Audio Design and Music Demos

EDIT: This blog post once had links to vocaroo tracks, but it looks like those links have expired, so you can no longer listen to the test tracks that were made for this game.

It’s been two weeks since the last update, so I’d like to post something cool to let you know that this project is still alive.

I was fortunate enough to be contacted by a very talented musician who has produced some tracks that closely match my ideas for the game’s soundtrack. The idea is that we only hear one melody during gameplay, but depending on the player’s actions, that melody is altered to sound soothing, unsettling, or outright horrifying. Here are some music samples that, hopefully, convey what I’m talking about:

Peaceful Music: http://vocaroo.com/i/s098sD6upLFc Broken link

Doing-Something-Suspicious Music: http://vocaroo.com/i/s02CZp9YDuH1 Broken link (The same track as above, but edited to sound more creepy)

In addition to using one melody that sounds progressively more disturbing depending on the player’s actions, we might completely change to a new track once the player has been spotted, or has limited time to perform an urgent task.

Endangered Music: http://vocaroo.com/i/s07ot5FVcQYR Broken link (Too dramatic? Better suited for a battle in a Final Fantasy game?)

Here’s another track that I feel would be right at home during an especially creepy moment; when Yandere-chan opens an envelope that says “I know what you did”, or when Yandere-chan or has a subtley threatening conversation with a girl, or when she arranges pictures of Senpai-kun in her room. It might also be appropriate gameplay background music for certain situations, such as trespassing in the school after midnight.

Creepy Music: http://vocaroo.com/i/s0IdrphU4lHH Broken link

The last track I’d like to share with you is a “concept” track created by another musician. It’s not a track that would actually appear in the game, this track is only meant to demonstrates how the tone of the music might change throughout gameplay depending on the player’s actions. Be sure to listen to it all the way through, because it changes significantly after the halfway point.

Concept Demo: http://vocaroo.com/i/s0NsQzy1OYXt Broken link

What kind of soundtrack do you think the game should have? A generic slice-of-life high-school anime soundtrack, with “disturbing” and “horrifying” versions of each track, depending on the player’s actions? Or something else entirely?