I composed this piece to be the background for the first scene in the visual novel project, “Missing Pieces”. The first chapter of this video game / visual novel can be downloaded–for free!–from the Steam web site here. The video below shows a walk-through in this first scene. What fun!
My goal here is to establish an exotic atmosphere. After all, the protagonist finds himself on an alien world, many light years from Earth. Strange beings, strange customs, strange languages, and a hodge-podge of creatures and cultures.
In the next section, a Middle-Eastern instrument called a “duduk”, and then an English horn replay the melody in succession, accompanied by animation presets from Sonuscore’s Elysion synthesizer library. In the third and last section, ensemble combinations of horns, strings and woodwinds from Sonuscore’s “The Orchestra Complete” replay the melody, bringing the piece to a climax.
In this version of the piece, I have brought the music to an end. But, in the video game, the piano plays a few notes in a short scale, leading to a loop that fits perfectly with the very beginning of the piece. It is appropriate to make the piece into a loop, since in a video game you cannot foretell how quickly a player will advance before the next scene.
The result is a dark, eerie scene that might send goosebumps down your spine.
