Austin Wintory is a Tease (and GSO is Awesome)

Yeah, you read that right. Austin Wintory is a tease. For the meanings behind his music, of course. (Minds out of the gutter, folks. Seriously.)

Austin Wintory at the American Art Museum in Washington, D.C.

Before the University of Maryland’s Gamer Symphony Orchestra (GSO) performed last Saturday in the Kogod Courtyard at the American Art Museum in Washington, D.C., Wintory held a brief Q&A session. While the acoustics there proved wonderful for a symphony, they were less so for a discussion—I didn’t even catch the name of the woman interviewing him. Although the Q&A was not open to the audience, she asked some excellent questions, including one about the languages are used in the ending credits. More on that in a bit.

As stirring and organic as Journey‘s soundtrack feels, you would almost expect it to have originated from an epic orchestrated score, but it was planned to be entirely electronic from the start, Wintory said. ”Creatively we didn’t even discuss orchestra music because there wasn’t a budget for it.”

When Wintory was hired, Journey didn’t even have concept art—it was a mere twinkle in Jenova Chen‘s eye.

“So [thatgamecompany] would say go write a piece of music. There’s going to be a section that’s open desert, and it’s going to be kind of playful. Go see what that means,” Wintory recalled. “And I’d write something, and then they’d design the game around my work. Then they would make something that I thought was so beautiful and amazing that I would say that my music now would seem stupid.”

So Wintory would go and rework the music again, and thatgamecompany in turn would make alterations to the game with the updated melodies in mind. The cycle continued for roughly three years.

Austin Wintory and the Gamer Symphony Orchestra drew quite a crowd. I’m thrilled to see this many people from the D.C. metro area at a game-related event.

Despite the many iterations in music, there was only one “I Was Born for This,” which is the game’s ending aria that simulataneously warms and chills your soul, and serves as the perfect coda.

“That actually is probably the only piece in the whole game that has one version,” Wintory said, adding that after he had composed the other tracks for Journey, he felt confident enough to write the song in one go. That’s not to say there weren’t any tweaks to “I Was Born for This,” but Wintory wanted it to be a reflection of the Journey experience and waited until the last second to compose it.

And then, the interviewer landed the question that’s been on many Journey veterans’ minds: What languages are used in “I Was Born for This”?

Wintory didn’t specify which are used but said the song has six different languages. From what I’ve come across on a brief Google search, people have already cracked the French and Japanese verses. I asked Wintory during intermission if he could expand more on his answer, but because he’s presently writing up his own blog post that explains the meaning of the lyrics and recaps the entire experience of composing Journey‘s score, he kept mum on the subject.

“Every verse is a different language. Every time [Lisbeth Scott, the vocalist] opens her mouth, basically it’s a different language,” he said. “I didn’t actually intend to torture people. I just wanted to blog about it, and I haven’t had time.”

So what’s the method to the madness? Why so many languages?

“The reason why is because the game is noncultural. If I chose it all in English, now it’s an American/British game. If I did it all in Japanese, [it'd be a Japanese game], you know what I mean?” Wintory explained. “But I didn’t want it to be just a lot of like *imitates aria songs* ‘ahhahhhaaaahhh’ and I wanted something that has meaning.”

Although Journey‘s world is fictional, Wintory didn’t want to build its ending song around a made-up language either. So he hit the books with fellow composer Jeremy Howard Beck and assembled quotes from various sources in literature, including The Aeneid, Beowolf and The Hero With a Thousand Faces, a seminal book on mythology and basis of the hero archetype found in lore worldwide. Here’s to hoping Wintory will get to that blog post soon and helps players solve a mystery that’s surprisingly run longer than Fez’s monolith puzzle.

Ladies and gentleman, I present the University of Maryland’s talented Gamer Symphony Orchestra. If you’re in the area, go see them sometime. For real. Also, if you’re interested in starting a games symphony at your own university or college, GSO has offered to help (i.e., sheet music, advice, etc.), so get in touch with them.

After Wintory’s half-hour Q&A, GSO went on and played a very excellent set that began with my favorite Final Fantasy 7 arrangement—the piano version of “Those Who Fight” from the Advent Children movie—and ended with Civilization IV‘s theme song. My favorites in between those two points were Kira Levitzky’s superb Shadow of the Colossus arrangement, The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker medley (complete with mandolin solo), Final Fantasy VI‘s “Dancing Mad” and, of course, “The World of flOw,” which was arranged by Wintory.

As the flOw arrangement wrapped up, I looked for Wintory in the crowd.

He gave a nod of approval, and while I’m not a lip-reading expert, I’m almost positive I spotted a, “not bad.”

Un-PAXing (Part 2: Panels)

I always have a hard time picking out which panels to go to at PAX East. Sooo many interesting topics, so little time (especially because the show floor is where I typically prefer to be). Here are the ones I did make it to though.

An Uncharted 3 Story: The Chateau, Creation to Ashes
The chateau level of Uncharted 3 was one of my favorites. It had me standing up on the couch through almost the entire final segment where you’re trying to escape up the stairs, and that’s usually a fairly accurate indicator of exciting level design.

Uncharted 3 game director Justin Richmond, designer Eric Schatz and community strategist Arne Meyer walked the audience through the whiteblock builds of the chateau level (which ever since seeing Chris Totten present on his own skeleton builds at IGDA DC is something I’ve been really interested in). They also showed a gag real of some of the crazier glitches and animation mishaps that came up in the design process, showing Nate Drake being contorted in some really disturbing ways.

Un-PAXing (Part 1: Games)

PAX East began with me waking up at 4 a.m. to take my taxi to the airport to a bus to the metro to the hotel to wait for a shuttle that never came to take another taxi to PAX East. //phew// I’ve spent the last week un-PAXing, which is a combination of unpacking, digesting three days of straight-up gameness and jumping right back into the usual day-to-day responsibilities.

I spent some time at the AAA booths (2K Games, Square Enix, Sega), but most of my PAX East time was dedicated to the alleys of indie games, which had seriously great offerings this year. Now, in no particular order, here are highlights from my third PAX East adventure.

Where is Nate Drake and What Have You Done With Him?!

This is not the Nate Drake I’ve known. Visually speaking, Nate and the exotic locales he travels through made the transition from console to handheld smoothly. A half-tucked shirt never looked so good on such a small screen.  But if you liked Nate Drake in the past three Uncharted games, you’re probably not going to like the twilight zone version of him that’s in Golden Abyss (and, well, you’re probably not going to like Golden Abyss itself, either).

PHOTOS: Another ‘Awww’-Inspiring Moment from Journey

The Art of Video Games exhibit kicked off last weekend at the Smithsonian’s American Art Museum in Washington, D.C. The opening event, GameFest, featured appearances from quite a few reputable names from the games industry: Atari found Nolan Bushnell, Metal Gear Solid creator Hideo Kojima and the crew from thatgamecompany, who were enjoying much critical acclaim for their latest release, Journey.

Such a games-centric event would not be complete without cosplay. I went to Katsucon a month ago, so I thought I had seen all the good cosplay I could for the year. And then I met Eve, an art intern for Pure Bang Games in Baltimore, Maryland. Journey fans (erm, Journey game fans; not the 1970s band, hurr), just check out this incredible cosplay:

Top Games of 2011… For me, most likely not for you :P

This last year has been excellent for games–a jaw-dropping list of AAA titles (only one of which appears on this list, hahah) padded by plenty of wonderful indie surprises. Unfortunately, I spent this year catching up on other gems I hadn’t played yet, and I haven’t gotten around to even half of the games I’ve wanted to play from this year. But from what I did get to play, I recapped my favorites below.

Leave your comments of agreement or disgruntlement below! Now in no particular order….

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Onward and Upward: First Impressions of Skyward Sword

[Minor spoilers throughout. Don't highlight the text if you want to avoid them. If you've made it to the first dungeon/temple you should be fine.]

Before I go hurtling into a Thanksgiving “no-work” zone, I wrote up this quick post on what I like about Skyward Sword so far. Because I do like it. A lot. Not sure if I’d say love yet because I just arrived at the first temple after a good amount of sidequesting and exploring and still have a long way to go. I know I probably should focus on plowing through the main quest (especially since I’ve promised to trade this game for ICO/SotC and/or Uncharted 3 when I finish this!), but I’ve always really enjoyed the nook-and-cranny exploration and the high risk of investing lots of time but high reward side questing the Zelda series usually offers.

I gotta complement Skyward Sword’s colorful, dreamy photorealistic style, first. I’m always happy to see a console Zelda game that opts for a more interesting and distinctive graphics rather than realistic. (I honestly don’t think it could compete with the “realistic”-ness that Skyrim presents, for example. It’d probably try and it would just be a little sad.) I don’t think this is a popular opinion about Zelda series graphics, but I stick to it.

The addition of the Shadow of the Colossus-like stamina gauge seems like a neat idea, although I haven’t been in enough of a pinch or tough enough battle to push it to it’s limit while under pressure. You have to press A to dash, but you jump across gaps automatically. Although to be completely honest, I think I like the gauge because it reminds me of Shadow of the Colossus. Every time it pops up and I’m climbing up some vines, I can’t help but think of SotC.

Madoka Magica: Video Game Roundup

Cover art for the doujin/fan-made Madoka Magica game.

Even if I love an anime franchise to death, I usually avoid its game spin-offs like the plague. (This probably because these games are traditionally subpar with some exceptions, such as Naruto’s well-received brawling series and a handful of others.) For me, it’s often a combination of clunky gameplay mechanics with losing what I loved about the series in translating it from its original medium. Their reviews are perpetually tarnished with “Might be good for fans, but there’s still problems x, y and z.” After many generations of so-so spin-offs, I often just gloss over announcements of upcoming anime-based games.

Until the Mahou Shojo Madoka Magica PSP game was announced for March 15 in Japan [oy vey, has that already been two months ago?], causing my hype gears to shift from apathetic to GIMME MADOKA GAMES. As the series’ officially licensed game, developed by Namco-Bandai Games and Nitroplus, it soon began singing its expensive siren song to my wallet.

The Madoka Magica anime make me believe that it could produce some really excellent game spin-offs. Some of this blind optimism could be because the series itself caught me off-guard: Earlier this year, I had already pigeon-holed it as another stereotypical magical girl anime, all about frilly pink justice and friendship, until I found three episodes in that it’s actually Fullmetal Alchemist in magical girl clothing—a distopian take on traditional magical girl tropes where nothing is as it initially seems. Everyone has their own subversive motives and the plot twists are delightfully unpredictable. I have a lot of affection for this series pulling off so many surprises and am eager to see what other spin-offs it might yield.

Improving Level Design: Architecture, Zombies and Nintendo Power

If you’re going to GDC China and have any interest in level design, make sure you pencil in some time for Chris Totten’s talk, Designing Better Levels Through Human Survival Instincts, which should get props alone for rolling architecture and lighting, zombie games, level design and a technique called the “Nintendo Power” method into a heckuva interesting discussion.

His method is simplistic and sensible, firmly grounded in the architect’s mantra of “form follows function.” (He hails from an academic background in the subject, after all.) In the hour-long preview he presented at a IGDA Washington, D.C., meeting in October, Totten reviewed the design methods used in two of his recent projects: Dead Man’s Trail, an Oregon Trail-styled survival game where successfully raiding zombie-flooded towns is key, and a Lovecraftian-titled game with Tim Burton overtones called The Nightmare Over Innsmouth.

Chris Totten previews his talk at IGDA's October meeting.

Animal Crossing 3D Trailer: English Translation

[ Someone asked me if I could translate the Japanese in this video for them. Thought I'd post it here in case other people had the same question. It's a very direct, rough translation with little context to go on; no fun Animal Crossing-speak frills here.]

0:06 Tom Nook: Yes, yes, you’d like to build a house around here?

0:18 Rainy: Huh? Are you, by chance, our new mayor? Nice to meet you! I’m Rainy! Let’s all make a nice (lit.: fun) town together!

0:42 Garigari*: Welcome~! Mosakichi-kun just visited/came by here. [Note: Dunno who Mosakichi is... maybe the the player or someone else who's offscreen. Sorry :( ]

0:48 Secretary: Yes, Mayor! Do you think this would be a good place to build the cafe?

The screen at the end is just a warning about how 3D will burn out your eyeballs, especially if you’re younger than six years old. If anyone has any fixes or more accurate translations for this, please leave your suggestions in the comments.

*Garigari can be an Japanese onomatopoeia for crunchy/grinding/scratching sounds, but when describing people, it can mean greedy :)