Thursday, December 1, 2011

Music Inspired By (And Maybe For?) Gunpoint



So this guy is making this indie game called Gunpoint and it looks really awesome. So much so that I was inspired to make some music.

I apologize if you're looking for fully developed tracks - these aren't even complete game loops. But there are some pretty cool musical ideas here. The overall style is a mixture of film score and electronic grooves (my favourite things), skewed towards a sort of quirky neo-noire.



The first two tracks here are for mission briefings and menus, then it gets increasingly dark and groovy, with the "Casing the Joint" set for patrolling exteriors, and "Infiltration" loops for dodging security guards and moving around within secure buildings. The exterior music is a little more moody and varied, while the infiltration tracks have an almost constant, oppressive bassline to amp up the tension (you're on their turf after all). "Combat Stingers" would be musical sound effects for the incredibly brief moments where you take out a guard or they take you down. "Crosslink" is the special mode where you can rewire the buidling's security (and other) features, and as the developer has noted, this is your happy place, so it's a little safer and has a "I'm solving puzzles and getting things done" feel, if I've done my job. "The Escape" would be the track that comes on whenever you've completed your objectives and are, well, escaping.

Here's a video simulating how this stuff could be triggered in game...



(You don't get to some of the better musical moments because it changes so often - I'm not sure if that's a fundamental flaw with the structure of my music and/or the implementation I'm suggesting, or if this is just the developer playing the game and moving faster than your average player would. Might not be possible to tell without playing the game with this in it.)

That was a couple of pretty extreme days of recording to get this done to show off to Gunpoint's creator! Time for sleep.