Even if a part of me thinks “there’s no speech, why should it matter?”, but then I’m the kind of guy who lowers the radio volume when he’s looking for a parking spot.
I think the main problem is the teleport which results in drastic and quick changes from one room to the other.
For Kill Yourself I made two songs with the same style, and it crossfaded them when changing rooms, it was quite seamless on Android - it works like *beep* on AGS unfortunately. But I had only two rooms.
I don’t think I can just lower the volume . Try watching a Family Guy episode with Mozart (or Monkey Island, or anything at all) at a low volume… it doesn’t work.
A better experiment would be to try to read a comedy novel with music in the bg. But there aren’t many I know.
I recently played Sam & max and had to turn off the music to find it amusing. (I tried lowering it down a lot and it was still annoying.)
I need to replay monkey 2 with music and see if I find it funny. (I doubt it)
So I’d have to lower the volume a lot, until it’s almost unhearable. But then, since I don’t have speech in the game, this will produce an annoying sensation of emptiness.
Hence the idea.
The teleport, you say? Yeah, the changes will be quicker because you don’t have to wait for the character to walk. But I don’t expect to have many problems due to that. Why should you go to a location just to go away after a few seconds?
But there’s speech there. Monkey Island has no speech but music, and they’re funny. The need for silence isn’t universal.
When I read books, especially comedy, I don’t listen to music, but that’s because listening to music ia a different activity and - unless I’m working - when I listen to music I don’t do anything else at all.
But in games, music is there for ambience, it doesn’t need active listening, so it’s fine for me if it stays there while I read the jokes.
Because I was wrong and couldn’t remember where the thing I wanted to use is located, for example
Well, if you would play back that campfire music from MI2 4x faster, you’d get this:
(The rest if the video contains some other examples were the music adds to the humour rather than detract from it. The walk of the bunnies in Full Throttle for example!)
Not at all. But again, that’s because it’s a game, it’s a different experience than reading a book. First of all, as it’s a game, I expect music to be there. I’d probably feel like it’s empty without music, because there’s visuals too - it’s not a text adventure. So either I get ambient sound like fire, birds, waves, or I feel detached from the scene if it’s completely mute.
It’s like reading a book, right? For a while I’d been convinced it was better that way, without music or sound, in fact. But I’m not that crazy. I need to add music and sound because even I remember that music is what makes me so attached to Monkey Island 2. When you are stuck, and walk around the world while racking your brain, it makes all the difference. (and at the same time, for years it prevented me from understanding that Monkey Island was supposed to be a funny game!)
I’m not sure if it’s better, but to me it’s definitely not worse. It’s a hundred times better than the horrid cacophony in games like Half-Life and Daikatana, that’s for sure.
It’s typical in similar visual novel adventure games like Ace Attorney or Tokyo Dark to have a cat meow or a dog bark attached to the dialog that says “woof.” It’s somewhat cute, but also cheesy. Especially when repeated a few times. And of course they have atmospheric music that can help if done well. Here you have Mike Stallone with the Stallone theme song, which makes him more memorable than just being Mike Stallone. Maybe. Or the creepy suicide forest with the eerie music. You get the idea.
In Shadow of the Tomb Raider the sound design is excellent, but there you’re walking around in a jungle. It’s a very different experience. In Mark of the Ninja it’s also great. But again, nothing like a visual novel.
I’ve added a few automatic hints for: 1) the first puzzle (how to get past the guard) ; 2) the puzzle for entering Rosco’s; 3) the puzzle to understand how to enter Dracula’s Castle;
The hints are triggered when you compose a wrong action (for 1 and 2), or when you walk to a specific room (for 3)
) (which I’ll never recover :))
