Messages

[another]

Obviously you are talking about another Police Quest 2 than Sierra's Police Quest 2 from 1988, right?

If you are talking about that game, a search on Google for "Police Quest 2 walkthrough" reveals around 22,000 results! For example this one: http://www.the-spoiler.com/ADVENTURE/Sierra/police.2.6.html

Police Quest 2 was one of my most favorite games, but I don't, on the top of my head, remember how to get through the shooting range, but it's all there in the walkthrough!

/Tom.

[In My Treehouse By The Lake]

Interesting theme!

I actually wrote this tune a while back after reading Anne of Green Gables! It's not exactly my favorite book(s), but it did evoke quite a few sentimental feelings in me!

In My Treehouse By The Lake

I hope that using an older piece won't disqualify me!

Hope you'll enjoy it!

/Thomas.

PS: It's important to stare dreamily out the window while listening!

Hey James,

Hmm.. What you're asking here is not really related to adventure games as such, because what you're after are some general guidelines on how to compose music.

And those are _very_ difficult to give, because each composer has his own way of composing. Some like to meditate before writing, others take drugs. But I can tell you how I personally compose for movies/games/etc..:

First of all I have a talk with the director/producer about the project. It's important to know what he/she has in mind for the soundtrack so you don't start off with ultra-mega-death-techno when in fact the director was looking for religious church Hymns. After this, I need to have something to look at, whether it's 2 minutes of rough film-cuts or an intro to a computer game. Just to get an idea of what I'm dealing with. Having seen these rough cuts, I start composing in my head, while keeping in mind what the director wants. As I get more rough cuts or semi-completed parts, I start playing a long using a regular piano-sound until I find something that does what I want it to do.

Obviously I have a set of "tools" to choose from, seeing that I've been composing music for 15 years, but I always start from scratch and work my way through the soundtrack, one piece at a time.

The "tools" I'm talking about are "experience tools". For instance, I know that a solo violin is good to express sadness, and a crash cymbal does not do well as a lead instrument.

Apart from experience, there's one more important thing to remember (even though many tend to forget): Everything is team work - even if you sit alone in your basement composing, you need to be in regular contact with the director/producer. Send them loads of demos, so they can choose which style they'd like you to continue with. This way you'll show that you're really into the project and you'll keep the director happy, because he feels he's getting value for his money (which is very good for his stress-levels too).

For instance, I just finished writing the soundtrack for Dave Gilbert's Blackwell Unbound. During this process, I must have sent him at least 35 demos. And we ended up using around 18 for the game and that's, personally, how I like to do it! Keeps me calm too, to know that we have a wide selection of cues to choose from.

About instrumentation. Well.. Only one thing to say to that: Experience. Where do you start if you want to dissemble your car? I haven't got a clue, but my mechanic will surely know, because he's tried it so many times before. And that's the process you're in right now. You're gaining valuable experience by doing the trial and error thing. One day you'll know exactly what will work and what won't.

Well.. That was a bit of advice from me! I'm no expert and other composers may have a completely different working process, but this works for me! :-)

All the best and happy composing,

Tom

Hi Vel,

You made my entire year with that review!!  Yours was the first one I read and it completely blew me away!! That's why I said "with some exceptions". 

I didn't know that it was you who wrote it, so thank you very, very much!!

/Tom

Ozzie,

You just made my day!! 

Thank you very much for your kind words about my music! I'm so glad you enjoyed it! I feel that the music has been slightly overlooked (luckily with some exceptions) in various reviews so far, so I'm very happy to see/hear the feedback from you guys who've played the game! This was my first soundtrack for a PC-game, so I have been very anxious to see how it was accepted!

Again, thank you for enjoying the music!

/Tom.

Spoiler

Did you call the reporter? Maybe you can look up "The New Yorker" in the phone book and give them a call!

Mavis lived in apartment 3D. I had problems with this one as well!

[close]

/Tom

Spoiler

Maybe there is some way of finding out more about that New Yorker reporter?

[close]

/Tom..

Hey all!

Thank you very much for the nice comments about my music!

I've wanted to "score" this type of game since my childhood when I played the old Sierra-games, so it's also a dream come true for me!

Dave and Erin's work is really amazing, and I had a lot of fun writing the music! I'm really glad that you enjoyed it! 

/Tom

Tell you the truth, I'm really interestd in how the music will sound like. Perhaps it's sound like the music in 'the bestowers of eternity'? Well I'll just have to wait and hear! OwO

Well, maybe I can shed a bit of light on how the music's gonna sound like!

Although the style hasn't been defined 100% yet, I'll probably do a mixture of orchestral suspense tracks and 70's like jazz-ballads with a touch of evil!.. 

But I don't want to reveal too much yet! All I can say is that I'm honoured and proud that Dave chose me to work on this game. I enjoyed the music from his previous games a lot and I know that it's going to be tough to compete with that. I just hope that I can bring something new and maybe a bit different to the music side of this game.

All the best,

Tom.

Ah, the constant 2nd!

LF, make us (me!) a nice, winnable contest next!

Boojiboy,

Thanks for your fair judgement and congrats to all participants!

/Tom..

phew! I'm glad we've got a goblin fan here. That's exactly what I'm looking for really.

Also, so no one gets confused again. The subject is NOT 'thrillers' from 1979. It's horror films, think Halloween etc.
Still a good track Thomasregin.

Keep em coming.

Ah, well.. I had absolutely no idea what you were looking for!

/Tom..

[Thriller & Suspense]

Suspense it is then!

Thriller & Suspense

Thrillers from 1979 isn't my specialty. As the matter of fact I can't recall a single film from 1979, but I hope you'll enjoy my tune anyway!

/Tom..

Hey manÃ,  I have a bass guitar .. but it tricky to record and get the right sound .. I use it when I'm recording songs and such but a vsti with diffrent bass types and sounds would really make it easier.

Jaws,

You need a bass preamp to get the "right" sound on your bass recordings. If you just plug your bass directly into your sound card you can't get the sound your are looking for without extensive use of compression-plugin's such as Waves' ultramaximizer or RComp etc.. And even then the sound won't be top-notch. The only way to go is to record through a preamp..

/tom..

I find myself more prepared than most people I know to walk across town visiting the same locations over and over.

I think the source of this is apparent.

ROFL!!

Yes, I too find myself trying to combine things I find by looking in people's drawers. And when I talk to people I always ask them so many questions that they start repeating themselves!Ã, 

/tom..

Oh, I honestly believe that adventure games have had a tremendous influence on my life.

I have been playing adventure games since the beginning of the 80s. As the matter of fact I got my first C64 in '83 just 7 years old. The biggest influence these games had on me was of course that they taught me English. In a very short period of time I was practically fluent in English - something that has more of less lasted up until now. And again something that was completely unheard of at that time. A 7-8 year old kid with Danish parents reading and writing English.

Secondly it gave me a lot of quality time with my father. Adventure gaming is the _perfect_ tool for bringing people together. As an adult I've also spent many nights with friends playing adventure games while drinking beer etc.

Lastly, adventure games broadened my sense of humour greatly.

I honestly believe that I'm in dept to adventure games. And I can't believe that good games are so hard to come by these days with all the big companies focusing more on FPS than plots and puzzles! How are today's children ever going to survive?

Tom..

But there's no way that this could be done without writing it down in a system unless you got a photographic memory!

Put like that it reads like a fault. Well, while it's certainly not to everyone's taste and appeal (I certainly don't really care for them), several adventure games have this *characteristic* - you have to take notes, or you have to write stuff down, or you have to draw diagrams. Myst and Riven and etc are naturally champions at this stuff, and many games have nothing of the sort. It's just the way they are.

Unless you're criticizing the whole Monkey Kombat. It IS true that the original insult swordfight (quite a masterpiece, puzzle-wise) didn't rely on writing anything down, all you needed were your wits and an ability to cross-reference sentences.

I know exactly how adventure games work. I guess I played my first ones long before you were even born back on the Commodore 16, Vic20 and C64 where everything was text-based. No graphics at all. "Go west" "You have encountered a bit troll. What would you like to do?"

And I'm not at all arguing against writing anything down. I'm bashing the Monkey Kombat-concept because I found it very frustrating and illogic compared to the previous insult swordfights! It had no place in that game. Up until the Monkey Kombat everything had been pretty straight forward and then you are presented with something that makes absolutely no sense unless you spend a long, long time writing everything down.

In the "old days" you often had to write down phonenumbers, passwords and even family trees etc., but having to write down an entire coordinate system with "Uuh aah aah" and so on made little sense to me at the time!

If people found this puzzle easy and a nice feature of MI IV, then by all means I'm happy for them! I just found it very annoying!

/tom.

The monkey attack system took you 10 hours to get through? I guess it could be slightly more difficult if you've never played rock-paper-scissors before. But still, I think it took me less time to beat the whole game.

Well.. What can I say? It was extremely easy once you figured out how to do it. I don't know if it took 10 hours, but it sure felt like it! But there's no way that this could be done without writing it down in a system unless you got a photographic memory!

/tom..

I wonder why no one has mentioned the amazingly annoying last "monkey-attack" puzzle in MI IV.

Once you figured it out (after 10 hours of constantly getting it wrong) you had to draw a huge coordinate system that you could only use once (because the puzzle changed for every new game).

Syberia had a few very illogical puzzles as well. It's been a while, but I remember getting very stuck at some horse-caroussel in a bar somewhere. Had to cheat big time to get through that one. Something that I usually not do!

/tom..

Best adventure game?

That has to be Monkey Island III! Greatest humour ever combined with stunning (at the time) graphics. Just thinking about the banjo contest puts a smile on my face!

Runners up are:

MI 2
Larry 1-4
Police Quest 1+2
Space Quest 1-4
Syberia 1

Tom..

[That Blue Grass Makes Me Spacy]

Hello everybody!

I am completely new in this forum. In fact this will be my first post!

I was referred to this forum yesterday by Nikolas and I've had a look around and so far I really like what I see!

The reason I am here, besides _loving_ adventure games, is that I am a composer looking for fun projects. And last night I stumpled across this contest here and thought I'd give it a try.

This is nothing fancy. Just something I more or less threw together today. It's probably the weirdest thing I've ever done musically, but it was fun as h...!

So, without further ado, I give you That Blue Grass Makes Me Spacy

I hope you enjoy it!

All the best,

Thomas Regin