31 Days of Game Music: 999
Mar. 9th, 2012 11:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
indigozealHey, is this the first non-RPG installment? I think so!
999 is a horror-thriller visual novel, and its music has a unique job: it needs to keep the player/reader tense and interested through lots and lots (and lots and lots) of text. It can't intrude too much, though.
The score for 999 takes cues from the game's softly futuristic, strongly electronic and techy setting. Techno, even light techno or techno used as a grace note, is not renowned for being a versatile genre, yet the music here does a terrific job of adapting to circumstance, from frantic...
to wondering...
to suspicious...
to horrified.
The notes are largely muted, and the tracks almost ambient - the music is meant to support the narrative, not draw attention away from it. The compositions will build over time, though: "wondering" becomes more driven and structured, as if a puzzle is revealing itself, and "frantic" has pauses for thought in the alarm and still bits where it's as if the horror is setting in. "Horrified" winds down to uneasy resignation. I admire how the music incorporates elements of the surroundings like loudspeaker static, faraway warning horns, and the clanking of a ship's hold, as if to emphasize the malevolence of your environment itself.
999's score is more of a workhorse than most of the other pieces I've featured - it's not a showcase, it's not designed to be hummed or symphonically arranged, and therefore its contribution to the game tends to be consciously overlooked by the careless (a review on Adventure Gamers calls it "entirely forgettable"). That doesn't mean it doesn't make an impact. It's the glue that holds the game together from scene to scene; it's the engine that keeps the player pressing that A button. Like the game at its best, it's gripping as hell.
.
999 is a horror-thriller visual novel, and its music has a unique job: it needs to keep the player/reader tense and interested through lots and lots (and lots and lots) of text. It can't intrude too much, though.
The score for 999 takes cues from the game's softly futuristic, strongly electronic and techy setting. Techno, even light techno or techno used as a grace note, is not renowned for being a versatile genre, yet the music here does a terrific job of adapting to circumstance, from frantic...
to wondering...
to suspicious...
to horrified.
The notes are largely muted, and the tracks almost ambient - the music is meant to support the narrative, not draw attention away from it. The compositions will build over time, though: "wondering" becomes more driven and structured, as if a puzzle is revealing itself, and "frantic" has pauses for thought in the alarm and still bits where it's as if the horror is setting in. "Horrified" winds down to uneasy resignation. I admire how the music incorporates elements of the surroundings like loudspeaker static, faraway warning horns, and the clanking of a ship's hold, as if to emphasize the malevolence of your environment itself.
999's score is more of a workhorse than most of the other pieces I've featured - it's not a showcase, it's not designed to be hummed or symphonically arranged, and therefore its contribution to the game tends to be consciously overlooked by the careless (a review on Adventure Gamers calls it "entirely forgettable"). That doesn't mean it doesn't make an impact. It's the glue that holds the game together from scene to scene; it's the engine that keeps the player pressing that A button. Like the game at its best, it's gripping as hell.
.
