Battle music of Tale
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The fighting music was the song triggered when the avatar was close to the enemy and was about to face combat. In comparison to the main level music this was a song containing a much higher intensity. This was to convey the danger of the situation since the avatar faces a threat from enemies. The song was used as a tool to tell the player when danger was ahead. Since Tale was a game about exploring and obstacle progression there was not much fighting in it. There was therefore of much importance to tell the player in a clear way that fighting was about to happen. In order to convey the risk in a clear way we thought we would avoid frustration from any misunderstandings, for example if the player was unaware of the danger and suddenly would lose the game because of death.
The song consisted much of the same instruments as the main level music but with more percussion and intensified effects. The two songs were created from the same bpm (beats per minute). The chosen pace was 128 bpm. The reason behind why it was decided to use that specific tempo was because it is commonly used in music production, therefore it was easy to find pre made samples that one could use for the music. The intention with that both of the songs used the same bpm was because they were supposed to crossfade during the mood shift of the game. Meaning that if the avatar faced a threat during gameplay, the main level music would fade out and the battle music would fade in. It worked in a way that the programmers in our team would set the songs to be played at the same time during gameplay, however both of them would never be heard at the same time.
The factor that determined if the battle music would kick in was a set distance to the enemy. If the avatar was x meters near the enemy the battle music would be the dominant. Since the songs had the same bpm the transition could be made without any clipping or distorted sounds and the transition would sound natural.
This type of technique can be seen in other games. An example is the game Red dead redemption: Bill Elm and Woody Jackson where they have split all the music up into parts that shares the same bpm. In comparison to our game, the team that developed Red dead redemption used modular music tracks. Their principle was based on putting many music samples together in order to successively build the music based on the current mood of the game, while Tale was based on whole songs that transcended between each other.
The reason that it was chosen to follow this particular technique was so that the transitions would appear smooth and also be easy for the programmers to trigger and control.
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