The Gallery – Episode 2: Heart of the Emberstone is Now Available on Steam!
After receiving your Gauntlet, a mysterious new power in the palm of your hand, you must travel to Ember, a long-forgotten world whose past holds many secrets. Find Elsie, uncover the history of Ember, and reveal the true intentions of the dark figure in the Starseed.
A Mortician’s Tale is Now Available on Steam and is 20% off!*
A Mortician’s Tale is a narrative-driven death positive video game where you play as a mortician tasked with running a funeral home—preparing the cadavers of the deceased (via embalming or cremation), attending their funerals and listening to their loved ones’ stories, and running the business.
*Offer ends October 25 at 10AM Pacific Time
The Switch eShop has been inundated with a whole slew of great games lately, our resident video producer Alex even argues that it’s become a problem, in a nice way. Like any store, especially now that curation has evidently well and truly ended, there will also be releases that are less appealing. We’ll have to wait and see which category Super Ping Pong Trick Shot falls under when it lands on Switch tomorrow.
As you can see in the trailer the concept is pretty simple, and it’s aiming for a budget price point; here’s a bit more info from the game page:
Try throwing a ball across a room filled with moving platforms and obstacles and into a cup!
Test your throwing skills across 80 challenges with mission and sub-mission objectives such as making the ball bounce twice, or using at least 75% power.
Use the L-Stick for traditional controls or the more energetic motion controls that simulate throwing a ball.
In addition to the single player Mission and Time Attack modes, there’s also a 2 player competitive mode! Go head-to-head with a friend to see who can throw the most balls into the cup and use special items to get an advantage over your opponent!
Based upon the Nintendo of America game list (which isn’t always 100% accurate ahead of the official download day), this one could have a lot of competition.
The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra’s community.
The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company.
By video game composer Winifred Phillips | Contact | Follow
The Game Developers Conference is always an awesome opportunity for game audio experts to learn and share experiences. I’ve given presentations at GDC for a few years now, and I’m always excited to hear about what’s new and notable in game audio. This year, the hot topic was virtual reality. In fact, the subject received its own dedicated sub-conference that took place concurrently with the main GDC show. The VRDC (Virtual Reality Developers Conference) didn’t focus particularly on the audio and music side of VR, but there were a couple of notable talks on that subject. In this article, let’s take a look at some of the more intriguing VR game music takeaways from those two talks. Along the way, I’ll also share some of my related experience as the composer of the music of the Dragon Front VR game for the Oculus Rift (pictured above).
The talks we’ll be discussing in this article are entitled “Audio Adventures in VR Worlds” and “The Sound Design of Star Wars: Battlefront VR.” Here’s a common issue that popped up in both talks:
Where should video game music be in a VR game? Should it feel like it exists inside the VR world, weaving itself into the immersive 3D atmosphere surrounding the player? Or should it feel like it’s somehow outside of the VR environment and is instead coasting on top of the experience, being conveyed directly to the player? The former approach suggests a spacious and expansive musical soundscape, and the latter would feel much closer and more personal. Is one of these approaches more effective in VR than the other? Which choice is best?
These two concepts share a lot in common with the traditional categories of diegetic and non-diegetic music in entertainment media. Diegetic music exists inside the fictional world, perceived by the characters within it, whereas non-diegetic music is inaudible to the characters and only exists for the benefit of the audience. VR presents an interesting twist to this usually straightforward dichotomy. When the entertainment experience is doing everything in its power to make us forget that we’re an audience, to the point where we achieve a sense of complete presence within the fictional world… what role does non-diegetic music play then? If we can now consider ourselves as characters in the story, how do we hear music that story characters aren’t supposed to hear?
“VR goes beyond picture sync. It’s about sync of the world,” says music producer Joe Thwaites of Sony Interactive Entertainment Europe. In his talk about the music and sound of the game PlayStation VR Worlds, Thwaites explores the relationship between music and the VR environment. “The congruency between audio and visuals is key in maintaining that idea of believability,” Thwaites asserts, “which in turn makes immersiveness, and in turn makes presence.” In virtual reality development, the term ‘presence’ denotes the sensation of actually existing inside the virtual environment. According to Thwaites, a strong believable relationship between the aural and visual worlds can contribute to a more satisfying VR experience.
As an example, Thwaites describes an interactive music implementation that he integrated into the ‘Ocean Descent’ section of PlayStation VR Worlds. In this portion of the game, Thwaites pulled the otherwise non-diegetic musical score more fully into the immersive world by creating an illusion that the in-game objects were reacting to the musical notes. “There’s a part called The Jellyfish Cave, where you descend into this sea of jellyfish,” Thwaites describes. “You get this 2D music,” he adds, “which bypasses the 3D audio plugin, so it goes straight to your ears.” In other words, the music is recorded in a traditionally stereo mix and the output is fed directly to the player’s headphones without bothering with any spatial positioning in the virtual world. “Then, as you look around, these jellyfish light up as you look directly at them,” Thwaites goes on, “and they emit a tone in 3D in space so the music tone stays where it is in the world.” So, these tones have been attached to specific jellyfish in the virtual world, spatially positioned to emanate from those locations, as if special portions of the non-diegetic score have suddenly leapt into the VR world and taken up residence there. “And that has this really nice effect of creating this really immersive and magical moment which is really unique to VR,” Thwaite remarks.
So this method served to help non-diegetic music feel more natural within the VR environment. But what happens when pure non-diegetic music is an absolutely necessity?
In the game Star Wars Battlefront Rogue One X-Wing VR Mission, the audio team at Criterion Games were tasked with creating an authentic audio experience in a virtual reality environment dedicated to the eternally famous and popular Star Wars franchise. In this case, according to audio lead Jay Steen, pure non-diegetic music was a must. “Non-diegetic means not from a source in the scene. This is how most movies and flatscreen games handle the music. So the music plays through the direct out straight to the player’s ears and we were worried from what we’d heard about non-diegetic music that it would distract from immersion,” Steen confesses. “But we actually found the opposite. Maybe that’s because you can’t have a Star Wars story without the music. You don’t feel like you’re in Star Wars until the music kicks in.” According to Steen, the non-diegetic music worked in this circumstance because the audio team was careful to avoid repetition in the musical score. “We didn’t reuse or loop cues that much, and due to the linear structure of the mission we could kind of get away with this,” Steen points out. “We think that helps to not break immersion.”
My perspective on using non-diegetic music in VR:
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While non-diegetic music can be tricky in VR, sometimes its an important part of the overall aesthetic. Plus, there can be ways to integrate non-diegetic music into the spatial environment. Joe Thwaites of Sony Europe describes an interesting combination of diegetic and non-diegetic music that was integrated into the ‘VR Luge’ section of the PlayStation VR Worlds game. In this gameplay sequence, players ride feet-first on a luge that’s racing downhill amidst heavy vehicle traffic. The experience was designed to be a heart-stopping thrill ride. “So one of the experiments we did around the synchronization of the world was using a combination of diegetic and non-diegetic music to build tension as you zoomed down the hill,” Thwaites describes. “We used 3D car radios to introduce elements of percussion into the 2D soundtrack that was playing.” In the musical score for this sequence, the non-diegetic music presented a purely percussive rhythm, but as the player passed by other cars, the music would change. “So as you passed a car with a radio playing, an element of that 3D music would transition from the car into the 2D soundtrack.” In this way, the in-game radio music would briefly become a part of the game’s non-diegetic score, while still conveying spatial positioning inside the 3D world.
So in these examples from PlayStation VR Worlds and Star Wars Battlefront Rogue One X-Wing VR Mission, we see that audio teams grapple constantly with the contrasting natures of diegetic and non-diegetic music. While it seems as though non-diegetic music has been relegated to a very traditional, non-spatially localized delivery, this may not always be the case. Jay Steen of Criterion Games spent some time considering the possibility of delivering the non-diegetic music of his Star Wars game with a more enveloping spatial texture. “We did do a quick experiment on it, and we found that it’s like having an orchestra sitting around you,” Steen says. “We didn’t want to evoke you sitting in the middle of an orchestral recording. We just wanted it to sound like the movie.” That being said, Steen doesn’t rule out the possibility of a more spatially-interesting mix for music in the future, including the use of ambisonic recordings for non-diegetic musical scores. “Ambisonic recordings of orchestras for example,” Steen speculates, “I think there’s something fun there. We haven’t experimented with it anymore than that, but yeah, definitely, we’d want to try.”
So this concludes our look at two presentations from GDC 2017 that focused on issues that complicate music creation and implementation in virtual reality. I hope you’ve found this interesting, and please feel free to leave a comment in the space below!
Winifred Phillips is an award-winning video game music composer whose most recent projects are the triple-A first person shooter Homefront: The Revolution and the Dragon Front VR game for Oculus Rift. Her credits include games in five of the most famous and popular franchises in gaming: Assassin’s Creed, LittleBigPlanet, Total War, God of War, and The Sims. She is the author of the award-winning bestseller A COMPOSER’S GUIDE TO GAME MUSIC, published by the MIT Press. As a VR game music expert, she writes frequently on the future of music in virtual reality games.
Follow her on Twitter @winphillips.
The Japanese Media Create chart results are out, and it proved to be a relatively quiet week in the market – there are some reasonable results for Nintendo, nonetheless.
Starting with software we have Middle-earth: Shadow of War taking top spot on PS4, though its actual sales numbers weren’t great in what was a slow week all around. The rest of the top five includes some evergreen titles, though there may be some disappointment with the performance of Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga + Bowser’s Minions and particularly Fire Emblem Warriors, which have both failed to add too much to modest launch sales. Further down we have Lost Sphear, a spiritual successor to I Am Setsuna; it did better on PS4 but still only managed four figures, while it took 9th place with 5,770 sales on Switch.
In terms of hardware we see a continuation of recent trends, with the Switch staying comfortably on top and increasing its sales slightly; the New 2DS LL and New 3DS LL (XL) swap places but still sit 3rd and 4th. Results are below with last week’s sales in brackets.
A rather quiet week, overall, and Nintendo may be slightly disappointed with the low momentum of a couple of recent game releases – in terms of hardware, though, there’s plenty for the Kyoto-based company to celebrate.
For fans of the anime the original Attack on Titan console game was an exciting release, while there was also an interesting 3DS title localised out of Japan. With the Switch now getting some cross-platform games, however, it was particularly pleasing to hear recently that it’s getting Attack on Titan 2, the next ‘main’ game in the series.
Koei Tecmo has now confirmed that the public will get its first chance to try the game (we’re betting on PS4 or PC builds) during the upcoming Paris Games Week. Running from 1st to 5th November, the game will be playable at the Koei Tecmo booth.
Will any of you be lucky enough to attend Paris Games Week and try this out?
Koei Tecmo’s Warriors franchise – also known by its Japanese title of “Musou” – has fans the world over, but we’d be willing to bet that quite a few of the people who picked up the superb Hyrule Warriors on Wii U and 3DS had never played any of the previous entries. Combing the hack-and-slash gameplay of the series with the lore of Zelda was, in retrospect, a masterstroke; it unlocked a whole new generation of potential Musou fans and perhaps even awakened a few lapsed Zelda followers, too. Nintendo has allied itself with Koei Tecmo (as well as development teams Omega Force and Team Ninja) for another collaboration, this time featuring Intelligent Systems’ beloved Fire Emblem franchise.
Like some kind of mathematical equation, adding Musou to an existing property has exactly the kind of results you’d predict. The turn-based approach Fire Emblem is famous for is gone in Fire Emblem Warriors, and in its place you’ll find hordes of enemies to cut your way through (in real time, naturally), screen-filling special moves and a surprisingly deep character development system which not only allows for levelling-up, but permits you to augment each protagonist’s abilities on a more granular level, such as selecting and improving their weaponry. None of this will be news to seasoned Musou players, but there are some elements here which are unique to this particular instalment.
While the turn-based tactics of the Fire Emblem series may be gone, there’s still a strategic element to proceedings – even more so than is usual in a Warriors game. As ever, controlling bases, defending allies and opening up routes through the battlefield are key concerns, but in Fire Emblem Warriors things are given more depth by the fact that you can issue orders from the pause screen and instruct units to attack certain enemies, heal themselves or proceed to points on the map. It’s also possible to switch between units at the push of a button, which gives a much grander feel to the conflict. Instead of being a single super-soldier dealing out death (a tonal hallmark of the Musou series), you’re part of a larger army; indeed, if you fail to switch to other units in some missions then failure is a very real possibility, as it’s often the case that to reach a particular objective in the fastest time you have to shift control to another character.
The story, for what it’s worth, is largely hokum; its main objective is to give the developers an excuse to have these almost entirely unconnected characters all on the same battlefield. As a result we have eyebrow-raising scenarios where allies viciously attack allies simply to prove their trustworthiness, and one particularly confusing mission where it’s genuinely hard to remember who is fighting who, or to what end. Despite the often preposterous nature of the plot, it culminates nicely with a largely unexpected twist that leaves you rooting for our heroes – something that doesn’t always happen for the majority of the quest as it’s difficult to feel anything but indifference for enemies who become allies at the drop of a hat.
Speaking of characters, Fire Emblem Warriors has a few. The vast majority are plucked from Fire Emblem Awakening and Fire Emblem Fates, a fact which may annoy some seasoned fans of the series. There are some protagonists from earlier entries – as well as all-new faces, such as lead characters Rowan and Lianna – but this is clearly a package aimed at modern followers of the franchise, and thanks to the focus on switching between units during battle, you’ll get more of a chance to familiarise yourself with each one than you perhaps did in Hyrule Warriors.
Another aspect of Fire Emblem that the game borrows is the famous weapon triangle. Certain weapon types have the advantage over others, creating a triangle which means no single weapon is dominant. When fighting against certain types you may find that your character is weaker and therefore takes longer to dispatch them – something which gives you even more impetus to switch to another character, especially during some of the more tense moments when you need to kill certain enemies and move onto the next objective quickly.
In terms of combat, Fire Emblem Warriors will offer few surprises – but that’s not to say it isn’t ridiculously entertaining all the same. Standard and strong attacks can be chained together to form many different combos – all unique to each character – and by building up your “Warrior” gauge you can unleash a powerful special attack by pushing the A button. After filling your “Awakening” gauge, a stab of the R shoulder button means you’ll benefit from a short period where you’ll always have the advantage, irrespective of the weapon triangle. You can roll out of trouble using B – handy for outflanking stubborn enemies – and the L shoulder button allows you to lock onto a target and circle them. The camera can be controlled using the right-hand analogue stick, and you can snap it behind your character instantly by pressing the ZL button. ZR opens up a sub-menu from which you can use items to heal both yourself and your allies, but its most important use calls to mind another Fire Emblem staple: bonds between allies.
Simply fighting in close proximity to another friendly character is usually enough to enhance the bond between them, but using ZR you can choose to join forces with them. During this time they are effectively removed from the battlefield, but you can call them in for special attacks and they lend their power to yours when you unleash a special with the A button. You’ll also find that some characters automatically step in to defend you at certain points, and it’s possible to call them in using ZR + Y for an assist attack. You can toggle between the two characters at any point – ideal for when you’re at a disadvantage against a certain enemy and need another weapon type – or decouple entirely so they return to the skirmish, which comes in handy when the tide begins to turn and you need to get more bodies on the battlefield.
The tactical side of the game isn’t just for show; poor planning can lead to units being killed, and in traditional Fire Emblem fashion there’s a “Classic” mode in which fallen allies cannot be used in future battles, but the edge has been taken off this mode by the fact that you can revive them (at a cost) at the temple in-between missions. The “Casual” mode – where fallen characters simply retreat until the next battle and therefore need less mollycoddling – is a much gentler option, but even in this mode we found ourselves having to re-play certain missions after failing to meet our goals.
It’s also worth mentioning that the battlegrounds in Fire Emblem Warriors borrow ideas from the main Fire Emblem series. Dragon Veins are present in some forts, and triggering these usually opens up shortcuts or removes obstacles, such as fog which covers the map or poisonous gas. You’ll also find that certain routes are only accessible by flying units, making the need to switch between allies even more important. These shortcuts are ignored at your peril, as they often allow you to complete an objective or reach a certain point of the battlefield faster than on foot. In typical Warriors fashion, you’ll spend most of your time in Fire Emblem Warriors fighting for control of forts dotted around each level. These are guarded by a powerful enemy who must be defeated to claim ownership; during some of the longer skirmishes you can expect these bastions to change hands many times over as each side fights to gain the upper hand.
Outside of the battlefield you’re given the chance to evolve and grow your characters using some tried-and-tested Musou techniques. Using materials gained in combat you can create “badges” which increase your attack power, give you longer combos, boost your defense against certain weapons and even unlock new skills. If you have a Master Seal you can also change a character’s class, which not only gives them a healthy stat boost but changes their outward appearance. Unique skills can be learned as well, usually when you’ve formed a strong bond between two characters – another incentive to get your units working closely on the battlefield. Weapons are also found on the battlefield and can be equipped in-between missions; it’s possible to reforge certain weapons so they gain additional bonuses, such as increased item drops or extra damage. You’ll spend a lot of time upgrading your warriors and unlocking new badges, but thankfully the developers have included an “optimise equipment” option which takes some of the effort out of that side of things. It’s worth noting that amiibo functionality is included, too – you can scan up to five amiibo a day to earn materials and weapons.
The main story mode will keep you occupied for quite some time, but in addition to that there’s the “History” mode, which allows you to replay famous battles from the Fire Emblem series. These are unlocked as you progress through the main narrative, and offer the chance to not only boost your experience, gain more items and earn more gold, but also sate your competitive side – your performance in each mission is ranked depending on how well you do. It’s a neat little aside which expands the longevity of Fire Emblem Warriors, but it does feel a slightly tacked-on – especially when you consider that unrelated characters from other Fire Emblem games appear in each mission (Chrom is in the opening clash between Nohrian and Hoshidan forces, lifted from Fire Emblem Fates, for example).
Hyrule Warriors could hardly be described as ugly, but when placed alongside Fire Emblem Warriors the gulf in visual quality is remarkable – especially when you consider that the Switch is a totally mobile system. In its default “Quality” mode – which runs at 1080p / 30fps docked – the game ticks along nicely, with impressive visual effects and loads of enemies on-screen at any one time. However, the “Performance” mode drops the resolution down to 720p and boosts the framerate to 60fps (needless to say this only applies to docked mode); whether or not this is an acceptable trade-off for you is all down to personal taste, but the smoothness of the action really does make a difference, and we opted to play in Performance during the whole adventure. On the audio side of things, Fire Emblem Warriors features copious amounts of voice acting and the option to toggle between English and Japanese speech. The music is typical of Musou crossovers; notable Fire Emblem tunes played on screeching guitars. It’s not entirely unpleasant and certainly fits the action, but it lacks the subtlety associated with Fire Emblem’s music.
Despite their enduring fame and commercial success the Musou games have, in the past, come dangerously close to self-parody, and it’s easy to see why critics of the series consider them to be little more than repetitive button-bashers. Thankfully Fire Emblem Warriors is anything but a mindless brawler; it combines enjoyable combat with real-time tactics, faithfully paying tribute to the two franchises it fuses together. Musou fans will love the fantasy setting and blade-based action, while Fire Emblem followers will appreciate the strategic wrinkles that series adds to proceedings. While the story is largely forgettable there’s plenty of fan-service for Fire Emblem lovers here; granted, the cast list focuses on the more recent outings on the 3DS, but we imagine that DLC will redress the balance moving forward. Despite the addition of deeper tactics we fear that Fire Emblem Warriors may still be too samey for those who have struggled with Koei Tecmo’s franchise in the past, but everyone else should definitely give this a try; it may well be one of the best Musou outings yet seen.
After smashing its Kickstarter goal, Digital Sun Games’ action RPG title Moonlighter has been steadily getting closer to release. Until now there had been no inclination of a release on Switch but, thanks to a rather epic reveal trailer, we now know that the game is indeed coming to the console.
The game sees you lead a double life of sorts – in the day time, you lead an ordinary life of a shopkeeper, conducting your business in the local village and getting to know the residents; under the moonlight, however, you’ll be fighting off enemies and opening gates to different worlds. You can get a quick taste of what the game has to offer, as well as seeing the confirmation for the Switch version, in the trailer below.
The game’s Steam page indicates an “Early 2018” release but there is no word yet on when the game will launch on Switch. It does feel like it could be a perfect fit for the hardware, though – you could play through your shopkeeping duties during your daily commute and then get stuck into the rogue-like combat when you get home in the evening.
Do you like the look of Moonlighter? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
During the Summer we shared the news that Monster Jam: Crush It! is heading to the Switch, and now the eShop pages (via the ever reliable ‘Coming Soon’ section) has backed up online retail listings to pin down a release date – 31st October. Yep, we reckon they’re trying to be a bit clever with that release date.
It’s worth remembering it’s a retail game (which had a mixed critical reception for its PS4 / Xbox One versions in 2016), so it has a budget retail price. It’ll be $39.99USD in North America and £34.99 on the UK store, as two examples. A quick look online shows the same price for the boxed version on Amazon.com, but a more palatable £23.99 (at the time of writing) on Amazon UK. That UK listing gives a date of 14th November, however, so there’s clearly a bit of a delay for the cartridge in some territories.
For those that like over-sized vehicles and crushing things, it might be quite tempting.
Well, the end is coming, it was fun while it lasted.
After a number of months of small but occasionally handy gifts through the ‘Tips from the Wild’ Switch news posts, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild has taken its impressive success and online buzz in order to go peak internet. Yep, it’s a post about selfies.
It explains that you can press the X button with the camera rune to switch to ‘self-portrait’ mode, and then press ZL to change poses; we first saw this in The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD of course. In what we assume is a parody of the declining value of anything and everything focused on the internet, there’s no related gift either. That’s right Link, no raw meat to cook and get you through a tough battle, but you can take a selfie with Calamity Ganon before he devours you and destroys Hyrule.
Those poses though, cool right?!
Sometimes non-diegetic music can be introduced into a VR game, and then quickly transformed into diegetic music within the immersive environment in order to enhance player presence. In my musical score for the Dragon Front game for Oculus Rift, I composed a dramatic choral track for the opening main theme of the game. During the game’s initial logo sequence, the music is channeled directly to the player’s ears without any spatial positioning. However, this changes as soon as the player fully enters the initial environment (wherein the player navigates menus and prepares to enter matches).
Once the logo sequence has completed, the music makes a quick transition, from a full-bodied direct stereo mix to the player’s headphones, to a spatially localized narrow mix located to the player’s lower right. Upon turning, players see that the music is now coming from a battered radio, which the player is free to turn on and off. The music is now fully diegetic, existing inside the game’s fictional world. Here’s a video showing this sequence in action: