit of the drums from the previous places of the track to remind the player of other sections of the music. Even though it's dynamic and tied to specific player actions, more on that later.

However, this then led me to tying the opening synth to the beginning so that when it loops there is some cohesion. Finally by this time I felt a proper groove and designed a transition that would glue it together. It’s still unconventional but in juxtaposition it definitely feels like Aground sonically which I think the player will appreciate most.

Player cohesion is very important even if it’s subtle. It’s a subconscious puzzle that occurs and if anything feels off the immersion is broken. These are not normal loops that most game developers throw in, these are meticulously designed cognizant music pieces that are structured for the player to comfortably enjoy for hours as they craft, deconstruct and more importantly progress in the game. Cohesively even with the dynamic sections the Floor 5 music piece does this regardless but also functions as game mechanic in a metastatic form.

Custom music matters. Don’t underestimate it.

Until then, the Aground Zero Original Soundtrack is available for pre-order

https://chasebethea.bandcamp.com/album/aground-zero-original-soundtrack

Follow on Spotify and add some of my work to your VGM Playlist - https://open.spotify.com/artist/4mU9ci0mlYOPZIHHdRqs2g?si=oBuGpqa3Rp6AWjGPHAxUHQ

License tracks for your game

Thanks for reading. Keep it here for the next one.

Happy Developing