I’ve found a composer that I like a lot, Matias Puumala. He describes his style as “epic, bombastic and full of huge emotion”. I want my game to be an experience engine, one that generates a lot of tension and difficult situations that will lead to a series of epic triumphs. I want you to get emotionally attached to characters and then watch them get thrashed or murdered or at least know in your heart that is a very realistic possibility. I might use this song for a game trailer:
I can picture the dialog and gameplay flashes already. Fade in to space station crewmember looking out the window into space. Gruff soldier voice gives exposition. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this, it was supposed to be a simple/routine/blah blah blah, but then aliens”. During this the video of the crew member is panning out to reveal a room full of dead bodies. During luls in the music, horrifying one liners play “I don’t want to be here!” “No, please no!” Gameplay flashes on the screen for every other Dududududun. The video rotates to show slimy aliens breaking down the door.
Stepping back and thinking about it, I think I’m looking for a super dark version of the Crypt of the Necrodancer early access trailer.
The music in the trailer and the music for that game was done by Danny Baranowsky, who did the music for Super Meat Boy as well. He clearly likes indie games, it might be possible he would do music for my game if I reach out to him.
And while we’re throwing out dream composers I might as well mention Yoav Landau, a.k.a. The Living Tombstone. I like his poppy approach to dark songs, like the five nights at freddy’s set. He recently released a song that I adore about another game. He always seems to make songs after the fact. I wonder if he’d like to be involved in making an official song for the game.
I’m mostly just day dreaming out loud, but a thing I keep hearing from every successful entrepreneur is to just ask. Worst case they say no. But it’s not crazy. I make an kick starter trailer with the song from Matias, it’s available for $75 on the Unity Asset store. After the first week on kick starter, I can develop a music budget. Show my trailer to Danny and Yoav, and say hey look at my game, would you like to do music for it? Negotiate contracts. I bet they would like music rights, which could lower the up front cost and I don’t really see how that could hurt me. I’m not in the business of selling music.
If everything went perfectly Living Tombstone could do the early access trailer music which I could use again in the end credits, and Danny could do the in game soundtrack. If everything went poorly, well now I have a blog post outlining the musical feel I wanted my game to have and I bet I can find a local musician who would work with me.