On the Potential of Folk Music As Game Music

Short blog post today; tight schedule.

Yo! The onject of game music is twofold: to set the mood for the stage, and to be able to be repeated endlessly without significant rising and falling in tone, so that you can't discern an end or beginning.

Do you know what else does both of those things? Folk music! Or, dunno, anything like it. Brahms' Hungarian Dances, some of my favorite pieces of music, could be looped around from point to point like game music. This can be done with pretty much any dance; this leads me to believe that it's really dances, not folk music, that we're looking for. Nevertheless, folk music is as good a resource as any, in fact an exceptional one.

As for setting the mood, it might not do for cases where you want to create a sense of mistique, or foreboding, but this sort of music certainly varies in both key and speed. You have a very versatile library to choose from.

Maybe I should do a few ports myself.

Vanilla XL Is In A Coma

As it stands, I am unable to work on my hack, Vanilla XL, for a year. This is because I am entering high school, and using a computer will completely ruin my school experience (I want a top-notch transcript: 4.53 grade average, every possible honor given). In spite of this, however, I refuse to quit hacking entirely. I will henceforth, surreptitiously and completely by iPhone, publish a blog on the subject. Don't expect regular updates; for example, next week I will be unable to post, due to a lack of a connection. However, I have lots to ponder on the subject, so I promise to be fruitful!

Right now, though, all I'm going to do is declare all of the tags I will be using. Currently I will make a theme of learning from existing masters of art, most notably van Gogh the Dutchman. I will draw your attention to notable paintings I picked up in the art galleries I've been to— I have a list! Once I've exhausted this, I'll mostly be publishing clever color combinations, flashes of insight, and the occasional graphics set (no telling how I'll do THAT). Oh, and Sonikku has asked me to show him the source of the level generator, which I never adequately demonstrated (due to it being an extremely tedious process). So, I might post improvements to it, once I unearth it.

Otherwise, I'm a mostly silent guy, so you'll have to make do with the loquaciousness in the comments!