![]() Later on, he changed tack slightly: “It’s mostly a melodic approach on the guitar, rather than big chords - more folkish. One of the main instruments used on the Dead Cells soundtrack is the guitar, something Laulan had established when he first worked on it back in 2014 by using his six-string for absolutely everything, including bass and percussions. ![]() Dead Cells had evolved into a radically different version of the initial prototype, and Laulan’s sole focus was now on music. Development restarted in 2015, and, after working with Motion Twin on another game, he rejoined the project in January 2017. Laulan only made “a few not-so-great tracks” for an earlier version of the game and a trailer for IndieCade, before it was put on hold. One can see the seeds of Dead Cells’ art style, design and general aesthetic in a separate Ludum Dare jam game, ScarKrow, by the Motion Twin crew.Īnother explicit point of reference was Motion Twin’s Die2Nite, a coop zombie survival browser game, to which Dead Cells was set to be a spiritual successor.Ī screenshot of the 2014 version Dead Cells, when it was a multiplayer tower defence game. Game jam game Schrödinghost, created by Carduus for Ludum Dare 30. Our game, Schrödinghost, ended up quite high in the rankings, so he asked me to make some music and sound for a different project - Dead Cells. I was introduced to Motion Twin in 2014, when I took part in another game jam - Ludum Dare 30 - with Thomas ‘Carduus’ Vasseur, one of the graphic designers at the company. Laulan recalls: “For me, working on video games started in 2012 during my first game jam, which was with Mathieu ‘Looping’ Capdegelle, who would go on to co-develop Dead Cells. (Laced With Wax recently published “ Video game music is a wonderful gateway to classical ”, where other game composers - including Jessica Curry and Austin Wintory - classical performers and broadcasters highlighted similarities and resonance between particular game scores and classical works.) Getting into games “I find it fun to listen to classical music and recreate various types of orchestration and patterns.”Ī favourite composer of his is Igor Stravinsky, particularly the famous Le Sacre du printemps aka The Rite of Spring (if you’ve seen Disney’s Fantasia, it’s the one with the dinosaurs.) “I’m particularly fond of his rhythmic work, and I love it when there’s a lot of brass - it’s really powerful.” Another favourite is Czech composer Antonín Dvořák, especially the powerful and melodic fourth movement of his 9th Symphony, the New World. Laulan left the traditional music theory of childhood music lessons behind him: “When I make music it’s more of a spiritual thing - I just try to translate a feeling I have.” That’s not to say that his approach, currently based on in-the-box digital instruments for time and budget reasons, is unstudied. Later on, I got interested in computer-made music and bought my first Digital Audio Workstation - Ableton Live - which I still mainly use to this day.” I played in bands with friends, etc., but had forgotten how to read sheet music since I was child. Laulan’s musical awakening mainly seem to have happened in his mid-teenage years: “I started music in high school, when I first had a music-making and guitar set-up. The Dead Cells OST vinyl is currently sold out (sorry!) M usic by Yoann Laulan, cover art by Thomas ‘Carduus’ Vasseur. We caught up with Yoann to chat about his musical influences, his work on the moody Dead Cells score, and the upcoming vinyl release. Handling the music for the game (though not part of the cooperative) is Yoann Laulan - freelance game composer, guitarist, synth-lover, and proud keeper of his cat, Prinze Litière von Raubkatzen. The workers cooperative has been going since 2001, and has created a multitude of mobile games prior the front page of its website boasts that there’s “no boss”, and that all staff take home the same salary. ![]() The game sees you battle through an ever-changing gothic castle (and a surprisingly colourful one at that) full of secrets, as you test yourself through the live-die-repeat, Souls-ish structure.ĭead Cells is a game by Motion Twin, a small development team based in Bordeaux, France. Having been born from a game jam… then launched as a playable, but explicitly still in-development, project on Steam Early Access and GoG… rogue-lite, Castlevania-inspired action-platformer Dead Cells will finally launch on August 7th 2018 on the Switch, PS4, Xbox One. Young Gallic composer Yoann Laulan opens up about his classical influences, game jamming his way into the industry, and what it’s like to score an early access game.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |