One song per room?

[Cerno]

Hello all.

I hope this is not the wrong forum, since I don't really have something to show yet.

My ongoing project Sibun - Shadow of the Septemplicon will only have a handful of rooms and I was thinking whether I could pull off giving every room its own theme song.

It ties well into the concept of the game, but I am about to drop that idea because often the player only traverses a room quickly. This would lead to shifting from theme song to theme song constantly and I fear that it would kill the mood.
So my question is: Has anyone here have any experience in giving each room an individual track? Is there a trick to make the transitions less severe? Or would you generally advise against it?

Sorry again if this is the wrong forum, please feel free to move the thread to the appropriate place if so.

[cat]

Long time ago there was an article about room music vs. location music by m0ds.
The page seems to be offline now. I only found it via Wayback Machine:
https://web.archive.org/web/20130415224145/http://adventuredevelopers.com/featuredetail.php?action=view&featureid=28&showpage=1

Maybe this gives you some ideas.

@m0ds, could you maybe repost this article in Adventure Related section on this forum? Or would you mind if I do, just to preserve it?

[Cerno]

Wow, thanks cat, that was a very useful read. Makes me reconsider my approach to the game's music altogether.

I even got a very straightforward answer to my question

Never use a different tune for every different room. Not only does it frustrate and annoy the player, but it also means the composer has to create lots and lots of tunes.

So I will finally drop my idea of having one tune per room, although some of the rooms differ significantly thematically, and find a way to group them into locations with similar themes.

By using fewer tunes for the rooms themselves I might be able to allot that time for additional situational tunes e.g. cutscenes.
Since this is my first project, I hadn't considered that it might be a bad idea having a theme for each room, and continuing to play that theme during cutscenes, which will lose a lot of the dramatic effect of the scene.

Great article, definitely recommended to any beginner out there, I agree that it should be preserved.

[Fred Five]

Great read Cat. Thanks for sharing