Hello! It is the first of July, which means it’s once again time for my monthly ramblings about this project that invades my waking and sleeping hours. 

I hope everyone is doing ok. It seems like everything is so busy and crazy, given the state of, well, ‘everything’. So please do remember, take a minute to breathe and step back from things for a couple minutes and unplug. If you need something to take your mind off of things, I recommend the game ‘Fields of Mistria’. It’s got cows, fishing, monsters in dungeons, fantastic characters - all around it’s just a great game. And they have an update coming out later this month that I’m super excited for. I’m not sponsored by them in any way, I just love the game and am 100% there for the cows. 

Let’s talk some housekeeping though! We had a patch release a few weeks ago, and I’ve got another one coming up. More bug fixes this time, with a few additions that make the game experience much smoother. That will be coming out soon as I’m in the middle of finishing them up. 

According to my schedule, July is also the month that I focus on the second level! Like I’ve mentioned before, I’ve got all the blockouts completed, now it’s time to dig into each one and fill out the rest of what I’ve been planning. So that’s exciting 

But in addition to the greyboxes, I’ve also started putting in the music tracks and their triggers! Which is great since that’s the topic of this devlog! Perfect timing, as always. 

So, first things first [I’m the realest]. 

More importantly, I have to once again show off the amazing work of the composer, Guilherme Alexander! I’ll link his portfolio here once again, his work is fantastic, and has really brought ‘Oops!’ to an even higher level than I had pictured it. I remember telling him after hearing some of the music that it inspired me to make everything even better, just to match what he had created. 

When working on previous projects, it was often joked about that music and SFX were always pushed til the last minute. I’m glad that’s not the case here, having the music in this early has really helped with the overall tone of the game. 

I’m also thankful for Alex’s technical knowledge. I’ve spoken on this before, but when I started the demo, the triggers for the music changes were a bit messy, I can’t lie. I had never worked with switching tracks as often as this one, and I was using Unity’s native sound system for it. When he started working on the rest of the soundtrack, Alex brought up FMOD. It was a completely new tool to me (I had used WWise before, but not too much), and I had quite the experience of trying to figure out how to even make one sound play when I wanted it to! That was only a few months ago, and now the whole system is in place! Crazy how fast you can learn new things. 

So, how did this all come to be? What was the starting point for all these tracks? 

I’m glad you asked! 

Working with Alexander included making briefs for all the tracks. The game breaks down music like so: 

• Exploration 
• Combat 
• Cutscenes 

All with triggers and parameter names. If certain conditions are met, like the player moves into a specific part of the level or starts a boss fight, the tracks change. Pretty simple stuff. 

Each level has their assigned Exploration track that changes to combat for that assigned boss. The briefs that Alex got for each exploration and combat were broken up like this: 

• Level/Track Location 
• Level Breakdown 
• References 
• Thoughts to Include

The location was obviously going to be where the track would be used. The breakdown for the level was an overall summary of the level itself, any important events, and if it was a boss theme, what the boss looked like and what their vibes were. References were for any music that could help with tone, and ‘Thoughts’ was just my ramblings of what I thought could be included. Needless to say, all the tracks came out phenomenal. 

And with them all in FMOD, and implemented in Unity, we have ourselves a game soundtrack! 

But that’s not the only music that’s helping with the game. This is 100% just a silly note, but for all my projects, I like making a playlist to help with writing/developing/the tone of the game. I know writers have their indulgent Spotify playlists for their characters, so I can too!

All this today, the music in this project is something I’m super excited for everyone to hear, and I’m glad it’s working as programmed lol 

Like I said, I’m putting Alex’s links here, so go check him out! He does amazing work, and ‘Oops’ wouldn’t be the same without the music. 

And one more thing with sound! I’ll be looking for an SFX designer, so if that’s you, please don’t hesitate to reach out if you like making noises and want to do sound effects for the game! 

Next month, I’m planning on talking about the art and style of ‘Oops!’ and I get to show off where the game started, and how it’s looking now! 

And that’s my update for the month! Once again, if you’ve made it this far, thank you for reading. 

The links!

Me: https://linktr.ee/katiea_athanatosdev

Guilherme Alexander: https://www.guigagliardo.com/

The Studio: 

Bluesky:  https://bsky.app/profile/artificiumgames.bsky.social

Twitter:  https://twitter.com/ArtificiumG

The Game: 

Itch:  https://athanatos-dev.itch.io/oops-youre-the-hero

Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3166160/Oops_Youre_the_Hero/?beta=0

The game’s silly little playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3kvjnrYtEe7DPY7pyM8Fer?si=otVhqjESSWSlIzGw1UkVng

If you want to tag along, thank you <3 

• Kit