Title song - version 2.0

I continued working on my song "Opening Mystery" which I think I'm gonna rename because it is not a mysterious song, and it's not for an Opening either :P. The song now has 3 parts (forgive my lack of musical vocabulary).

The first part is an introduction with an arpeggio, a background chorus, and a bass, which is used in most of the song. The second part has a kind of darker/sadder style which I wanted to add because the game I'm planning to make with it is supposed to transmit a kind of uncomfortable feeling (but let's talk about that later). The third part has a different feeling, it is supposed to transmit a little more inspiring feeling, like raising from a moment of sadness. The final is a little abrupt because the song is supposed to work as a loop, however I think it is enough "final" to close the song when played once.

Based on the previous version, some of the changes I made are:

1. I modified most of the melody
2. Extended the song by adding the "second part" mentioned above
3. Added a chorus
4. Reinforced the arpeggio instrument
5. Added a "second voice" for the melody.
6. Modified some of the base instruments.

I think I'm gonna use this song as the main theme for the game I'm planning now, it is already helping me to define the look and feel that could work with it and with the game story. I want to reuse this song a lot in the game, I have noticed that some games do this very often, for example you can check Super Smash Bros. Brawl, it is obvious that they took the song from the opening scene and reused it in different ways, in the menus, in the one-player mode, and for some battle scenarios, actually they reuse it that much that I started to dislike it. However the good part of doing this is that you can make sure that all you music harmonizes with the game's general feeling.

I'm going to stop doing music for now, I need to start programming the game mechanics because I need to experiment with them, currently I don't know other games with similar mechanic so I need to figure out how to make it interesting, fun, playable, and engaging. But well, I think I won't have any free time the following month so I'm not sure how much progress I will be able to make.

For now, here is the song:

First composed song - Opening Mystery 1

Lately I started to think about create my own video game's music. I already do a little of everything when talking about video games, but music was not something I had done before. I know I don't have the natural talent for composing music, however I decided to give it a try due that I have some general idea about music and I think some acceptable songs can be created by following some tips and tricks anyone can find in YouTube.

So here is it, the song is called Opening Mystery 1, it is thought for a small game I have in mind now. It is version 1 because I haven't completed the PxTone guide I'm following :P. I was about to start the complex part (chapter 3) so I thought I would understand it better by doing a first song and then polish it by using all those "pro tips".

The song is thought to be the music for the title screen of a video game I'm planning to do with a kind of mysterious and mystical atmosphere. Let's see if I can actually make it better once I complete the PxTone guide :)

I hope you like it!

Random Maze Generation Methodology

Some weeks with no chance to post anything around here, however they were really productive weeks for me in game development. I have been working in a couple projects that are not games, but are tools for game creation.

Inspired from BARKH, Lal0l and I worked in this "methodology" for maze generation that is supposed to work for a very specific kind of games. The idea is not just to create random mazes, but to create playable mazes with different difficulty levels.

How to make sure a maze is playable? Well, we need to define some basic game rules. The kind of games this methodology is intended for, have the following characteristics:

1. The objective for each level is to move your avatar from point A to point B in the maze. This implies that the maze’s entrance and exit are not necessarily at the border of the maze but rather at any point inside of it.
2. The player has a limited set of resources that are consumed as the maze gets discovered. Examples of resources can be: fuel, time, characters, health points.
3. Along the maze the player can find beneficial zones or items and use them to recover or save resources. We called these 1ups.
4. We called 1downs harmful areas or enemies which can reduce the player’s resources.
5. The maze is generated automatically each time the game is played. Optionally, the player can have a limited number of chances to complete a given maze, this depends on game design decisions.

We called this kind of games Cost Based Maze games (CBM games).

Our methodology has 2 main parts, the first part generates the maze's topology, i.e. the corridors and walls. The second part, spreads 1ups and 1downs randomly over the maze, then it uses the difficulty level to find the correct positions for them. The amount of 1ups and 1downs depends on the difficulty level as well.

After implement this in Unity I realized it has good potential. I'm thinking some game ideas to use this, however I haven't decided yet, maybe I will post later about that.

For now here is a detailed (formal) document about this methodology. It is focused on the algorithms, not in Unity. I hope you find it interesting!