My simple setup! Yeah I know the speakers are at different angles, don't ask...
Here's a blog entry that was posted on our Worlds Adrift blog on the website on Friday, featuring the composer of the game music.
My name is Murugan Thiruchelvam and I’m the composer for the sexy game that is Worlds Adrift.
I’ve worked with Bossa before on Surgeon Simulator (under the name ‘Black Heron’ with my good friend Leo) and I am Bread. Whilst these games were fun to write for (and I mean fun!), there is something extra special about Worlds.
When I first started talking with Jack (artist) about the music for the game, we mainly discussed what sounds would work in the world of Worlds Adrift. After deciding to try out the route of mixing orchestral and electronic/ambient sounds first, I sat down and looked at the artwork extensively. Artwork for me is hugely inspiring and the artwork for Worlds has been, I would say, the most influential factor for me and my approach to the style of composing for Worlds. The story definitely has played its part - the mystery as to why the world is the way it is, has been in my mind throughout. So after composing a couple of tracks showing the kind of direction I wanted to take the music in, the tracks were shown to the rest of the team and once the green light was given, it was time to plan the full OST.
Talking with the team about the game in more detail helped paint a clearer picture as to what kind of music was needed and also, more importantly when. Worlds Adrift is a MASSIVE game and we didn’t want the music to ever be intrusive, so it was important to have dynamic music and make the soundtrack act as another element ofthe world you’re in. Having moments where the music is almost floating in the background whilst you explore and then contrasting that with music having its bigger, more obvious moment during epic battles with huge ships would make the game much more immersive. When Luke (game designer) first told me about the weather barriers, I could not wait to go and start creating some epic/tense music and really help create that feeling of utter frenzy.
The most fun part of composing for Worlds so far has been creating the palette of sounds and deciding what sounds/instruments belong to the different times of day and different biomes in the world. As usual, I asked to see any artwork Bossa had for the different areas and islands to inspire me - the colours in the artwork especially tend to help start my writing - simply associating a colour with a target mood and writing for that tends to help give me direction. For example, I associated one particular biome at night time with the colour blue. So I then had a think as to what instruments would be best at representing that colour and for me, as incredibly versatile as this instrument obviously is, the piano combined with a dreamy reverb and some thoughtful space between the notes really captured that colour and mood for that biome – and so the piano became the main instrument for the night time of that particular biome.
Kontakt kontakt kontakt...
Listen to a snippet of 'NIGHT AMBIENCE' here.
The main theme has been one of the most difficult parts of writing for this game. Character themes come much more quickly to me – summarising their personality in a motif – but with Worlds, it’s all about the world and the atmosphere and the vastness of it all, so I didn’t want to necessarily write something where the melody is so ‘sing-able’. I wanted to go down a much more subtle route - in fact, my whole approach to the OST has been to be as subtle as possible (apart from when there is full on action such as the weather barriers). I thought it would be cool to write something that evokes more of a feeling of wonder and mystery along with the huge scale that Worlds has to offer with a simple but identifiable melody that could crop up in different forms depending on where you are in the game and at what time. I thought this way you would constantly feel you are part of another world when playing the game, without it becoming repetitive and so on.
Listen to a snippet of 'PIANO' here.
So yeah, hope that gives an idea as to how I go about creating soundtracks. One general thing I’ve noticed that works for me is to never get stuck in the same approach when composing. It can get very uninspiring and repetitive. Also, as a composer, I’m pretty lucky to have explored many different types of genres, such as jazz, dance and classical – it helps approach each project with an open mind and, to be honest, as I’m sure any aspiring composers reading this will have heard many many times, I think it’s quite an essential skill to have.
As you can see, I use Ableton Live as my DAW and I love it! I sometimes master in Logic though but Ableton definitely allows me to be the most creative.
Last but not least, hope you enjoy the soundtrack!
Murugan
Composer
@murucomposer