Conviction Chronicles blog post #33 - Multiple new vocal songs have been released!

10 songs, with 4 vocal and the rest variations. I'm going to count this as my summer album as well. Contacted the same producer and they helped out a lot with the ideas I had.

link: https://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/michaelrichardlannon/neon-ashes

I'll go over each one with their role.

Sinner's Delight + Hollow Steps

These are the investigation themes. the one I had before was a placeholder and really didn't fit the quality other aspects of the game has now, so I decided to replace it. 

Sinner's delight is the main investigation theme, made to be uplifting, raises the stakes before the trial greatly mentally even further, and is a song meant to be about someone enjoying the chaos they cause.

I'm not sure, but I might have it where if the player is innocent, they don't hear the lyrics, but once they have killed someone they will get the lyrical version. Mainly for symbolism. I have to playtest it for a bit.

Hollow Steps is the secondary investigation theme that plays near the end of games that pass by day 35. It's more reflective and darker in tone where most people would be gone by that point.

It's mainly a way to rival other game's motion for investigation themes were it becomes more endearing in a positive light as the game goes on. Instead I went for having the secondary theme darker where everything feels more tense. This is better mechanically as the game will have less options with less characters doing actions, mistakes and more have to feel more impactful and this is one way to help support it.

Objectively this is inspired by persona where it's done masterfully and makes the secondary song for major area themes more impactful. I might make a secondary version of the normal day theme to fit as well, but I haven't done that yet.

Midnight Death

I have a feeling this will be the most controversial with how out there it is, but this is the execution theme. It's all from the point of view of The Assistant who is the executioner. I did this for a couple of reasons.

1. Makes the executions different by default, adds a sense of spirituality to the death which uplifts it.

2. The song can be used elsewhere for marketing and as a song as it's own.

3. Fits the standard I created mentally for vocal songs and their implementation by this point.

4. Adds more to The Assistant's character along with fitting in the world of the show.

The lyrics are made to be actively sound cultish, where the assistant is giving her body up to a higher being, with that being death itself, for the execution. The idea for the executions at this point is to have the Assistant slaughter the victim in an intense way, and this idea heavily supports it. It also makes it better as an idea in universe of it being played on TV by a TV studio. It also adds a sexuality energy with Death which eroticizes the idea of the execution. 

Aspects of this game can be seen with comics in general, and I wanted to go for something like Thanos in the comics where everything he does is for pleasing Death as a deity. In this sense, the assistant is trying to please the audience but shown as a higher power symbolically. Overall there is a lot of symbolism and word play here for multiple perspectives on what the song means at a certain point of time, which will make it more interesting to play on those ideas during the executions themselves. It also plays into the Cafe theme which is shared as her theme of a Spider building a nest, where this is the spider striking it's prey once it's weak.

Our Day

This song will be replace Bianca's wakeup call theme when in a specific motive. It flows with the new wakeup graphics, which some is shown in the album art. I'll go over that art when it's fully implemented with adding onto Bianca and Cuddle's dialogue with reactions to the motives and such.

Mathematically, every game that lasts 50 days or more has a 15% chance for that motive to play if played for the full amount of days for the max amount of motives. It also has a chance not to happen if the player has an extremely low starting cast number as it requires someone to die in the first trial to work.

This is a playful and romantic song. The in game context is it's about Bianca singing about wanting to spend time with her father. But it's also made to be a romantic song in general. It accomplishes many things:

1. The song can be popular on it's own and spread the game for marketing on it's own.

2. I wanted a romantic song in the game. 

3. Adds something super special to surprise players for a "oh wow" moment. 

The original placement for this idea of song was going to be in it's own ending, but this has a stronger chance for the player to hear it naturally and for it to be a surprise which becomes more impactful.

Sinner's Retreat

This is a variation on Sinner's Delight's instrumental version that might be used in special cases if a trial has an extreme amount of people die before it. I'm thinking if 4-5+ people die all in one small time frame, then this variation will play instead. I think it adds a certain darkness. The most likely situation is if multiple murders happen at once or someone gets really lucky with trapping the pool with a toaster.

I feel not having a variation here would make the unique circumstances feel less impactful.

Near Midnight

Midnight Death instrumental variation that only plays the first 1 minute of it in a loop. This is going to play right before executions as a way of increasing the tension. It actually bridges the "absolute desolation" track I made a while ago with Midnight Death very well, which will make the end of trials more conclusive feeling and thus more powerful musically. It would also make the executions more impactful with adding more tension before they start, along with showing how gleeful the assistant would be to conduct them. It sounds very "predator" like which I enjoy.

Anything else?

The cover art, and some art I uploaded before, are from the new Wakeup call graphics. Once I get done with all of the new dialogue I need to add for it, I'll make a blog post about it. Same with the final aspects of the Nightmare graphics needing to be implemented before I make a blogpost about it, even though it's dialogue is mostly complete.

Outside of uploading this, most of it won't be implemented for a bit, Midnight Death won't be implemented for a very long time. It's mostly going back to what I was doing before before doing more of the motive system.

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