Friday, December 13, 2019

Composing for a Visual Novel (part 4)


In the early spring, I plan to launch a Kickstarter campaign to raise money for the completion of the Star Legation. I will be releasing a finished demo by this time, which will include music throughout. However, one of my intended stretch goals for the Kickstarter is voice acting! If I am able to raise the extra funding for that, I can shift my sound design into a more cinematic approach. Having audible voice parts for every line a character speaks would be amazing, and this would feel like a choose-your-own adventure movie. I would change the looping background music to fade in and out at certain moments for emphasis, but wouldn't keep it running throughout. However, voice acting is expensive and the script for the Star Legation is quite large (there are lots of branching paths), so it might be an unattainable goal. In the meantime, I'm designing the visual novel to have music throughout, and I'm doing my best to keep the music unobstrusive and atmospheric. Below is a link to a short youtube video showing screenshots with short music clips from the game. 


In closing, I'd like to share a quote from the game's character artist, John Fell, who played the first 2 chapters of my demo. Note his comment about music...hopefully this means I'm on the right “track” with things! ;)

“The dialog is snappy and you've totally been able to keep the reading flow at a good pace. It never feels like a slog. The way you worked in the questions for Trey's profession/personality was clever.
I really like the main tunes that play as you read. They're distinct but not distracting.
The backgrounds and camera movements/animation look great.
I'm all around impressed as heck!”

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