The Game Show Interview: Game Music & Game Design

Photo of composer Meena Shamaly, host of the Game Show on ABC Classic, pictured here video game music composer Winifred Phillips (Game Show interviewee).

By Winifred Phillips | Contact | Follow

Hey everybody!  I’m video game composer Winifred Phillips.  Welcome to part two of my three-part article series based on my interview with Meena Shamaly, host of the popular Game Show program on ABC Classic (the Australian Broadcasting Corporation).  Meena is a prolific performance artist, composer and producer, in addition to his role as the host of the Game Show, and I was delighted to be interviewed for his awesome series!  An audio recording of the uncut interview is hosted right now on the ABC Classic web site.  These articles include the full written transcript of that interview, along with some great supporting links and media files that help to expand on the topics discussed.  In part one of this series, Meena and I reflected on the journey a new composer takes to break into the video game industry, along with the “always say yes” philosophy that can help new composers as they pursue their first break.  In part two, we’ll talk about composing in unorthodox ways to help us stay at the top of our game as composers, and we’ll also discuss the unique role that music plays in video games.  Here is part two of my interview with Meena Shamaly of ABC Classic’s Game Show, beginning with a discussion of how two very different projects from my early career shaped everything that came later… Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and God of War.

Official logo of the ABC Classic radio show - the Game Show. (This image supports a discussion in an article by video game composer Winifred Phillips).

Winifred:  So now my career has two very divergent paths. People who know me from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and things like that – they approach me for projects like Shrek the Third, or The LittleBigPlanet games, or SimAnimals, Spore Hero, things like that. And on the other side, people who know me from God of War are coming to me for things like the Assassin’s Creed Liberation game, or Homefront, or Jurassic World Primal Ops, or The Da Vinci Code. And that has allowed me to swing back and forth and do very divergent things. It’s made my career very fulfilling for me, because I get to stretch and change. I don’t ever feel like I’m in a box, because I get to express myself in such different ways. It’s rare! It’s a rare thing to be able to do that, so I’m quite grateful that my career started that way.

Meena: Much like an interactive video game story, you and I are now presented with two paths – the path of the mature antihero with a lot of action combat, and the path of the fun… shall I say family-friendly (laughs) kind of protagonist! So let’s explore this half of Winifred Phillips. The journey with LittleBigPlanet and Sackboy and SimAnimals.

The official logo of the video game franchise LittleBigPlanet, as included in the article by game music composer Winifred Phillips. This image supports a discussion of the music of this game franchise.

Meena: Let’s start with LittleBigPlanet, because that’s been a big part of your life as a game composer.

Winifred: That’s so true, yeah.

Meena: And again, those are also big games that require multiple composers, but – you know – Winifred Phillips keeps popping up.

Winifred: I’ve really been happy to be a part of the LittleBigPlanet franchise. I’ve been with the team since the LittleBigPlanet 2 game, and I’ve worked on lots of the different iterations of the game – LittleBigPlanet 2, LittleBigPlanet 3, LittleBigPlanet Cross Controller, LittleBigPlanet Toy Story, LittleBigPlanet Karting, LittleBigPlanet PS Vita, and now Sackboy A Big Adventure. So it’s been amazing! One of the things that’s really neat about working with the LittleBigPlanet games, and now the Sackboy games, is that we’re encouraged as composers to be eclectic and strange, and try new things. It’s all about mash-ups – about throwing together ideas and instruments that you wouldn’t normally hear within the same track, within the same genre. Just challenging expectations. In the world of Sackboy (for people who aren’t familiar with the game) – you’re playing as this little knitted doll-like character with very loose arms and legs who runs around these environments that look like they might be craft projects. They’re full of buttons, and cardboard, and little stickers, and cut-out clouds, and everything seems like a pop-up book where things fold out. It’s got that feeling to it. It’s enormously whimsical. So the idea of it being crafty is woven into the core of what LittleBigPlanet is.

A depiction of Sackboy - the mascot of the LittleBigPlanet franchise, as included in the article by Winifred Phillips (video game composer).

Sackboy lives in Craftworld, so everything is powered by the imagination. That philosophy of Play Create Share (which is at the core of the LittleBigPlanet franchise, and now the Sackboy games) – that also informs the creation of the music. Because the music has to have this idea of throwing together disparate elements. Letting loose your creative juices. Doing things that you wouldn’t have expected would come out of yourself. That’s been tremendously exciting for me. I love how supportive the team at the LittleBigPlanet franchise are of those of us who are creating music for it. Really being urged to stretch and try new things and create new art for their games. I think that’s part of why the games are so enchanting for players. I think everybody really feels that spirit of creative play. It informs every part of these games.

Meena: That’s a really beautiful opportunity to always be challenged to do the unorthodox. What has been the funniest, strangest, weirdest, most outlandish experiment anyone has ever asked you to pull off? Or you have asked yourself to pull off?

Winifred: Oh, I think that would have to be Victoria’s Lab from LittleBigPlanet 2. It was one of the first tracks I was asked to create for the LittleBigPlanet franchise. The level stars Victoria, and she is sort of a manic inventor! At least, this is how she was initially conceived by the development team. She’s very creative, as the whole franchise is, but she’s also dangerous, and she’s creating all these robots, and she’s super unpredictable! So the music was supposed to have that flavor to it – essentially finding the danger of Victoria as an unpredictable manic character. That was fun for me!

The LittleBigPlanet character Victoria von Bathysphere from the video game LittleBigPlanet 2. This image supports a discussion of the music composed for this character by award-winning game music composer Winifred Phillips.

Winifred: So I started looking into things that I could do, and I was combining rock guitar with silly vocals and beatboxing and calliope and all kinds of wild instrumentation – pop bottles, and found-sound, and sound design. Just a sense of everything that you could imagine thrown at it! Trying to make that feel really unexpected and surprising. Plus it is very much a vocal driven track. There’s sort of an operatic lead vocal that essentially personifies Victoria herself, and then there’s an almost Andrew Sisters type vocal group behind her that’s keeping an energy going with all of this syllabic singing that’s happening. A lot of elements went into it! It’s almost chaotic, but you have to structure it so that it feels satisfying, so that you can follow the line. And of course, Victoria’s voice really creates a central point of focus. So that was immense fun to create.

Winifred: Then, I submitted it to the team, and it was implemented into the game. As a composer, you don’t have as direct an experience participating in that process. I get a chance to see early concept art and video of the game in action, but I don’t get to see the final product while it’s being implemented. But then later, I was contacted by the audio director of the project, who let me know that they had revised the level a bit – specifically to accommodate the music that I had submitted.

Meena: That’s amazing!

Winifred: Incredibly rare! It’s an incredibly rare thing to happen, which I was dumbfounded by. Because when I finally saw the level, not only was she a manic inventor with lots of maniacal robots rolling around, but she’s also now a baker! And we have cookies and cakes and cherries and icing dripping from walls, and roses! It was a garden, there were all sorts of roses everywhere! I think they had keyed in on the whimsy that had been woven with the danger. They’d represented both elements that were in the music, represented them visually in the gameplay – and it was amazing to me!

Winifred: I never felt quite as centrally a part of the development process as I felt for that one, because the music essentially had a chance to participate in the game design – without me knowing that was what was going to happen. But it did! And it was just so fulfilling! So that’s a really deeply meaningful memory for me.

Meena: That is beautiful! That may be one of my favorite stories! Whenever I hear a composer say that the development team actually changed their level, or changed their game, in response to the music, that to me really speaks volumes about the power of music in video games! Even before it reaches the gamers! That’s just fabulous! I love hearing that! It’s amazing!

Winifred: It was really amazing for me. It is a rare thing to happen. And understandably so! Game development is a very complex process. It involves a lot of people. They can be big teams! And it’s a complicated mechanism that’s being created. It has to respond to player actions, so it’s very complex in terms of its internal construction. The idea of a composer being thrown into that mix and influencing the structure of the design is a rare thing, and it’s really special for me that that happened there. So I have very warm feeling about that particular game, and the LittleBigPlanet and Sackboy folks as a whole. They’re magnificent people!

The official logo of Sony Interactive Entertainment (used to support a discussion of their creatively supportive work environment in an article by game music composer Winifred Phillips).

Meena: And in that complex machinery of game development, you decided at some point to help break it down for other people hoping to write video game music, with a book aptly titled A Composer’s Guide to Game Music! What drove that decision for you? To say, “hey you know what? I need to put this out there!”

Winifred: Yeah. I think part of it was – there wasn’t a book in existence at that time that was pointed towards composers, with a focus just on that discipline. There were books that existed, that would help out someone who was trying to break into the industry, who was a musician or composer… but they tended to focus on the entire discipline of game audio. And a lot of the discussion focused on the art and technology associated with sound design, and audio design. That end of things. Which of course is useful for a composer to know – but it doesn’t really address the questions that we have about what we want to achieve as game composers.

An illustration supporting a discussion of audio technology. Included in the article by Winifred Phillips (BAFTA-nominated game music composer).

Winifred: When you’re playing a game, there are two things you’re essentially hearing. I’ll break it down a little further. Three things you’re essentially hearing. You’re hearing the atmosphere of the environment you’re existing in. Say you’re wandering an outdoor location. You might be hearing the wind, and the birds, and any incidental sounds that might be happening there. And then there’s a second layer of sounds – sounds that you’re making, both in your movement, and by interacting with the environment. So they’re more incidental sounds that are being triggered by you – by your agency as a player. And that’s all essentially sound design. There’s a professional on the game development team who is responsible for that, so they’re creating all sorts of audio recordings that can be worked into the structure of the game and can be triggered by your actions, or by where you are in the game. So that essentially weaves an aural universe around you. And then there’s the third element – that’s the music. That music typically tends to be what’s called non-diegetic. It doesn’t exist in the fiction, so you don’t think the music you’re hearing is coming from something in the environment, unless there’s some overt radio sitting there, and the music is supposed to be coming out of it.

Meena: Like the old Tomb Raider!

Winifred: Right, absolutely, yeah! That’s a good example of diegetic music in action! But most of the time, it’s non-diegetic. It’s music that’s kind of like a film score or television score. It’s weaving an emotional tapestry for you. It’s giving you a sense of emotional momentum. Maybe it’s helping you out, in terms of what’s important that you need to pursue. It’s telling the story with a musical language, so that you can remain emotionally involved even though a game is typically a longer experience than a film or a tv show – which tends to be a single sitting type affair. Whereas a video game can be tens or hundreds of hours. And music really plays a very important role in keeping a player emotionally invested, and helping them to hang onto the thread of narrative when they are in the game for that long a period of time.

An illustration supporting a discussion of how music can help gamers to remain emotionally invested in a game. As included in the article by video game music composer Winifred Phillips.

Winifred: So it’s an entirely different discipline. It has its own technical challenges, in terms of getting the music to feel like it’s flowing with your own experience as a player, so that it’s essentially telling your story. So that is a challenge for game composers, and we try all sorts of different techniques and technologies to make that happen. But when I was first coming up as a young game composer, most of the books were focusing on the first two kinds of audio you’d experience: the incidental sounds and the environmental sounds. That’s mostly what these books were about. They might talk about music, but not a lot! I mean, it didn’t feel like the heart of the book was there, it was just kind of an ancillary part of the overall thing. And I kind of yearned for something that was going to guide me, and it didn’t really exist at the time. Around that time, I started thinking maybe I’m the person to write that book, because it didn’t exist then. This was actually right before I was hired for the Assassin’s Creed Liberation project. I had started working on the book, and I had an agreement with the MIT Press to turn in a draft of that book, and then I was hired for Assassin’s Creed Liberation. Which was actually unexpected! And so I set the book aside to work on that project, which was massive and amazing! And working with Ubisoft was just world-changing for me!

Winifred: Then I went back and completely rewrote the book, because of course there was a lot that I had learned from that, and a lot that I wanted to share!

Meena: Yeah! (Laughs) I can imagine!

Winifred: Yeah! When I started thinking I wanted to write the book, that’s why I called it a Composer’s Guide to Game Music, because it really was important for me to stress that this book was pointed towards composers. At least at the time in which I was writing it, there weren’t any books that were pointed specifically towards composers. I think that now as time has gone on, there are more books out there, and there are more that are pointed towards composers, and thinking about our discipline, and the kinds of questions that we ask as we’re trying to do our work. But at the time, there really wasn’t anything very specific, so that’s why I wrote it.

An image depicting the cover of the book A Composer's Guide to Game Music, written by award-winning game music composer Winifred Phillips.This logo depicts the official imagery of the Game Show program on ABC Classic (as included in the article by video game composer Winifred Phillips).

We’ve reached the end of part two of my interview with the Game Show’s Meena Shamaly.  I’ll be continuing this transcript in part three, so watch this space!  And if you’re enjoying this interview transcript, please tune in to Meena’s series, airing every friday on ABC Classic and online via the ABC Classic web site!

 


Headshot of award-winning video game music composer Winifred Phillips.

Winifred Phillips is a BAFTA-nominated video game composer.  The music she composed for one of her most recent video game projects (Secrets of Skeifa Island) won two Global Music Award Gold Medals, two NYX Gold Awards, and was nominated for a Society of Composers and Lyricists Award.  Music from Secrets of Skeifa Island is included in her latest album release, Ancient Heroes, released by the BMG record label 1 Revolution.  Other recent game projects include Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord, and the hit PlayStation 5 launch title Sackboy: A Big Adventure (soundtrack album now available).  Popular music from Phillips’ award-winning Assassin’s Creed Liberation score was featured in the performance repertoire of the Assassin’s Creed Symphony World Tour, which made its Paris debut with an 80-piece orchestra and choir. As an accomplished video game composer, Phillips is best known for composing music for games in many of the most famous and popular franchises in gaming: the list includes Assassin’s Creed, God of War, Total War, The Sims, Sackboy / LittleBigPlanet, Lineage, Jurassic World, and Wizardry.  Phillips’ has received numerous awards, including an Interactive Achievement Award / D.I.C.E. Award from the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences, six Game Audio Network Guild Awards (including Music of the Year), and four Hollywood Music in Media Awards. She is the author of the award-winning bestseller A COMPOSER’S GUIDE TO GAME MUSIC, published by the MIT Press. As one of the foremost authorities on music for interactive entertainment, Winifred Phillips has given lectures at the Library of Congress in Washington DC, the Society of Composers and Lyricists, the Game Developers Conference, the Audio Engineering Society, and many more. Phillips’ enthusiastic fans showered her with questions during a Reddit Ask-Me-Anything session that went viral, hit the Reddit front page, received 14.9 thousand upvotes, and became one of the most popular gaming AMAs ever hosted on Reddit. An interview with her has been published as a part of the Routledge text, Women’s Music for the Screen: Diverse Narratives in Sound, which collects the viewpoints of the most esteemed female composers in film, television, and games.  Follow her on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Threads.

Hybrid Linear-Dynamic Music for Game Composers (From Spyder to Sackboy: GDC 2021)

This captured image from the GDC 2021 lecture of video game composer Winifred Phillips includes details of a discussion of the music of the video game Spyder.

By Winifred Phillips | Contact | Follow

Glad you’re here!  I’m video game composer Winifred Phillips, and I’d like to welcome you to the sixth and final installment in my article series based on my GDC lecture – From Spyder to Sackboy: A Big Adventure in Interactive Music!  Last year I had the privilege of working with Sumo Sheffield on music composition for two projects in simultaneous development – Sackboy: A Big Adventure for PS5/PS4, and Spyder for Apple Arcade. (Above you’ll see a photo from one of the sections of my GDC lecture in which I’m discussing the Spyder project).  Both the Sackboy and Spyder projects incorporated highly interactive music into their design.  While both projects included the basic dynamic models of horizontal and vertical structure, they each brought new twists and quirks to these ever-popular music implementation methods.  Since I spent a lot of time bouncing back and forth between the two projects, I got a chance to see how malleable interactive music systems can be when employed creatively.  Now, I’m glad to share my best experiences and observations creating music for these two awesome projects!

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Hybrid Dynamic-Diegetic Music for Game Music Composers (From Spyder to Sackboy: GDC 2021)

During the Game Developers Conference 2021, video game composer Winifred Phillips delivered a lecture that included a discussion of her music for two projects, including the project pictured here (Spyder for Apple Arcade).

By Winifred Phillips | Contact | Follow

Hi!  I’m video game composer Winifred Phillips.  Welcome to installment five in my series of articles based on my lecture, From Spyder to Sackboy: A Big Adventure in Interactive Music.  In delivering my presentation at this year’s edition of the popular Game Developers Conference, I based my lecture content on my experiences composing music for two projects in simultaneous development at Sumo Sheffield – Sackboy: A Big Adventure for PS5/PS4, and Spyder for Apple Arcade.  (Above you’ll see a photo from one of the sections of my GDC 2021 lecture in which I’m discussing the Spyder project).  The music design for these two games included multiple dynamic systems that were both complex and ambitious in scope.  While they both relied on some of the most tried-and-tested strategies for musical interactivity, they were also quite innovative in their own distinctive ways.  While composing music for these projects, I had the opportunity to see how flexible dynamic music models can be.  I learned a lot from the experience, and it was really interesting to explore the similarities and differences during my GDC 2021 lecture!

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Hybrid Horizontal-Vertical Structure for Video Game Composers (From Spyder to Sackboy: GDC 2021)

This screen from the GDC 2021 lecture of video game composer Winifred Phillips was taken during the discussion of how success is recognized by the dynamic music system.

By Winifred Phillips | Contact | Follow

Delighted you’re here!  I’m video game composer Winifred Phillips, and I’m very happy you’ve joined us for this latest entry in my series of articles for video game composers, based on the lecture I gave during the Game Developers Conference 2021 – From Spyder to Sackboy: A Big Adventure in Interactive Music!  Over the previous year, I had the privilege of working with the expert development team at Sumo Sheffield on music composition for two fantastic projects – Sackboy: A Big Adventure for PS5/PS4, and Spyder for Apple Arcade.  (Above you’ll see a photo from one of the sections of my GDC 2021 lecture in which I’m discussing the Sackboy project).

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Pure Vertical Layering for Game Music Composers (From Spyder to Sackboy: GDC 2021)

This image is captured from the GDC 2021 presentation of award-winning video game composer Winifred Phillips.

By Winifred Phillips | Contact | Follow

So happy you’ve joined us!  I’m video game composer Winifred Phillips, and I’d like to welcome you to the continuation of this series of articles based on my lecture from GDC 2021 – From Spyder to Sackboy: A Big Adventure in Interactive Music!  Using the example of two of my projects from the previous year, I explored the contrasting models of dynamic music design employed in two games –  Sackboy: A Big Adventure for PS5/PS4, and Spyder for Apple Arcade.  (Above you’ll see a photo from one of the sections of my GDC 2021 lecture in which I’m discussing the Spyder project).  Both Spyder and Sackboy were developed by Sumo Sheffield and featured whimsical characters and situations.  Each of the two projects had a long list of music requirements and strategies that were dramatically different.  In composing music for these two games, I learned a lot about the flexibility of dynamic music systems.  Since I worked on music for both games simultaneously, it was fascinating to make comparisons between the two projects after the fact.  Preparing my GDC presentation became an exercise in understanding how flexible video game music can be.  If you haven’t had a chance to read the previous two installments of this series, you can read first about Horizontal Resequencing and Song Structure, and then Horizontal Resequencing & Dynamic Transitions.

As we discussed in the previous article, interactive music design is highly contextual. The circumstances dictate our choices.  No single method can be considered the best way, or the right way. Working on these two projects at the same time, I came across this idea over and over again.  

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Horizontal Resequencing and Dynamic Transitions for Game Music Composers (From Spyder to Sackboy: GDC 2021)

From the GDC 2021 presentation of video game composer Winifred Phillips, this image depicts the section of Phillips' lecture discussing horizontal resequencing in both the Spyder and Sackboy: A Big Adventure videogames.

By Winifred Phillips | Contact | Follow

Welcome!  I’m video game composer Winifred Phillips, and I’m happy you’ve joined me for the second installment in this series of articles based on the content of a lecture I gave during the Game Developers Conference 2021.  My talk was entitled, “From Spyder To Sackboy: A Big Adventure in Interactive Music.”  In my presentation, I compared and contrasted the interactive music design of two of my video game projects from the previous year.  Both projects were developed by one of the game industry’s top development studios – Sumo Sheffield.  Both projects included ambitious dynamic music systems, using similar techniques and approaches.  However, there were lots of differences in the execution of those techniques.  This series of articles explores the similarities and differences between the dynamic music design of the popular Sackboy: A Big Adventure game for PS5/PS4, and Spyder for the new Apple Arcade (a great platform for supporting larger-scale game development for iOS).  (Above you’ll see a photo from one of the sections of my GDC 2021 lecture in which I’m discussing the music systems of both of these projects).  If you missed the first article in this series, you can find it here.

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Horizontal Resquencing and Song Structure for Game Music Composers (From Spyder to Sackboy: GDC 2021)

Photo of BAFTA-nominated video game music composer Winifred Phillips, working in her music production studio.

By Winifred Phillips | Contact | Follow

Hey everybody!  I’m video game composer Winifred Phillips, and I was excited this year to present a talk at the Game Developers Conference.  GDC is one of the top conferences in the video game industry, and it was a fantastic event this year, full of expert sessions and lots of opportunities to learn and network.  As in previous years, I thought it might be best if I included the content of my GDC lecture in my articles here, so I’m now kicking off a six-part series of articles based on my presentation in July!  I’ve included the substance of my GDC presentation, supported by some of the multimedia materials I used to illustrate concepts during my lecture.  I’ve also enlarged upon most of those topics with a bit of further explanation that couldn’t be included in my original GDC presentation (due to time constraints).  So now without further ado, let’s get started!

A slide from the GDC 2021 lecture of video game composer Winifred Phillips, depicting her work with Sumo Sheffield on two simultaneous projects.Back in the summer of 2019, I started working with Sumo Sheffield on music for two different games. It was pretty intense work over the course of many months on two awesome projects with very different musical needs.  The list of musical requirements was quite long for both projects, and I spent a lot of time ping ponging back and forth between them. After they both hit retail in 2020, I realized how eye-opening that experience had been. Both games required complex musical interactivity, but each met that goal in very different ways.

In this article series, we’re going to be taking a look at those two projects: Sackboy: A Big Adventure for the PS5/PS4, and Spyder for Apple Arcade.

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Happy Birthday, LittleBigPlanet!

birthday-7thThe LittleBigPlanet franchise is 7 years old today!  On October 28th, 2008, the very first LittleBigPlanet game was published by Sony Computer Entertainment Europe.  In the seven years since that auspicious day, players have explored the whimsical world of LittleBigPlanet in countless awesome adventures.  I’m very proud to have been a part of the music team for this famous franchise.  So, to celebrate the game franchise’s seventh birthday, let’s go for a tour through the history of LittleBigPlanet!

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Power to the Players: Music for User-Created Levels

This week, I’d like to touch upon an aspect of the LittleBigPlanet music system that sets it apart from most other games – and that is the way in which the game gives players the power to directly manipulate the music content.

community

Every piece of music in a LittleBigPlanet game is also a collectible prize that players can obtain and then use in levels that they build themselves using the game’s creation tools. For this reason, when composing for a LittleBigPlanet game, the members of the music composition team have to keep in mind that there’s no way to predict how the user community will use the music. Certainly, the players will be sharing their user-created levels across the entire community – there are over 9 million levels so far – and that knowledge tends to puts everything in a whole new light.

As I’ve mentioned in previous blogs, the music of the LittleBigPlanet franchise for consoles is structured using a Vertical Layering system comprised of six layers – six simultaneous audio recordings that play in synch with each other and each represent a percentage of the whole composition. This allows the music to be disassembled and reassembled by the game engine according to what’s happening during the course of play.  That means that each music composition is fragmented into six parts.  So, I have to ask myself – when players are using one of the interactive tracks I’ve composed for a LittleBigPlanet game, will users play only one layer out of the six? That thought tends to make me scrutinize every layer pretty intently.

On the other hand, will players just set every layer as active, at full volume, all the time? Again, that’s a thought that puts me on high alert, leading me to turn a hyper critical eye on each composition before I make that final submission to the developers.

scrutiny

When we create interactive music for most projects, we can trust that the audio team at the development studio will work to implement the music in the most advantageous way, with the most satisfying musical results – but players tend to make their decisions based on what seems like fun at the time.

Even so, I’m always excited to hear how players have implemented my music into their games.  Here are some of the best examples of ingenuity and artistry from a few of the top LittleBigPlanet level creators:

LittleBigPlanet 3 The Ziggurat Theme

In the Ziggurat level, Sackboy wanders through an impressive sanctuary characterized by imposing architecture and lots of glittering glass, with outdoor sections blanketed by softly falling snow.  I was asked to create music for this area, which was structured as a central hub from which Sackboy could embark on adventures and accept missions.  The music I composed included six layers – Choir, Harp, Bells, Bass, Jazz Drums and Percussion.  Here is a short 12 second excerpt taken from each of the six layers at the exact same moment in the composition:

In the Ziggurat level created by the development team at Sumo Digital, Sackboy repeatedly visits a central hub area, and the layers of the music are triggered in different configurations depending on when Sackboy visits.  The layers don’t change noticeably while Sackboy is exploring the level, but when he returns to the same level later, the music will have changed its layer configuration. Here’s a brief example of how that worked:

In the awesome user-created level Fuga Ad Infinitum (designed by Aratiatia), the Ziggurat Theme music is used with a very different triggering strategy.  The layers are turned on and off depending on the actions of Sackboy as he runs and flies through a mythologically-inspired environment, causing the music to fluidly change its character while Sackboy explores.  Because of this fundamentally different method of music triggering, The Ziggurat Theme has a unique tone and atmosphere in Fuga Ad Infinitum.  Here’s a gameplay video that shows how the music was triggered in the Fuga Ad Infinitum game:

The user Aratiatia created a mesmerizingly beautiful level, lacing the layers of The Ziggurat Theme throughout with thoughtfully designed trigger points that supported the action of the game very well.

LittleBigPlanet 2 Toy Story

Sometimes an interactive track can come across differently with very small changes in implementation.  As an example – the LittleBigPlanet 2 Toy Story game was a self-contained adventure in the world of the famous and popular Toy Story movies.  I wrote an interactive western bluegrass track for gameplay sequences that included cowboy romps with Woody and his pals.  The details regarding the composition of each layer in this bluegrass Vertical Layering composition are explored in one of the tutorial videos I produced to supplement my book, A Composer’s Guide to Game Music:

During the LittleBigPlanet 2 Toy Story game, the interactive music would be used for both low-energy cinematics and high-energy gameplay.  Here’s a brief video showing how the music was implemented in the LittleBigPlanet 2 Toy Story game:

Now, here’s the same music used in an incredibly clever LittleBigPlanet 2 user-created game called Paper World 2 by Adell22.  In this implementation of the music, Adell22 chose not to use the melody layer, opting instead for the bluegrass rhythm and energy to give the vehicular gameplay its momentum:

The drastically different gameplay circumstances, combined with the different mix of layers in the music, help this track to come across distinctively and support the action of the Paper World 2 user-created game.

LittleBigPlanet 2 Victoria’s Lab

I’ve blogged before about the music I composed for the Victoria’s Lab level of LittleBigPlanet 2 – I mention it here as an illustration of how a Vertical Layering composition can change depending on the implementation.  The music of Victoria’s Lab includes both whimsical and dark layers which can be played together or separately.  Here’s a 15 second excerpt of the full mix of Victoria’s Lab, to remind us of how all six layers sound when played together.

In a user-created level for the LittleBigPlanet 2 game, the user Acanimate chose to implement only the drums, guitars and strings of the Victoria’s Lab music (in other words, the dark and serious layers) in this exciting and perilous level called Sprocketz.

As a contrast, in this section of another user-created level called Sweets Fantasy by the user White Rabbit, only the light and comical layers of the Victoria’s Lab music were used, with the following result:

I’m always inspired by what the LittleBigPlanet user community does with the interactive music written for the franchise.  It’s a privilege to create music that will become part of user-created levels, and fascinating to see how the players choose to implement the interactive components of the LittleBigPlanet music system.  Their choices sometimes reveal hidden utility in the music created for the franchise, and looking at their choices can help us better understand the creative possibilities inherent in Vertical Layering.

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Studio1_GreenWinifred Phillips is an award-winning video game music composer whose most recent project is the triple-A first person shooter Homefront: The Revolution. Her credits include five of the most famous and popular franchises in video 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 Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press. As a VR game music expert, she writes frequently on the future of music in virtual reality video games. Follow her on Twitter @winphillips.

LittleBigPlanet 3 Unboxing – Plush Edition!

Today’s the big day!  The release of LittleBigPlanet 3 in the USA. I’m so proud to have composed music for this project and been part of the extraordinary music composition team for LittleBigPlanet 3!  Just got my LittleBigPlanet 3 Plush Edition, and I couldn’t wait to see what was inside.  A new LBP3 sackboy will join my previous LBP2 pal. Here are some pics from the unboxing.

My very own copy of LBP3! Sackboy looks interested back there...

My very own copy of LBP3! Sackboy looks interested back there…

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I think Sackboy is taking over this unboxing.

I think Sackboy is taking over this unboxing.

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Sackboy is wondering what's in there...?

Sackboy is wondering what’s in there…?

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A fantastic new LittleBigPlanet game! And a smaller Sackboy in a plastic bag!

A fantastic new LittleBigPlanet game! And a smaller Sackboy in a plastic bag!

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Sackboy uses his crafty scissor tool to release his new friend from his plastic bondage.

Sackboy uses his crafty scissor tool to release his new friend from his plastic bondage.

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Fresh air for Sackboy's new friend!

Fresh air for Sackboy’s new friend!

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Pals for life! :)

Pals for life!

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It was a thrill to compose music for LittleBigPlanet 3! My two new sackboys will live in my music studio and provide me with daily inspiration.  :-D

It was a thrill to compose music for LittleBigPlanet 3! My two new sackboys will live in my music studio and provide me with daily inspiration. 😀

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Can't get these two kids to stop playing with the box that the game came in.  ;-)

Can’t get these two kids to stop playing with the box that the game came in. 😉

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