Dear Scholars,
Those of you who are members of our Discord server community may have noticed I am very passionate and enthusiastic about music in video games as it's my favourite genre of music (if "genre" is even an appropriate term here), which always accompanies me when I work, evoking vivid memories from my beloved game series and inspiring me in my own creations. Naturally, I wanted Selenwald live up to my auditory standards and have a memorable soundtrack that greatly fits the game's atmosphere.
First Pieces
It all started back in 2021 when I met Markus Zierhofer - a composer and one of the people behind Audio Creatures. I immediately knew he would be a great fit for the project as he quickly understood the vibe I was after and was excited about the references I suggested. Not much time passed before he began working on the first two pieces - an exploration track and a combat track, both of which he nailed.
The first track required quite some iterations before it took its final form but we eventually found the sweet spot. The combat one though, that was quite a different story! I was in a bus when Markus sent me the first draft version but I've left my earphones at home so I couldn't check it out just yet. I carried on, unaware of what awaits me. When I finally returned home and played it I immediately got goosebumps. A moment later I realized I'm smiling ear to ear. What was to be just the first draft, felt like a masterpiece to me - exactly what I wanted. Here's my original reaction:
Thus, Selenwald received its first tracks to be used in game. There was a small problem though. Most of the in-game music should have some things in common to ensure consistence. Something to connect them - a common motif to be explored in various moods and colours in the upcoming tracks. The main theme was needed to provide this definitive central point. However, this wasn't a priority for the time being.
Main Theme
Two years later when I spoke to Markus at Game Industry Conference here in Poznań, he mentioned he's looking for new pieces to compose because he's preparing to do some live recordings soon. I thought it would indeed be a good moment to finally tackle that main theme as I even—coincidentally—had been gathering some references for it in the past couple of weeks.
However, there was a slight misunderstanding..
I knew Markus owns and plays lots of instruments himself so I thought he simply wanted to replace some of the usual sample-based virtual instruments with the recordings of him playing (at least for those parts that are played by a small amount of instruments at once). I did not originally realize what he meant was an actual orchestra.
He and his colleagues at Audio Creatures together with German Film Orchestra Babelsberg gathered a bunch of indie studios and organized a consolidated recording session for many tracks at once. This made the whole thing surprisingly affordable and manageable. Then, after some waiting, the mixing and mastering were done and Selenwald had what most indie developers believe to be an unreachable dream - an epic main theme played by a live orchestra. In the end Markus have proven some people—including me—wrong!
Also, the initiative—which they dubbed Live Score Berlin—turned out to be so good they're making it into a recurring event and the submissions for this year's edition are closing soon. I hope some other fellow indie developers find as much value in it as I did.
But enough talking - here it is. Make sure to listen it until the very end. I hope you like it!
I'd tell you of everything that inspired this theme but actually.. why don't you tell me instead? Can you guess which three musical pieces influenced Selenwald's theme the most? Maybe you can even catch some secondary inspirations? Give it a try in the comments below or over at the Discord server.
And here is a short clip from the recording session itself:
The Struggles
As a final note, I'd like to give you the update on the matters I tackled in the last entry - particularly my financial situation.
First of all—once more—a big thank you to everybody who supported me financially over at Ko-fi. The amount of support has far surpassed my expectations and helped a great deal.
The bad news is that the situation still hasn't gotten much better. I occasionally get a bit of paid freelancing work to get by, but I still haven't found anything more stable as the talks with studios I discuss possible contracts with are taking forever. Thus, I'm partly living off of money borrowed from friends. It is hard to stay productive with the game's development while under such stress of financial insecurity but I'm doing my best to make some progress every day, even if my overall productivity is temporarily much worse than it is in normal circumstances.
If you hesitated the last time and kind of wanted to help but ultimately didn't do it or you read the diary entry so late you weren't sure it's still relevant, I confirm that it still is. I don't offer anything in return yet but if you simply want to help, you can do it here.
Thank you for reading,
Wiktor