#game audio
FINDING A TONE THAT ISN’T
Our tactical roadtripper, TRUNDL.buddy and the Ghostly Wi-filactery, flings you through a gauntlet of environments, each with their own distinct color palette and style. Between each one, you’ll guide TRUNDL.buddy through decisions, shaping both mind and journey.
IT IS HARD
Early on, I wanted the music to branch alongside the narrative, incorporating different genres to reflect the changing personality of the player’s character. Violent or aggressive choices might transition to death metal or the militaristic styling of Battlestar Galactica. Pacifistic choices might swing more acoustic, Appalachian. Aside from the obvious challenges of producing such a wide variety of cues for every level in the game, there was another less obvious problem. The baseline song would need a neutral tone.
Creating music without emotion has been incredibly challenging for me. I’ve always felt the two are inextricable. But over the last couple of weeks, I’ve discovered an interesting approach. Percussion and rhythm don’t carry much emotion by themselves, just a sense of energy and movement. I stripped out the melodic instruments entirely; built an underscore with just rhythmic textures and a single (tonic) pitch. When the player takes dramatic action, I comment by introducing melody and harmony – emotion.
Another issue I discovered is how quickly the “mix” fills up in-game; ambient sounds, engine sounds, enemies attacking you, obstacles whizzing by and music all playing at the same time. This buries the ambience completely – wind, insects, animal sounds. Ambience serves almost no gameplay purpose, except to ground you in the world. But having grown up with adventure games like MystandIco, I value these sounds highly and don’t want them lost.
PROBLEM + PROBLEM = SOLUTION
I needed neutral music and I’ve got buried ambience. The answer to both, musical ambience. I’ve incorporated environmental sounds into the rhythmic texture for each level’s backing theme. The music now feels connected to the place it’s scoring, still serves the gameplay, and provides a neutral base that pivots harmonically with the player’s actions. And I don’t have to worry about the mix as much. That, friends, is how I murdered two avian friend-beasts in the most primal way imaginable. I don’t even know where this rock came from… I… hello?
Check out the video you probably already watched for some quick examples!
Soren Laulainen
Music Composer and Sound Designer
sorenlaulainen.com
Hey there! I’m Soren Laulainen, composer and sound designer for TRUNDL.buddy and the Ghostly Wi-filactery. After spending a little over a decade scoring films and webisodes, this is my first foray into interactive music – which, to me, continues to be a relatively nascent and unexplored territory.
TRUNDL.buddy is a deliberately small project with high ambitions, designed small so that the inevitable scope creep doesn’t capsize us. An exercise in creative opportunities borne from constraints. A game which certainly won’t fully realize every creative goal I would love to accomplish – immersion! synesthesia! synchronicity! – but might break new ground all the same.
Finding the “musical soul” of the game is an exciting process. Our character begins life as mindless, expressionless robot, but those eyes are brimming with idiotic bliss: the impulse to just drive imbues him with a sort of dogged enthusiasm in spite of his empty mind. And what better way to capture both a lack and extreme intensity of emotion than with Vocaloids?
Vocaloids are synthetic pop singers who have become very popular in Japan. You write lyrics and melodies and the Vocaloid software synthesizes vocals automatically. I’ll be using them for the main theme in TRUNDL.buddy, which we return to a few times throughout the game. My goal is to have them convey parts of the narrative and adapt to various choices the player makes throughout the game. Here’s one of my first music sketches with them.
Soren Laulainen
Music Composer and Sound Designer
sorenlaulainen.com
NEXT WEEK! My Telestians soundtrack will be released. I collectively spent 10 months composing this expansive score from 2020-21. I’m so proud of this soundtrack. I poured my heart and soul into every second of it. I can’t wait for you all to hear it!
Stay tuned!
Play early access on Steam now: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1869510/Telestians/
