It’s time to talk about the music! How did it come about, and what’s the inspiration? Our composer, Constantine Chistiakov, is a seasoned professional who has produced many tracks for films, ads, games, and even ballets. He will be offering his talents to the music of Football Story.
Initially, our vision for sound design was that it should:
When working on the direction of sound and music in Football Story, I started off deciding on the general vibe from the game - its mood. To me, the game is somewhat like a child’s feeling of an unending summer, where there isn’t a care in the world beyond fun and play. Therefore, the game’s mood is certainly that of nostalgia and safety.
As a basis for my work, I took inspiration from the sounds of the 80s. There is a good reason for this:
Firstly, it’s quite trendy even today. People both young and old enjoy and recognize it. There’s a nostalgic draw there that almost everyone understands. Nowadays, 80s music is being rethought, remixed, and upgraded to offer a more modern sound. In our soundtrack, I used synthesizers, samplers, and drum-machines to get the sound I wanted. The equipment includes: a Roland D-50, Yamaha DX-7, Yamaha CS-80, E-mu II, and Roland TR-505/808.
The next big task was to match the visual style with the mood of the game. I wanted to avoid 8bit sound, as I felt it would be too predictable. The same thing goes with certain styles of electronic and acoustic sounds. The final version of the music uses lively and warm electronics -- familiar, seasoned, and complementary to the visual style.
Beyond the classic electronic instruments I mentioned above, I also used different sound samples that I created on FM synthesizers, which reminded me a bit of the SEGA Mega Drive sound. The console had an FM plate from Yamaha at that time.
We have also developed a special algorithm that ensures music will continue playing between screens and during loading times. It plays throughout the game, maintaining a consistent and seamless sound experience. For this purpose, we used FMOD Studio.
Each new scene turns on some musical fragments while turning off others. Every scene has different musical instruments or sounds that randomly turn on. We have put some thought into adding reactionary music to the events in a match, but decided to postpone this for now as our pitch is small and events can change wildly within a matter of seconds. However, we are still thinking of ways to make match music more dynamic, so expect to hear more in the future.
That’s all for now! Next time, expect to hear about how we do the networking side of things.
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