I’m making a game about the 12 Greek Olympian gods. The idea is that Prometheus, the Titan who stole fire from the gods, instructs you, a duck, to travel to the realms of each god and steal their “fire” for the humans (e.g. mastery of the seas from Poseidon). It is a mix of platforming and puzzles where you can use the abilities of some of the nature deities (the four winds, Helios the all-seeing sun god, and Achelous the river god)
My question is, how should I make and/or get music for my game so that it fits with the theme of the game? Using something like Beepbox to make retro music doesn’t really fit, so I’m a bit stuck. Is there a similar tool for making smooth/continuous music that doesn’t require all too much musical abilities or is that not a thing? If there isn’t, is there a place to find game music that’s available for public use?
some screenshots for reference: (the first level is Dionysus, the god of wine and ecstasy)
LMMS and reaper are both goof options. I would recommend LMMS for a beginner because it comes with a lot of free instruments and examples bundled with it.
Maybe Strudel:
https://strudel.cc/workshop/getting-started/
Can help with composingyour own tunes and I think its dev friendly being javascript based.
cool :0
Adding to the options people have already mentioned, if you decide you don’t want to write the music yourself you could:
- Find someone to partner with to make custom music for you – e.g. at in-person gamedev meet ups / club events, friends (or friends-of-friends), “I Need a Team” type forums, etc
- Hire someone to make custom music for you
- Use free music – e.g. Creative Commons licensed music like Kevin MacLeod’s, or free assets from itch.io, etc.
- Buy music that’s explicitly sold for use in games – try searching for asset packs associated with various popular tools like RPGMaker
- Use an AI music generator – if you can live with people complaining about AI and are ok with the legal uncertainty around it
You can also buy a humble bundle, if the previews fit: https://www.humblebundle.com/software/audio-odyssey-vol-2-software
Trackers are a good fit for sample based music if you can get comfortable with the interface. OpenMPT and Renoise can even host VST plugins. You can get the samples on freesound.org and the plugins on plugins4free.
Reaper is a cheap DAW but it can be a bit overwhelming.
There’s also BespokeSynth and SuperCollider although I don’t know much about those.
Be careful with free music sites. Got music for my game from one but now the song is gone. Was able to find it on YouTube where it isn’t licensed for free anymore. Now I’m in contact with the composer and asked them whether I should keep or remove the song.
Okay, I’ll be careful
