Microtransactions: Custom Soundtracks and Chip Tunes

June 23rd, 2009

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Managing Custom Soundtracks in WipEout HD

Some months ago I discussed games in relation to music and music videos, attaching similarities between particular game titles and music tracks. Recently I’ve been engaging again in this activity for an entirely different reason. WipEout HD is the first game I own which allows for custom soundtracks, creating a phenomena into itself.

The WipEout HD playlist is unfortunately only nine tracks long. They’re good tunes but become repetitive rather quickly, meaning that you’ll want to swiftly import your own playlist. When I reached this stage I thought long and hard about the music that would best be appropriate for the WipEout play experience. That is, which songs evoked the same feelings as the feeling I get when playing Wipeout. I intially created a playlist of mostly manufactured dance/electronica music, some gelled nicely, others didn’t. I tried again and added a bunch of random favourites and found that all genres worked depending on the context. For example uplifting rock songs boded well with the plush UberMall and Sol 2 levels while not so much with the tracks that had a more industrial aestetic.

I just find it ammusing how this blog post I wrote a while ago actually attributes to a process external but relating to my gaming experience.

Chip Tunes – Tainted or Resurrected?

Wow, I’ve let this idea lie and rot for too long.

There’s an Australian TV show on the ABC called Collectors. Sure, I’m a collector myself but the usual selection of stamps and antiques featured don’t usually interest me. The show seems to be stepping up into pop culture goods. A few months ago, the show tickled my fancy, featuring the games collection of an Australian DJ. This guy also dabbles in chip tunes and although the show made viewers aware, it only discussed his profession to limited degree.

Out of sheer curiosity I tracked down some more information about this guy and realized that he’s in fact prominent Adelaide DJ, DJTr!p, and one of Australia’s leading chip tunes artist. You can sample some of his collection here.

While moseying through Tr!p’s MySpace page I scanned over his event listings and noted a series of gigs around Adelaide and the country. I then sat for a good while and tried to figure out why I honestly didn’t really care about attending any of these gigs. I thought it was cool that this local guy got featured on the show and I promote classic video games music, but I had no desire to attend any of his performances and I couldn’t figure out why.

I’m still not perfectly sure actually. My conclusion was going to be while I like classic games music, most of this new music fails to capture the elusive retro gaming appeal. I watched a segment on Good Game that previously covered Aussie chip tunes artists and to my accord it all sounded kinda ‘meh’. These guys fail to capture quality loops of retro tunes, that or like Tr!p, they are actually pretty skilled but the merging with electronica and other forms of music perhaps detracts from my personal enjoyment. I still can’t put my finger on it, perhaps like OC Remix music, I only enjoy listening to it in particularly random instances. ie. when I want to feel like “a child of the digital age” – if that makes sense. What are your thoughts on chip tunes music? Please, lemme know.

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Tuition of Curves: WipEout HD

May 18th, 2009

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Mastery of WipEout demands the player become acquainted with the game’s beautiful formation of archs, curls and bends. Track design that accentuates curvature, curvature that’s as pleasant as the well rounded assets of a shapely women; WipEout‘s design converges at elegance.

Track design is the strongest embodiment of WipEout‘s womanly feel. It narrows and widens with the inhaling and exhaling of the game’s cleanly chaotic atmosphere. Security railings are removed, opening up space before large descents into hard crooks that loosen after the transition. Bends tighten following moments where there is visible air between the pod-like crafts, breathing in and hardening the friction between vehicles. The in and outwardly shifting design is a catalyst for the vicious confrontations that only escalate on higher speed classes. Tracks are a construction of sequentially well timed hoop jumping obstacles that train you to breathe in time with the momentum of each track, handling each curve with precision. WipEout heightens the affinity between player and race by employing an firm gravity between craft and track that bobbles with the waves of ascents and descents in the track. When I shared lunch with Daniel Purvis from Graffiti Gamer he described this game as though being strapped to the front of a rocket. It’s the gravity to the track then that makes you feel pinned down to earth, held close to the track and its design. Your craft is raised but at the same time bolted down, hovering just above the ground, ensuring that turning never feels slippery as you direct the craft like a canoe, using the back to steer the nose of the vehicle. The bind, holds you tightly to the track and never allows you to skip any part of the training course of opportunities to tackle a rounded corner. It’s as though the whole game is centred around tackling these womanly curves. The difficulty too enforces this by demanding a mastery set by the game’s tough series of grids. And with each of the four speed classes, the way you manage each curve changes based on the point on the difficulty continuum. This itself is the whole game; maneuvering curves in a series of training drills and then doing it again with modest reassessment on higher speeds.

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Graphic design is similarly slick. Special note must go out to the cute, shifty animations for each of the fictional in-game brands. The visual design of the brand iconography has clear inspirations from Asia with splashes of Japanese and companies for products of particular urban Asian reference including robots, noodle bars and energy drinks. The menu design is similarly serene and tidy. In game the same holds true; tidy, clean, futuristic. The colour selection and hues play again into the consistently feminine feel of the game, with light blues, greys and pinks overlayed with a slight grey tinge to create a plushy, “club” vibe. This is particularly true in the later tracks Ubermall and Sol2. WipEout loses the realistic shell in Zone mode, where the game pulsates with fruity colour and rich hues. It presents some of the most visually striking imagery I’ve ever seen, and springs to life with visualization of the background music.

The 9 track selection of favourite clubbing tunes should be familiar, even to those not immersed in the music and culture. I certainly recognised a good deal of them, surprisingly. It might have been Cam Shea who said that the WipEout series is essentially ‘Clubbing: The Game’ and like Purvis’ statement I think it’s quite true. The music is lifted straight from the scene, but so too is the atmosphere as I’ve outlined. The whole feminine side of WipEout shares much similarity with clubbing culture and can easily be pointed to as part of the source material of this series.

The game design accentuates womanly curves, the visuals textualize this metaphor with light colours, elegant architectural design, soft glows and an airy atmosphere, and lastly the sounds are a palette of the best from a woman populated culture. These design decisions not only create a womanly aesthetic, but also a womanly feel. The package is balanced in a way that feels poignantly feminine yet isn’t explicitly over gendered.

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