Musical Direction
This week we're having a look (or listen) to the audio in Tears of Avia. We work with Andrew Kim who has been producing all of the sounds and music in the game. The musical direction we've been taking was to create an emotional soundtrack that reflects the slightly tragic nature of the story.
The story revolves around Dulantine, a mage who saved the world hundreds of years ago by freezing an entire invasion force with a powerful spell. However, the love of his life also got caught up in this spell and now he's trying to find a way to get her back.
The title screen music reflects the general mood of the game, the feelings and thoughts of Dulantine as he lives with feelings of guilt, loneliness and regret.
Our in-game music is built around the environments and the encounters you experience. For instance, the music in the mine has elements that reflect the environment you're in, but also has a steady non disruptive pace. The game is all about carefully considering moves and executing them according to your plan, so it makes sense that the music is paced in such a way too.
With our boss encounters we continue this theme, bringing a little more intensity than normal game play but also still maintaining steady pacing.
The music for Tears of Avia draws inspiration from the classic era of 16-bit role playing games, but with high-quality instruments that brings the music into the modern era. The soundtrack is primarily orchestral in nature, and covers a wide range of moods, from delicate piano/violin tracks, to raucous full-orchestra epics.
Throughout the development of Tears of Avia, Andrew has been live-streaming the music production on
Twitch, (check it out here) so feel free to stop by and check out the progress.
Sound production
The goal for the sound design in Tears of Avia is to create an immersive ambience, punctuated by vibrant, impactful sounds. Sound effects are created by combining realistic sounds with fantastical sounds to create a magical soundscape that is grounded in reality. Sword impacts and magic spells sound satisfying, making each tactical decision a rewarding experience. Even details such as tweeting of birds or a cat's meow help round out the listener experience and help immerse and draw the player further into the game world.
Tweaks and Adjustments
As we're closing in towards our goal of showcasing the prototype at EGX, We've been gearing towards tightening up the demo by flattening bugs, and ensuring we have a flow that makes sense for the content that we have. We still have quite a lot of content to make in order to finish the game but we didn't want to have the player walk into areas of the game that are clearly incomplete.
The production for our trailer videos are now under way and we're working like mad to try and get some cool looking video footage out there soon.
