The Prototyping phase of Chime was great. I think fondly of my time in “the lab” (Zoe Mode’s prototyping department), working in the pinnacle of Zoe Towers, harnessing lightning and cosmic rays, surrounded by test tubes and half built doomsday devices … A very small team of brilliant mad professors.

It was clear that having a range of interesting music in Chime might be crucial if it is to succeed. One of my objectives was to find out what will musically work with the game and why. I had to try out as many music styles as possible, and experiment with how the musical components could be handled by the game, and controlled by the player.

Time was extremely tight, so I ended up using a bunch of my existing compositions as test material, as I could easily chop them up and separate the components very fast. It was a lot of fun. I was particularly keen to try music based on live instruments, as electronic music has historically tended to dominate puzzle games, and I saw no reason why other styles should not get in on the action. The prototype had levels with orchestral, funk, reggae, world music and electronic styles.

Conclusions:

Style:

Unsurprisingly the live musical styles worked very well, and even added a refreshing quality to the puzzle game experience. It is great that the music donated for the final game encompasses both live and electronic styles! And it’s cool to know we have something that will support almost any music in the future. By design, it’s very musically inclusive.

Space:

The music is largely under the control of the player, so quite random things happen, and surprisingly beautiful melodies occur. We found using tracks with plenty of space in the music allowed the player to play and manipulate the music without becoming overwhelmed by sounds … although occasional sections of chaos work great!

Structure:

If the music stays the same it drives you crazy! But when the music develops as the level progresses, there is a terrific sense of reward and interactivity. Music based on grooves and riffs work well because it forms a strong base for more random elements, and tolerates repetition well.

Prototyping the musical systems of this game was a great experience. It’s unusual to work on a idea that’s mainly driven by music and hearing the results show great potential for games in the future.

Joe Hogan – Lead Audio Engineer