So, forgot to make a post yesterday. I think the two songs I was working on are as done as they'll be -- the first one is called "Sipping Hot Chocolate" and the second one is probably going to be called "Deadlines". They'll be in the ransom'd healbeam campaign. I won't say they're great, but they approximate music.
I've been working on this new level design -- healbeam-new5 -- it's kind of bad that I'm still creating levels this close to the deadline, but this one should be better than the old healbeam5. Plus, it means I don't have to work on the human AI too much.
I feel really good, even though deadlines loom. Everything is going to be OK. Crunch time is actually my favorite time.
Ethan
So, the song I was working on when I wrote the despairful post yesterday seems to be coming out OK. The other song, though; I'm going crazy trying to get this transition to sound smooth. It shouldn't even be a very hard transition. I guess the difficulty comes from all the constraints I'm putting on it: I want it to have the same rhythm, I want it to have the same "feel". I keep trying things and they keep sounding like crap. I'm gonna jot down this one last attempt for tonight and then think about bed.
Ethan
As deadlines approach, I become more and more haphazard with my musicianship. I'm apologizing immediately for the low, low quality of these songs -- they're even worse than the other ones. I'm sorry. That's pretty much it, I'm just horribly sorry.
Ethan
I asked my friend Chris Granger for advice. He minored in music, maybe he can tell me what to do to transition smoothly between Am and C. It shouldn't be hard, right? They're all the same keys, just in a different order.
I think Carl feels like more spaciness would be a good thing to have in this song that I'm working on. I might throw an echo or reverb or something on the sucker when it's done. Or, maybe make a good percussion track. Either way, later for that..
Also, made a new sound effect, it's pretty grand. Sound effects are so much easier than music -- not that they are easy, because they aren't, but they go so much faster sometimes.
Ethan
I've spent most of the day working on this song. The good news is that I have the first 8 bars done. The horrible news is that I have no idea what to do next. It sounds like a change is needed, like a chorus is starting, or a bridge, or something. But I'm having a really rough time looking for something that fits with the feel of the first eight bars, that also sounds different. And it's pretty frustrating trying and failing over and over. This is the first day I'm actually working on it, but I came up with the melody last time I was working on music (a week or two ago?). I think (if I had the money) it would be more cost-effective to just hire a musician.
I was hoping to go live this weekend but that seems increasingly unlikely, since there are two to three pieces of music I'd like to have in place that I simply don't. And sound effects would be good also, of course. But tomorrow I should at least make a new build of -rel1 and probably post it to the pygame site, maybe get some feedback.
Ethan
I haven't been brain-ing correctly today, but hopefully I can still get some stuff done.
I took another swipe at the dialog code. It's not really "finished" -- I didn't do dependencies -- but I also realized that maybe that's OK -- how long before dependencies changes things into spaghetti mayhem? We'll see what Chiz thinks. Chiz wanted a more complicated dialog system, I think, and I want to support that if possible, but I guess he's decided that a simpler linear dialog would be good for this kind of game. Maybe we'll expand on the dialog system in the campaign after this. Anyhow, that's why I didn't do much on the dialog system today.
I've been working on a song, which is tentatively called "The Jaws of Victory". It's supposed to be title music, and it still needs a bit of polishing. Maybe I'll send it to one or another of my friends and see if they have any advice; I don't feel right sending them the OGG or whatever without the source code, but maybe they'll have something good to say just on hearing it. (Me, I always need to play with it.)
Lastly, I told myself I would work on the site, possibly by integrating more of Carl's layout and content, but it isn't happening right now, so don't hold your breath..
Ethan