What up, peeps!
It's been a while since we talked audio, hasn't it? Let's change that 🎶
Have a listen to what our Audio Team has been working on: forest music!
This is what you can expect to hear while walking in the forests of Profane.
They have been working on this with Moonsailor, a video game music and audio studio.
A lot of thought is put into creating pieces like this: inspirations, feelings, or maybe even gameplay we want to evoke when players listen to it.
Marlon, our Head of Audio, wants forests to transmit a mysterious atmosphere and, depending on their density, might even bring a labyrinth-like feeling. So he wanted some parts to play in an undefined order and remain 'unfinished,' so players are left feeling that something is missing. As if they can only see some words while trying to grasp a complete sentence. This is a technique used to encourage players to explore more: we want the players to feel like there's more to what they've already seen.
We also took this opportunity to add more of what you can expect to hear from Profane's music as a whole, which is exotic instruments and dynamic music structures.
Moonsailor also played a big part in this composition, bringing inspiration from travels their staff did, more specifically to a music festival from the city of Kuching, on the Indonesian side of Borneo island. They used this as inspiration to bring the Portinus feeling to what you hear. This becomes even more powerful because they can connect to this piece on an emotional level, adding a lot of depth to the music of the Semisus region they are currently working on.
To find the right sounds that really expressed what they were aiming for in this music, Moonsailor even got to use seashells as part of creative extrapolation, which also turned out to be their most complex challenge because of how limited their musical notes can be. Violins and cellos were added to increment all this and add more substance to these sounds, which turned out incredible!
To find the base structure of the music, Moonsailor used the Indonesian gamelan (if you're interested in more about this, we really recommend you google it!)
Marlon shared that what would really hit the mark for him would be to know that players feel immersed in an intriguing and alien environment, with a fresh cultural touch and a sense of wonder and adventure when listening to this music.
