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Music
for Myst III: Exile In 1993,
when I first played Myst, being immersed into that strange world
for the very first time, it was obvious this was a seminal moment in computer
games. The story, the ambience, and the mystery of the Myst universe
consumed my free time joyously; there was some relief in knowing that
I could be so smitten by a computer game without constantly having to
kill something. The original
soundtracks to Myst and Riven were an absolute determinant
in rendering the player's experience immersive and intriguing. Both Soundtracks
are, to date, two of the finest examples of the effectiveness of good-quality
music and sound in a video game. Of course, in producing the next Myst
soundtrack, we would be remiss if we didn't look at ways of improving
the music and sound. When I started
writing music specifically for video games in 1995, my own personal mandate
was to bring the quality of music heard in film to video games. Why not?
This business now produces as much revenue as the film industry. Why not
produce music for games that hits the player with as much force as when
the opening cinematics in a film roll? Obviously there are fundamental
differences between film music and game music, but why reinvent the wheel?
When Myst III came along, I realized this was our chance. This
was an enormously successful series that was now being produced by a company
that had nothing to do with the original game design. They were bound
to be looking for ways to set this title apart and make a truly high-quality
game. In order to make the music for this game stand out, I told them that it's not simply about writing great music to suit the title. It's also about understanding and implementing the highest of production values. It's about shedding the metaphoric blood, and the real sweat and tears to make the perfect mix — it's about how to make the music, and therefore the game and it's characters, come alive!
Anyway,
this hyperbole was part of a proposal that I had to write in order to
"get" the game. Yes, I had to audition. I didn't mind though.
This was a good sign. It meant they were taking the music production seriously.
This was good. If I was going to be the one to compose the music, I wanted
to know that everyone was on board and behind me. After all, I knew I'd
have to work closely with the people at Ubisoft (Mattel, Gores Technology,
Game Studios and various other monikers during the production!) and the
developer, Presto Studios to get this done right. During the audition,
I was competing against a number of talented composers. However, from
the beginning, I felt that it wasn't simply about the composition that
would land me the job. I had to be part of the team that was concerned
about how to set this title apart from its predecessors. I felt that the
production of the music would be of paramount importance. I wanted living,
breathing people playing real instruments on this score. I wanted a grand
theme with an orchestra and choir. I wanted exotic instruments; I wanted
melody, ethereal backgrounds. I wanted the score to be different than
the wonderful sonic pastiche of that of Myst and Riven,
yet tied to it in a way that demonstrated that this was, in fact, a sequel. I probably
could have copied word for word, stylistically, Robyn Miller's work for
Myst and Riven, but that seemed too safe, too expected,
and basically, it just didn't resonate with me. I felt that these six
new worlds in Myst III: Exile deserved their own voice musically.
Yet, I wanted to make certain that there was a connection musically to
those titles. After all, Robyn's music and how it affected my view of
Myst are the main reasons I got into video game composing in the
first place. This article
is about the evolution of this music; how it was conceived, planned, produced
and finally implemented into the game. First, I
needed to do an analysis of Robyn Miller's music, play the first two games
again, immerse myself in everything Cyan ever released concerning Myst
and then (and here's the hard part) find some way to improve on it wherever
possible. In listening
closely to the original soundtracks as well as talking to Robyn Miller
about his process, melody was rare. Robyn felt that melody could easily
get in the way of the experience of playing the game. I agreed with him,
but I also felt that some melody would go a long way to giving the player
something thematic to grab onto. Therefore, I had to find a way to use
melody judiciously. Also, Robyn used one synthesizer to do Myst
and only one to score Riven. I wanted freedom to use any instrument
I desired including a full orchestra if it was appropriate. Next, I wanted
the music to have as much "purpose" as possible — not just
be tied to areas within the game, but also to have a level of randomness
and interactivity to it. We came up with three ways to achieve this:
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Introduction
Features
