Hey! I’m Pyr, main composer for God’s Radio. Most of the logs I’ll be writing are about, you guessed it, music. Right now, I’ll be focusing on how we’ve decided the instrumentation and the overall sound of Meteor Shower.

MUSIC IN VISUAL NOVELS

I haven’t read a lot of visual novels to be honest, but from what I gather, I’ve noticed that music is almost always an afterthought. Game devs usually turn to visual novels for a cheap, almost-free medium for their games. So it isn’t such a surprise that game devs look to free music libraries for their visual novels. 

Since I am a musician first, and I’ve been working with Skai for a long time now, God’s Radio wanted to make music matter. Not only are we proud that our demo has music that we’ve made on our own, but we wanted it to make sense and be somewhat integral to the whole experience.

There is similarity in the way video games handle location-based music, but with the way how programming is involved in VNs, there are limitations in how you should approach a whole scene. For instance, all that fancy-shmancy dynamic/reactive music for scenes needs extensive programming. If you think about it, VN scenes are predominantly text reading, and it is better that the music covers the totality of the emotion of a scene. Music changes are indicative of mood changes in a scene, and it may take your reader out with a shotgun if you change them a lot.

(Totally not copying Skai by quoting our old devlog, but) I’ve mentioned above about the compromises that music in Visual Novels have to go through. This ultimately came into consideration in deciding how the music is gonna be made. With this in mind, the music needed to satisfy a couple base points:

1. It needs to fit the current scene it’s used in
2. It needs to be reusable for scenes with similar vibes/themes
3. It needs to be cohesive with the rest of the soundtrack

All of these seem to be a definite staple in making a soundtrack for visual novels. Number 3, however, in my opinion, can be executed in different ways, depending on how you eventually want your visual novel to be read. So let’s talk about how we’ve managed the cohesion in Meteor Shower with the obvious culprit: the guitar!

INSTRUMENTATION

The usage of the guitar as a prevailing instrument in the soundtrack in a visual novel where the main character is holding a guitar in her hand in the main menu is SO on the nose it borders on cliche, but you know, hear us out. If you’ve been reading our devlogs, Meteor Shower is a prequel to Project Snowfall, where Lori is in her twenties. In it, Lori’s music connections are way way WAY more apparent. Meteor Shower is where we discover her journey through it, and definitely with a few heartstrings in tow. 

The guitar in the demo is one of the first things she makes her connections in music, aside from the fact that she just went to theater camp and got complimented for her voice. The acoustic guitar, then, is the perfect instrument to use for Meteor Shower. It is raw and organic to listen to, and so it symbolizes her being the main character in the VN.

It is also canon that Lori listens to Taylor Swift. Why?

The acoustic guitar usage, however, is not just used as it is. There are a couple of obvious effects added into the guitar, most notably a chorus effect that gives the guitar more of a spacious sound. Meteor Shower happened around the 2010s, and we wanted to push more of that nostalgic sound.

Once our lovable Taylor Rose comes into the equation, however, the reader is thrown back by a somewhat campy, boss-fighty music (which I am willing to admit isn’t that cohesive with the rest of the soundtrack, and am already planning to add changes to). It’s still a guitar, but an electric guitar! Shocking. 

Obviously, The electric guitar is the symbolism for T.Rose (let’s call him T.Rose because Miss Swift is already mentioned and I don’t want any confusions), but why exactly? For starters, if you, dear reader, have read the demo already, you can see that T.Rose has a wristband that says Mayday Parade on it. Plus, the kid literally has an electric guitar riff as his ringtone, how much on the nose can we possibly be on this one?

Aside from the few obvious reasons that draw from T.Rose’s tastes in music on why the electric guitar is meant to symbolize him, the electric guitar is a perfect contrast that tells a story of how they are perceived to be different outwardly, and how intertwined their story is going to be in the end. 

MOTIFS

Leitmotifs are also a great way to add cohesion to the soundtrack aside from the instrumentation. In fact, I think using them intertwined are very purposeful to make a fitting soundtrack. Using notable melodies throughout the soundtracks gives the reader a recall of certain emotions and moods as the story progresses.

The knowledge I have of motifs can tell you that they are melodies that are usually attached to a character in a narrative, or a location. The motifs in Meteor Shower, however, do not follow this attachment at the start. You may hear recurring themes in the soundtrack that are more of a mood-based motif. This goes in line with a base point that I’ve mentioned earlier in this devlog, which is?

Answer: 2. It needs to be reusable for scenes with similar vibes/themes

That’s right kids! Along with being purposeful, this honestly is a nice compromise, because doing otherwise, I would just go ham with the soundtrack given that Skai will give me no artistic supervision. 

For example, the music used for the first scene has a somewhat relaxing and laid-back tune, almost fitting a peaceful vibe. 

It can be heard in scenes where it can give an introspective kind of vibe, but not too much emotions bubbling there. Maybe it’s when Lori feels at peace.

The same motif can be heard in this track

This is when Lori gets to talk to T.Rose a little bit better, getting to know him better, and she has the feeling of unease around him getting lighter. It’s a motif of peace, but in this sense, a relation to T.Rose, a comfortability and a somewhat romantic vibe.

Basing our motifs on the vibes gives us a more encompassing soundtrack, and is a great workaround for the aforementioned compromises. As the game gets developed, however, this selection of motifs and instrumentation will eventually change into the more character-centric style. I think this gives us great direction for how the music intertwines with the narrative - because as much as the reader explores Lori's story, this also brings out the component that allows the reader to know more about who Lori is and her inner character. This is, as we’ve established, a prequel, and an exploration for us as well what happened in her past.