Making a World Dance with Figment 2: Creed Valley

Figment 2, our surreal and musical journey into the human thoughts, is one thing we needed to make as impactful as attainable relating to the sound design and music. One strategy is to include it into the sport’s surroundings. We do that by having gentle bulbs blinking to the beat of the music, bridges made from piano keys that play if you stroll on them, bosses that sing their very own theme songs to you throughout fights, and music that modifications relying the place you’re and displays your environment. This sequel follows the identical protagonist, Dusty, the Braveness of the thoughts as we observe his journey into deep corners of the unconscious.

To make the environment really feel extra in tune with the universe, we analysed the background music by discovering the place the loudest components of the audio monitor are. We then use that knowledge from that audio clip in varied methods, like animating objects or when to play sound results. Within the image above you may see two timber with lights hanging from them known as Cocobulbs. These Cocobulbs blink each time a sure loudness of the background monitor is reached, exemplified by the inexperienced triangles within the picture beneath, that are known as peaks. This makes the world dance and transfer to the beat of the music.

One other a part of Figment’s design the place we discovered room for additional experimentation within the musical division was normal fight encounters. Particular enemies have their very own layer of music that will get added to the already-playing (base) fight music. Additionally they assault on completely different beats and on completely different bars.

Figment 2 has a completely new forged of enemies. One gentle attacker that prices usually, one which has a bigger wind up with intervals of invulnerability, a ranged and motionless turret, and a heavy slammer with high-damage assaults.

That is the place the fight choreographer got here to life, a instrument that would take all enemies from a specific location and inform them when to assault. This instrument takes into consideration what number of of every sort there are, what occurs when that quantity goes decrease or larger, and may change their attacking “rhythm” when these values change.

Then the enemies will sync as much as the monitor that’s enjoying and assault. Lighter enemies can assault extra usually, whereas bigger ones can assault on extra important beats like the primary beat of every bar to provide extra impression to their function within the combat.

This instrument allowed us to extra effectively sync up enemies to fights and provides a way of stream when the participant discovered themselves in fight. We are able to make a brand new enemy assault Dusty, or have the identical one chase you repeatedly if it matches the tune higher.

These new instruments and overarching sport design implementations gave means to some new ideas relating to boss fights. We needed these encounters to be grandiose, a David vs Goliath state of affairs. Nightmares take heart stage, presenting themselves by way of a change of surroundings and music.

Nightmares bodily manifest within the thoughts, and because you’re the braveness defending it, you need to face them by way of fights and puzzles to know why they’ve appeared. On this case The Jester symbolises the worry of duties piling up and being unable to let unfastened anymore. In fights towards them, they’ve Oddballs, these little spheres that shield them from assaults, however may also be used to assault Dusty.

We had run into conditions the place enemies or ranges influenced how the music would form up. Nonetheless, right here, music and sport design coerced one another mutually. In your first combat towards The Jester, the Oddballs slowly transfer round them, and unfold out at key moments of their tune so you may assault. Like every thing in Figment 2, additionally they transfer and bounce in sync with the world’s rhythm. In one other encounter additional down the road, the Jester has a brand new tune with a special rhythm with additional evolution of the story – and the previous design of the Oddballs didn’t work anymore. This new tune had a a lot faster tempo, was angrier, and we needed to provide you with a mechanic that mirrored that.

Within the encounter beneath, the design staff got here up with the concept The Jester might “shoot” the Oddballs that used to guard him. He’s angrier, looser in preventing type. So we needed to provide you with a special means of expressing that. Thus, like six rounds of a revolver, The Jester shoots the Oddballs away.

Each piece of Figment 2’s universe is musically attuned with its environment. We hope that gamers will take pleasure in Figment 2: Creed Valley when it arrives on Recreation Go July twentieth, better of luck on saving The Thoughts from the nightmares wreaking havoc.