I took a short break from Vintage Hero to quickly put together a simple app that may be of some use to you musicians out there. It's called Setlist and it's an easy way to keep track of your band repertoires and setlists. The app is totally free (ad supported) and is available now in the Windows Phone Marketplace.
So I'll think I'll get back Vintage Hero real soon as it would be great to have something ready for this year's Dream Build Play. Although first I'm considering finishing a port I've been sparingly working on of Space Racer for WP7. It would basically be the same as the Xbox version but I plan to add online leaderboards, making it a shit ton cooler. Either way, nothing's slowing down here. Plenty more to come soon! :)
So I have some new tunes that I've been working on for Vintage Hero and I'd thought I'd post 'em. The first three would be played during the levels and the other three are various shorter pieces.
Here's a faster one with lotsa minor. I'll probably use this on the first stage.
I like the feel at the start of this one. It might work well in the factory level. It also has a clave breakdown before moving into a cool little section that uses the Lydian scale.
I may change the diminished chord in the intro. I think something like it might fit better before the boss music. Although I do like how the main motive gradually switches to the secondary motive as the secondary motive becomes the primary. Also, some of my favorite drums so far.
This might be used for victory music after beating a boss. I still have yet to write the boss music but I have the basic ideas worked out. That'll be next.
This is a loop that'll probably play after beating a boss during the upgrade screen which shows you the new weapon you've won.
Some game over/continue game music. Although I'm not sure I'm going to include it since I may not even incorporate the "lives" system, at least not on "easy" mode.
I've been working on some tunes for possible inclusion in Vintage Hero and thought I'd share a couple of them. Keep in mind they're still a work in progress and may not be included at all in the final game. I'll also probably be working towards making the songs increasingly darker as we go along. As of now I'm just throwing some stuff out there to see what sticks. Let me know what you think.
This one would most likely be used during the stage select screen.
Despite its rather bouncy optimism, it could work well in say a forest or cave themed level.
Since joining Twitter I've been uploading some new screens of Vintage Hero to Twitpic. If you follow me, you might have noticed some of these tweets are marked with a #screenshotsaturday hashtag. Screen Shot Saturday is part of an independent initiative that collects images game developers post to twitter on Saturdays using the hashtag. Here are some of the ones I've posted as well some concept art for the cutscenes.
So I've decided to continue to put Tales of Leisure on hold until I can get the graphics looking how I'd like them to be. That means an artist who is not me should be employed. Meanwhile, I've started work on the next project: Old School Hero. While at first glance it may appear to be just a Mega Man clone, I'm not entirely sure that's a bad thing. The 8-bit Megaman series is one of my favorites and I've always wanted to take a shot at designing levels in that style. I'm hoping I can live up to the expectations fans of Megaman have for solid, challenging gameplay and they find it worthwhile to pick up while waiting for Megaman 11. Also, the music must be awesome.
Here's some early video showing off the weapons and items. Notice the barren, uninteresting red tiles. The levels will not be like this in the final game. Here are screens of some pixel art I've been working on for the magma level.
An independent game developer who likes retro games, music and extremely short walks on the beach. Subscribe to keep up with the latest projects I'm working on for Xbox Indies.
