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Below is a brief interview with Jeremy concerning music and gaming. More info regarding BLP and "JE" can be found at http://www.jerpg.com "What sort of direction did you give the composers?" For Journey's End 3d RPG, because we has 3 different composers whose style of music was fundamentally different (and were working over the internet on a tight schedule), I was pretty open ended about what direction they could take with a particular song. I would simply say, the game needs a song for this area, which is, for example, a "Crystaline Cave" that has been abandoned by civilization for eons. And then David would chug away and come up with something uniquely haunting sounding that would work well. At other times, particularly for the primary composer Scott Zarchy, I would go a little further with particular instructions. For example: "The game needs a dramatic action song for the first time the player battles the unholy seeker of destruction, Ahvat. Make it dramatic, scary, and adrenaline-inducing. Got it?" Heh, so it really depended on whether the song was for a specific event or confrontation in the game (in which I would give rather close direction) or for a general area in the game (in which I would give a rather general overview of what was needed.) But ultimately, (and again primarily due to the internet medium over which we worked), I was very loose with the composers and they definitely excercised their best judgement when creating their particular songs for the role playing game, as they consistently produced well-fitting songs for the occasion at hand that almost always sound great in the game. >"How did you choose these particular people?" Well it's more like how these particular people chose me, really. Since "Journey's End" was Bright Light Production's first game, I sent out a general message on many forums about a search for composers interested in breaking into the gaming industry by composing fantasy music for a startup company's RPG. Heh, and three people (actually four, but the fourth proved obviously undedicated to the task and soon dropped) replied and luckily for "Journey's End" they were all exceptionally talented and attuned to the type of music the game warranted. >"Since you're not a musician, what's the most difficult thing about communicating your ideas to musicians?" There were no 'communication' problems when I'd assign pieces (create a cave-dungeon musical piece that evokes wetness and dank-ness in the player's mind), as I used layman's terms and qualitative descriptions to give the musicians an idea of what would fit well (as I was creating the 3d environments). But slight problems did ocur on the "feedback" side when I'd need to tell the musician to change something in a particular song. As you say, since I'm no musician, and can't tell a C-note from an F-note (huh?), I'd have to resort to the best qualitative descriptions I could muster of what I had in mind (i.e. make the piece overall a little more imposing...) And the musicians would have to interpret those non-musical descriptions into actual quantitative musical changes. And from what the end results were, they did a damn fine job at it too. >"What's the easiest thing about working with musicians?" Musicians generally are very into "mood" and "tone" so when I would describe a scene's "feelings" they could usually pretty easily translate that into a musical composition (to evoke such "feelings".) It's really great being able to say, this particular scene needs to have a sense of majesty and adventurous pomp, and then the musician would be able to interpret what I mean, and come up with a song that represented those qualitative feelings I had in mind. >"What future projects does BLP have?" BLP is not satisfied with just creating a massive adventure in a medivil fantasy world. Instead, we're heading to the stars-- the far future of mankind, with a gameplay dynamic that's simply incredible. BLP's next project, thus, is a multiplayer space combat game that emphasizes both space combat (with starfighters and capital-flagships), and first-person shooter foot soldier combat aboard space stations--- SIMULTANEOUSLY! These two-theatre dynamic has never been really tapped into before, and from our tests thus far (we're about 33% complete as of October), the gameplay moments it offers are nuggets of pure fun that you can't find anywhere else. There's nothing like being a puny foot soldier and watching a capital ship battle it out with starfighters all from the safety of your space station window. Or being an APC pilot with your 3d cockpit, dodging laser blasts from both space station defenses and foot soldiers, heading for the enemy's docking bay to unload your cargo of troopers to destroy the enemy's space station. Really, it's quite and incredible team-oriented multiplayer combat game. And the story and music that the game has are of a type unlike any other before. A powerful, facist [almost nazi-esque] human government versus exiled demi-humans who have returned with mysterious technology. There's no "right" side in this complicated universe--- and in multiplay it's up to the player to choose which side of the overall war he'll participate in. It'll be the "Halo" that never was.. [for the PC] *grin* Take care now, gamers! See you in my elite starfighter as I pound your capital ship into submission while your foot soldier team mates watch from the massive space station! Add this page to your favorite Social Bookmarking websites          Add your comment
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