Dear Travellers,
How does it feel to travel the road? What is it like to take a turning from the beaten path? Well-worn tracks bear the shape of familiar behaviours, but making new tracks brings us to the present moment, releasing new energy for fresh adventures... Such choices in these times are, for many of us, flights of fantasy, and today we hope to keep those flights aloft with the help of some music from Book of Travels. Whether you’re home-bound, locked down, or on the road, we hope you get some time to listen to them and let us know what you think...
Different moods for different journeys
The title 'Book of Travels' stuck because it so clearly places journeying as the heart of the game, and so it’s vital that these journeys are rich in mood and ambience, and here music plays a huge part, creating not just mood but depth and variety. Lead Sound Designer Josef Tuule explains: “These two pieces are meant to be companions for different kinds of areas in the game. ‘The Elden Road’ offers the comfy vibe of walking a path that others have walked many times before. By contrast, ‘The Weaving Wilds’ describes the kind of terrain we think of as an off-shoot - where culture and tonality may differ from your normal path. The player should feel they have progressed into a new area, hence the expression is more vivid.”
Instruments from the East recorded live
Music in Book of Travels has many different roles to play in the game, as well as being present as a traditional game score, it will be performed by the inhabitants of Braided Shore themselves. All scored pieces are composed and produced by Josef Tuulse and Retro Family, who comprise Ulf Wahlgren, Jokke Pettersson and Alfred Andersson. The band has a long relationship with the studio and is responsible for the unique sound of the Shelter Games series. Ulf Wahlgren attributes much of that style to the band’s method of recording live performance: “We play all of the music and instruments live, nothing is programmed or fixed, and that makes the music come alive within the game.”
Retro Family play instruments from around the world, and for this soundtrack combine the oud, flute, darbuka, saz and bass with hand percussion.
“The soundtrack takes influences from artists in Egypt, Turkey, Greece,” says Ulf, “A new instrument to us is the oud, an Arabic string instrument, which reminds me of a lute. It has no frets on the neck, so it slides beautifully between notes, and we use a fretless bass to blend with that.”
Just as the game design takes inspiration from many sources, so does the sound design. Ulf and the band look to “classic adventure and RPG games, classical Ottoman music and a wide variety of traditional music from Armenia, Greece, Turkey and Iran to name a few.” As with all things Book of Travels, the aim is to take these most excellent ingredients to make something fresh and exciting. As Ulf says, “We want the player to feel that a new world is awaiting them, a world, mayhaps, that they have not experienced before.”
Celebrating music in our games
To hear more of Retro Family’s soundtracks and watch them play live, check their Youtube channel. You can also follow their Instagram where they post pics and the occasional musical video clips.
This week we are also celebrating Retro Family’s score for Shelter Games as we head towards the release of Shelter 3. Check the post here and get a free soundtrack DLC of Shelter 2 by joining our Shelter newsletter here.
We’re super glad to be sharing this music with you and we can’t wait to share more lovely things as the game gets closer to completion this year. In the meantime, please let us know your thoughts right here in the comments… What music do you like to travel to?? What other games have you enjoyed journeying in? If travel’s your thing, there’s a whole channel dedicated to just that in our Discord. We'd love to see you there.
Best Wishes – and stay safe,
Helen and the Book of Travels dev team x
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1152340/Book_of_Travels/
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The T in TMO signals an alternative to the more common industry standard MMORPG (Massive Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game) putting 'tiny' in the place of 'massive'. That means fewer meetings, which we think means more magic... Read more here: What is a TMORPG?!
Revealing the Early Access World
Later this year Book of Travels will be available for Early Access on Steam. In Chapter Zero parts of the Braided Shore will be open, and among the places to visit is the gem of the region – the city of Kasa. Read more here.
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Join our super friendly Discord to exchange ideas on all things Book of Travels as well as art, games and books. Join here.