Dev Log - Charlotte - Nov 15

Unknown

              For my part of the playtest, what I need to focus on are the audio and see what kind of vibe the player matches most with the games and make different audio music for different events. ()

Build

              I started off with just researching different audios within city building, resource management games. And I just started to write some possible background music. Since this is just the dev log, I just made that they are just based on what I already wrote in the past and just changing up the different instruments, speed, octave and key.

              What I imagined the game would be kind of like reaching for hope, so the music should be slightly upbeat but also depressing. But I also think that there could be a very very happy song, that is kind of contradicting with all the different depressing and hopeless feel in the screen. But I am not sure about that part yet. So I just worked on the slightly welcoming, calming sound that people could imagine them being in a nature related game.

              I also wrote (and changed) some emotional and hype song. They are for when there is a natural disaster comes and hit the player area. They are more hype, energized and the player should feel the emergence from this music.

Evaluate and Learn

              For the playtesting, all I did was just let all the play testers listen to the music in audio and not show the title for each song. Since they already know the context of the game, I just asked them what they think about which audio is best for the game, what situation / when will this audio will play and why.

              For explaining reason, I will name my audio 1 (Previously forest BGM), 2(Previously neighbourhood BGM), 3(Previously MHY4 BGM), 4 (Previously MHY5 BGM) since they don’t really have a name, and the name I gave them are just description of what and were I think they should be at.

1. I thought this audio would be great for a loading screen; it is upbeat, happy, welcoming. Kind of great for me to welcome the players into the game. The feedback was that they think this music is too happy for a depressing game like this where this is a serious game about resource management and mass amount of people could die in a spawn of few seconds for an impulsive decision from the player. So they think this is an ending screen audio where the player accomplished everything and the community can grow itself safely.
2. I thought this audio would be great for in game, it is slightly more chaotic, but still happy. Kind of like the player is trying to manage everything together all at once. The play testers mentioned that they would think this is for the in-game section, but they also feel like this is some music that will just be in Stardew Valley. They think this too calming. Now in comparison, they think  the music 1 should be in game and this audio should be the loading screen and ending screen.
3. This audio is made for when back things happen, like natural disasters. The play testers also think that this is an indication for when some kind of natural disaster is coming to the location of the player and they should be aware something bad is about to happen.
4. This audio I made for the ending screen for the game when the player finishes the in game content. But for the play testers, it seems that they are thinking this is the loading screen music. They said they are not sure why but they think it might be due to the slight uneasy and it does not sound very fulfilling?

Inform

              So far, everything seems fine, I think I should and would need to also figure out what kind of instruments am I going to be using since they are all different instruments. And I should also figure out what kind of instruments of SFX should I add to make the audio sound more like stranded on the ocean of nowhere, since I did got some feedback that they mentioned it does not really make them relate to a game that is happening in ocean.