Ahoy, cosmic debtors! The fish are chasing me, and they're humming a new tune. It's FISH FEAR ME Friday!
This week: Progress updates on the controller support update and the free WOMEN WANT ME expansion!
Controller Progress Update
I'm excited to report that the controller support update is nearly complete!! Visiting programmer Noé Charron and I have been working together today to start putting together the finishing touches and hammer out the last couple bugs.
Look! Controller button prompts and everything!!
This has taken a fair bit of work because a certain someone (me) didn't listen when a certain someone else (literally everybody I talked to) told me to build out this UI with controllers in mind in the first place. Retrofitting it is a lot more work than just doing it right the first time, it turns out!! Lesson learned!!!
Anyways, the controller update should be ready for beta testing soon, and ready for public consumption soon after! Thank you all for your patience!
WOMEN WANT ME Progress Update
Something very key to FISH FEAR ME's charm, in my opinion, is its use of live instrumentation and singers in its music tracks. I've talked a lot about the upcoming new track, KINGFISHER, over the past few weeks -- let's talk a little about what it takes to put together a track like this!
Above: legendary bassist Audrey Zee Whitesides absolutely shredding.
The first step of the process is between me and Josie Brechner, the project's composer, where we hammer out the themes and vibes of the track. This is usually a meeting where I ask "can we have it be, like, sorta witch rock, but also kinda power metal, but also it's all medieval themed so there's a lute? Here's a bunch of lore on the character this song's about. Could we incorporate this, somehow? And also maybe a monastic style melody, but it's still rock?" and Josie miraculously interprets this as a coherent train of thought. Then, I write up some lyrics and send them over, she works out a melody, and the work begins in proper!
The track then goes through a ton of iterations as we both play with various ideas. What if the lyrics were in iambic pentameter? What if we added a chorus here? What if there was an organ playing in the background at points? Once the structure of the song is solid and we're both happy with it, Josie's able to bring live musicians into the studio to make the piece, well, sing.
Above: dloot, the vocalist for the FISH FEAR ME theme, returns to the studio for KINGFISHER.
Once the live sessions have been completed, all that's left is final mixing and polish! Much like the FISH FEAR ME theme, this song has an instrumental version that plays during gameplay and a vocal version that plays during special in-game circumstances; this is the part of the process where both pieces are finalized at once. Both pieces are put in-game, and the expansion gets one step closer to completion!
Question of the Week
What's a video game song that you never get tired of listening to?
Happy fishing,
Heather Flowers