Silverstring Media’s Audio Director is gifted with interplanar powers that allow him to find (and live in) the space between genres. Devin is a composer keen to find and explore the places where music, art, and nature intersect. Whether he's applying colour theory to a melody or string theory to a rhythm, Devin creates for the simple joy of creation.
Welcome to the second monthly developer log for Greenhearth Necromancer!
Our monthly devlogs will highlight different aspects of Greenhearth and will share insights into its development. As a semi-idle magical gardening sim, there will be much to share as development continues! This month’s entry is a Q&A with our composer & audio director, Devin Vibert.
As the evening sun sets on the concrete balconies of a brutalist apartment building, the plants that call this place home blow gently in a breeze. The vibe is set, but something is missing… the sound. This scene requires the call of distant birds, the crackle and hum of a radio, and the soft bleeps and bloops of plants levelling up.
Greenhearth Necromancer’s vibes come together thanks to the sonic tapestry that our audio director, Devin, weaves. We stopped him out in the field while he was recording to ask him these questions…
How long have you worked at Silverstring, and what led you to work with sound and music?
I’ve been with Silverstring since the very beginning! Lucas and I've known each other since grade school, and we’ve always been eager to embark on creative initiatives together. Just as I finished my studies in 2012, Lucas approached me with an idea for a serialized fiction project that needed a bit of music – Azrael’s Stop – and I’d say that was when our casual collaborations became official! It doesn’t feel like it’s been that long, and that’s probably a good thing?
My musical career arguably began when I dropped out of university halfway through a history/political science undergraduate program to study music production instead. I’d realized that while I was passionate about history, politics, and philosophy, nothing came close to music. The bigger realization came a few years later, when it occurred to me that not only was video game music a thing that people did, it was also a thing that I had already been doing for years without realizing it.
I sunk many hours of my childhood into RPG Maker 2000, writing my own pieces to then import into the video game I was making. At the time, I remember feeling embarrassed – I thought my friends at school would make fun of me for creating video game music for a game that no one would ever see. Thankfully, a few friends – including Lucas – convinced me at the time that this was actually cool, and so I never quite abandoned it.
How do you first approach making music for a game like Greenhearth Necromancer?
Greenhearth is a game meant to run in the background while you do other things, including actual work. This reality immediately crystallized a key concept for me: the music, like the game itself, needs to be careful how much it asks of the player. I grew up obsessing over the highly melodic looping music of games like Chrono Trigger, and that’s kind of my default setting. In Greenhearth, though, the music can’t be the focal point in the same way; we’re not aiming for high fantasy drama, we need some chill vibes.
The second acknowledgment I’ve made during the writing process for Greenhearth is that there are various ways people work, and the music needs to be open to that. This is why you’ll be able to swap between multiple radio stations during gameplay – some people prefer the stereotypical ‘Lofi Beats’ music while studying or working, but that’s not everyone’s first choice. We also have some ambient, spa-type music, lo-fi jazz, and even fast-paced drum-and-bass-inspired music for those who prefer that style. Obviously, we can’t cater to every niche, but it’s important that the music nods to some of those different experiences.
This isn’t the first time you’ve had to make a large body of music for a game. What were your goals for the Glitchhikers soundtrack?
I’ll be 2-for-2 writing music that almost exclusively comes out of a radio! That does naturally lead me to write short, self-contained songs. Generally, I think my goals with Greenhearth are similar to those I had with Glitchhikers – we’re not dealing with motifs but with vibes, and the overall feeling a song conveys is more important than what’s happening at any particular moment. That makes it a bit easier to write a larger body of music, I think, because I’m not always getting down into the weeds. I can look at a recently-completed song from a 1,000-foot perspective, say “the vibe is good”, and move on with my life!
How does the music on Greenhearth compare and contrast with your prior work on Glitchhikers?
Sonically, Greenhearth’s music is warm, familiar and present, while Glitchhikers’ music is generally cold, indistinct, and distant. The main difference with Glitchhikers, I think, is that I was pushing for unexpected and unsettling sounds; I wanted weird and haunting things present in the music. With Greenhearth, conversely, I’ve adopted more of a ‘No Surprises’ doctrine. The music should be interesting, but it shouldn’t creep you out. You’re raising a cozy balcony garden, not staring at the stars above, contemplating the mysteries of life and death.
Since you're producing a wide variety of music for Greenhearth, is there a genre, instrument, or production method you're excited to explore?
Yes! My first instrument is the piano, but I love drumming. One of the radio stations you can listen to in Greenhearth is inspired by early 2000s drum ‘n bass/jungle music; not only have I used this as an excuse to get back into drumming, I’ve also been (slowly and clumsily) learning how to play and process breakbeats, and just generally drum and do fun rhythm stuff across unfamiliar genres.
How does the music tie into the themes of Greenheath Necromancer?
Greenhearth is all about providing the player with the space to do things their way. The game, of course, touches on heavier themes of grief and community, but the lived experience of a player is a series of routines. The music is ever-present but unassuming; it’s meant to be there as a companion to you while you fulfil these routines and ponder these questions and care for your garden to your liking; it’s explicitly not there to do anything else. So in a certain sense, it reinforces the themes of the game by staying the heck out of the way!
What are your steps for creating a song for Greenhearth?
Unlike with most other projects I’ve worked on, Greenhearth songs start with a hook! I’ll spend time fiddling with various software synth presets until I find a little melody, timbre, or rhythm that speaks to me, and then everything comes naturally from that. Many times, I’m not even sure which of the radio stations I’m actually writing for until I start fleshing out the music a bit further; then I see the overall shape it’s taking and decide “this is definitely headed in a lo-fi jazz direction.” As per my ‘No Surprises’ doctrine, a lot of the music ends up being 2-3 minutes of interesting variations on one simple musical idea.
While music is an integral part of Greenhearth Necromancer, the sound design has its place too. How do you design sound for an idle game?
An idle game always wants you to come back to it. Greenhearth is no different, but our game is a companion, not an adversary! We want the player to come back when they’re good and ready, and no sooner. We’ve endeavoured to avoid any situation where the game exerts undue pressure on the player to check in, and that effort extends to sound design. We’re working on a way to allow players to specify which sounds “push through” even when the game window is inactive. That way, players who want to know the instant their favourite plant is thirsty can have a little audio cue, while players who’d rather focus on writing their term paper can suppress it. I think that sort of thing really empowers a player to engage with the game on their terms, not the game’s terms.
What’s your method for creating sound effects that are diegetic vs non-diegetic?
In my mind, diegetic sounds are more straightforward to create because there’s always some element of literality to it. You look at or picture an object, and ask yourself, “How does that object sound when I manipulate it?” Sometimes getting the right sound is complicated, but you at least know the question you’re trying to answer, and a lot of the fun comes in trying to cobble something together that makes sense.
Non-diegetic sounds can be trickier because there’s some inherent metaphorical quality to them. Yeah, you’re clicking a UI element that looks vaguely wooden or whatever, but it doesn’t actually occupy any physical space. “What does it sound like” becomes more of a question of themes and aesthetics rather than a natural consequence of the object’s properties or function. Don’t get me wrong, I like both, they’re just different challenges!
Are there any game (or other) soundtracks that are inspiring your work on Greenhearth?
The soundtrack to Unreal Tournament (1999) has been on rotation, especially as I work on the faster-paced DnB/jungle-inspired music you’ll find on one radio station in the game.
For the more lo-fi, chill-hop side of things, the entire Coffee Talk OST (2020) is impeccable. I cannot recommend the game or soundtrack enough for those rainy-day-in-cascadia coffeehouse vibes.
What’s on your current playlist?
Well, you asked! I have one megaplaylist with all the songs I’ve been listening to during the current calendar year. My music taste is, in a word, eclectic. I have rolled 7 on a d10, and that is how many recently played songs I will pick from it ^_^
Borislav Slavov - I Want To Live (instrumental)
Chappell Roan - Kaleidoscope
Glass Beams - One Raga to a Disco Beat (cover)
Louis Cole ft. Metropole Orkest - Things Will Fall Apart
Meute - You and Me (cover)
Mutemath - Achilles Heel
Radiohead - Packt Like Sardines in a Crushd Tin Box
Do you have a favourite sound and/or song you want to share with the community?
Here’s a fun sound! This is several variations on the sound you hear in-game when you send a dead plant to the composter. Who’s that little critter you hear gurgling at the end? Is it a plant? Is it a monster? Is it an unseemly neighbour? You’ll have to play to find out.
I’ll follow that up with Pollen Motes, one of our lo-fi jazz pieces. This is a perfect example of a song that started with a riff – in this case, the bass melody! I hope you enjoy it.
Thanks to our Audio Director for this great look at the early progress of Greenhearth Necromancer! If you don’t want to miss updates about the game, subscribe to our newsletter and wishlist the game on Steam!