Part 39: The Light in the Darkness

Update 37 - The Light in the Darkness



SFX: Scene Select - Prologue





So, while the story for Wandersong is 100% over... there are a couple more things that need to be shown off before the bow is placed on top of this wanderful present. First off, here's our first look at the scene select screen! After beating the game, we can officially get access to this and go to the start of any major scene in the game. There's also a cheat code on the Wandersong website that let's you get access to be used in cases of bugs. I unlocked it for the purposes of the LP, in case I needed to redo scenes, though ended up only using it sparingly because it would sometimes cause dialogue to reset, which could create problems down the road.



SFX: Scene Select - Act 1





I'll go ahead and flip through a couple of these if to only show off the amazing voice overs done for this screen.



SFX: Scene Select - Act 2






SFX: Scene Select - Act 3






SFX: Scene Select - Intermission






SFX: Scene Select - Act 4






SFX: Scene Select - Act 5






SFX: Scene Select - Act 6






SFX: Scene Select - Act 7





The SPLOOSH of act 3 is my favorite.

Sadly, these clips don't have the rest of the VO on the scene. Act 3 has a voiceover of someone going "BOOTY, YARR!!!" in the background, and act 5 has them going twinkle twinkle for the stars. It's all super good.





Our mini-adventure today is going to require us to head back to Langtree... back to the beginning of the game.





Ah.... memories.



MUSIC: The Bard





So why are we here? Well... if you remember wayyyy back in update 2, I mentioned that there was nothing on the left side of Bard's house. And there wasn't...! At the time anyway. Once you beat the game though, something unlocks.





Bard's house is, for whatever reason, in a valley. So we need to grab this bird in order to get up to the ledge on the left side.







So what could be over here...?







The true villain of Wandersong... a freakin cat!!


Meow! You found a secret... but do you know the password?


The cat then has nothing more to say until we can correctly enter this so called password... so what is it? Well, we already got a hint of what that password is in the last update:





Here's the randomly generated password we received for beating the game. If you're following along at home, you're going to get a different password than I did, because this is uniquely generated per save file. That's a lot of effort gone into this password! But uh, here's the thing. Bard doesn't speak in symbols... he only sings. So how do we get past this? We... sing! Each symbol in the sky refers to a different color note we need to sing to this cat to unlock the game's final secret. So what's the cipher for this symbol to color secret? The easiest way is to look it up online, but it can be figured out on its own simple enough. The symbols are the same symbols we saw throughout the game as the element icons/Overseer icons. The colors for those symbols match up to the colors of those elements. For instance, wind is green, the triangle is red (for order), and the moon is blue. So using that knowledge, our special password is:

Yellow-Blue-Blue-Red-Turquoise-Orange-Red-Purple

Yellow for the star, blue for the moon, red for the triangle, turquoise for the water droplet, orange for the sun, and purple for the swirl. Simple enough, so what's the issue?





First off, this area finds it to be a great idea to saturate the color wheel to where some colors look similar to others. I ended up getting orange and yellow confused, as well as blue and turquoise. For reference, yellow is facing east and turquoise is facing south. Second of all, remember how many puzzles in this game were super lenient on timing? Guess what puzzle isn't lenient on that... that's right, this password! If the notes aren't sung close enough together it won't be counted. This really messed me up my first time because I did it right but did it too slow and didn't realize it since there's no feedback here. This is a completely optional secret that the devs wanted kept secret, so I can't get upset at them for me being bad

Once the password is finally sung correctly...


Meow! You solved it...






Uh... is that it? Game... please don't tell me the reward is inside myself or something, this took like 10 minutes to finally get.























Whoa... ok this is a bit trippy. Where are we at?









Uh, wait... you don't look like Wandersong characters.


Oh hey! You're here My name's Gord. I did the music for Wandersong, Greg helped write a lot of the songs though! Em wrote one too The campfire one. I bet you liked it.


I loved it, in fact! Welcome to the dev room! It's a pretty small room, seeing as how there were only three devs. I've always enjoyed dev rooms, if only for devs to be able to just gush directly at me with no marketing speak, since I've already bought the game. Wandersong's though, I've got a particular love for.


I'm not gonna lie, this game was tough! As soon as I agreed to work on it I was like, "What have I done." But I knew I really wanted to work with Greg. And that anything he was gonna make was gonna be good. And I guess I must have been feeling like I wanted a challenge??? I don't actually remember. But I knew early on there was a pretty big chance I was gonna burn out, or screw up, or run out of music to write. This game has SO MUCH MUSIC, it scared the crap outta me. But hey you're here & I'm here! We made it!


They've each got a lot to say, so I'm going to break it out a bit so it's not all on one line.


2017 was a hard year for me, something I thought I KNEW was true my whole life, turned out not to be so true after all? The world has been so angry, and though I started on Wandersong before then, it suddenly became a whole lot more important to invert cynicism for once in my life. (I am cynical; I like cynical things). To contribute to something whose sole purpose is to make people happy. But not like, shallow happy, like a sitcom or whatever, REALLY happy; to shine a little light for people whose lives are feeling truly dark. (I'm feeling way better now by the way.)


While there is no music in this part, I feel it's pretty tragic for this game about music to not have any songs playing while talking to the people who made the game. Maybe they got sick of the songs

Regardless, I'm just gonna slot some of my favorite songs from the game in case anyone wants to enjoy it too.



MUSIC: The Dream King


This is the biggest soundtrack I've ever done, it might be the biggest soundtrack ever??? It will probably be the biggest I'll ever do. It's like 4 and a half hours long?! The plan was to be really minimalist so we'd finish and I stuck to that plan until like halfway through Act 2, and then nothing was minimalist. I am super bad at minimalism.



MUSIC: Message from Mom


I recorded live performances on 24 different instruments in this game. I have no idea how many digital instruments are used.



A lot.

OH and you know that last big song at the end of the game? The one where everyone sings together? We got a choir for that. But not like a real choir, I just asked twitter who wanted to sing for us. 75 people sang for us! Some people had fancy mics, some people sang into their phones & laptops, some people sang beautifully, some people didn't, but everyone tried. And everyone cared. And that is what Wandersong's about. Everybody trying, everybody caring... and making something beautiful together. Even if it's not something you don't think you're good at. (And everyone that said "my voice is terrible" in the choir was flat out WRONG)



MUSIC: Sail into the Sunset




My wife & I found out we were having a baby. I don't know when you're reading this, we're currently due March 4, 2019, so we may or may not have had it yet. I really hope it goes OK!


D'awww! As of writing, it's early November so it's still too early but hopefully things go okay for their baby!

edit from the far flung future of March:

https://twitter.com/AShellinthePit/...611597028192258


& hey you're here! & I'm here. We made it. We're just people that made this game. You can do cool stuff too, just try, and care. See ya!


This dev team truly did care and really did just want to spread happiness and joy to people. The whole game was teeming with passion and love, and even in its final moments, it just wants to send you away with a good and positive feeling. It's why I love this dev room, even if there's only three people here.

We've finished with Gord, let's speak to Em next.



MUSIC: Lay Down Your Tools




Yay! I'm Em. I did all the sound design in this game! Which means I recorded and edited voices, ambiences, footsteps... and a whole bunch of silliness. I'm really grateful to have had the chance to be a part of Wandersong. I think its really special. And I'm so happy to have helped add something so positive to the world. I'm also super grateful that you've taken the time to play it. I hope you've enjoyed listening!

We all put a lot of energy and love into how this game sounds. I think its a really important part of storytelling. And that it can add so much value to listen. So it means a lot to me to have been able to work with Greg, who really cared about it right from the start!

We had a lot of fun making it together. It feels crazy now to be letting it all go. All I hope, in the end, is that you've kept some of the feeling that we shook out of our hearts. I hope that it feels good.


It affected me enough to devote hours upon hours to spreading the word about this game, so I have to think that I did keep that feeling!



MUSIC: The Bard and the Moon


Wandersong was the first game I worked on! Way back in 2016. it's what got me started in indie games. I've worked on a few since then, but this one has been my biggest constant. It's also the one closest to my heart. The themes that Greg explores really resonate with me, and I think they're super important ideas to spread right now. So it's been wonderful to contribute to that.



MUSIC: Give Peace a Chance


For me, it's pretty interesting to look back from the beginning... all the way to the end and hear how the sound changes. It was really easy to grow with this game, because we made each act a different theme sonically. There was a lot of experimentation!

Time for some fun facts: there are 5084 sounds. That's a lot for an indie game! Greg and I voiced most of the characters. Most of the sounds are recorded, so many of those sounds are my voice. A lot of the ambiences shift depending on where you are. There are so many silly details. So silly.

Well... Thanks for listening.


Em brings up something I never did mention, the sound shifting is really great in this game. Music will quiet as you get farther from a city, ambient noises will increase depending on where on the map you are, almost every character has some kind of "cry" for when they talk, the Overseers and fairies usually having my favorites. The game absolutely revels in the quality of its music, but its sound design is absolutely fantastic as well. It does such a good job of mixing with everything else that it's somewhat hard to notice because it feels so natural to be there. You did a wonderful job, Em!





There remains only one more person left to talk to...



MUSIC: Wandersong





The main developer and creator of the game... Greg Lobanov.


Hey, I'm Greg. I made this game!


Well... I guess my introduction was unnecessary...


It's really great to meet you! Did you really figure out how to get here yourself? Did you look it up on the internet? It's OK if you did.


I totally had to look it up. I certainly forgot about the leftward path at the start of the game and didn't figure out the color cipher because, as previously mentioned, I'm dumb.


Either way, I have a lot to say to you. I'm really touched that you came this far. From the bottom of my heart... I want to say THANK YOU! THANK YOU for playing!!! This game means a lot to me. I put a lot of love, thought and effort into it. And it's really special... to make something like that and share it with someone. I genuinely hope you enjoyed it


I know I've spent most of this LP gushing on this game, but uh, that's absolutely not stopping here. I still absolutely love this game, even after a full LP of it. And I've been a lot more genuine to this game, and actually tried my damnedest to not be as cynical, snarky, or even swear than I usually would. Few things can make me do that.


As I'm writing this, I have no idea... what will happen when the game comes out. I don't know how many people will ever play it... or if anyone will ever even find this message. But if there's even one person who cares about the game... that makes it worth it, to me. So, I guess it's not just "Thanks for playing"... but thanks for caring. I hope someday... you can make something too, and share it. It's so important to express yourself. And the world needs to hear your voice! You can do it. You are special! And you deserve love. I really believe that.


I found this dev area about a day or two after I beat the game, and ended up wondering what those symbols in the sky meant. I looked around online and found out about a secret in game, but nobody mentioned what the secret was. Finding out it was a dev room was a bit of a mixed reaction from me, as I was hoping for more of the game, as I think many people would. But getting to talk to the devs, and how absolutely positive they are, ended up planting the idea of LP'ing this game in my head. Which has now born fruit to this whole endeavor. Getting back here and reading Greg's same words make it hard to not tear up, and I can be grateful that I've been able to introduce this game to people. Especially to people who would have never heard about it otherwise.


You can hang out here as long as you want. If you keep chatting with me, I'm gonna talk about what it was like making the game. If that's interesting to you at all!


Greg's not kidding, he's still got a lot more to say. Turns out, he's been kinda passionate about this game! Who knew!


Before I started Wandersong, I lived on my bicycle for 5 months and rode across the USA. Along the way I met lots of people... and did something I didn't think I could! I was feeling really optimistic about life and humanity. And I wanted to make a game to express that... The first thing I made was the rainbow music wheel. Just that, floating in an empty void. I wanted to make a controller into a musical instrument, and make it feel as natural and fun as possible. When I saw it worked, more ideas started coming to me... then started pouring like a waterfall...

It took me a while to nail down the story. I had a plot in mind for a while, but it was missing something... Then I had an epiphany one day, and the idea of the Earthsong came to me. I remember crying a little bit when it did. That was the key to unlocking the shape of the story. My original plot idea became just Act 5, and the world of Wandersong started to take shape.

Act 1 came together within a few months. I've made countless changes to it since then... but it was basically the same as now. My friends played it and thought it had potential. What I needed was sounds, and music. I tried recording my voice to make all the sounds... and I wrote some songs too. But the game was asking for better than I could give it. Simply put, I realized the audio had to be amazing, which meant I needed money... so I put it on Kickstarter.

The response on Kickstarter was really wonderful. Everyone was so enthusiastic! The game quickly had more fan art than anything else I'd done. There were many musicians asking to work with me, it felt very special... Even so, I didn't know if I'd make it until the very end. And when I did... it felt like a miracle. Every step of the way, I felt like I was doing something a little too big for myself. And then just narrowly making it. It felt powerful...

I met Gordon through some friends. His music for Parkitect had a really good vibe... He really believed in Wandersong, despite the modest funds and huge idea. And he was local! So we could work closely together. After a long search I'd found my musician. Em was his first hiree, and Wandersong was her first game. She brought so much enthusiasm into the game... it bowled me over.

...

So we got to work.

We made the game almost perfectly sequentially, act by act. I would rush ahead, developing gameplay and writing scenes. Then Em would breathe life into the game with audio. Gord was busy at first with other commitments... but he did eventually catch up. It took almost 2 years to work to the ending of the game, and then more months of refining, polishing, and fixing.

I could talk forever about this. It took over my entire life, for 3 years... but I'm going to stop here for now. Thanks for listening. We went and added some commentary notes to scenes in the game. Look out for those if you want to learn more! And...



It really means so much to me. More than I can put into words.

...






With that, Greg is out of things to say... for now. As he mentioned, there are now commentary spots scattered throughout the game where you can go and get some more interesting tidbits on the game. Some of them are short and to the point like his bold explanation of why act 3 has pirates (HE REALLY LOVES PIRATES), some have long details about what inspired the scene and what themes he wanted to get across with acts. I've found them to be pretty interesting... and I did go back and add some of them into the LP commentary for some updates. But, if you want to know them all, I think you should pick up the game yourself. This game was a labor of love, and this LP was as well.

If you stuck around this long, I'm sure you enjoyed both. But if not, hey thanks for giving it a chance! I really hope everyone goes out and tries to be a little bit more positive in their lives, even though there are few things harder. The world needs hope, and it needs to smile more often. And I'm really glad that games like this, got to be made. Thank you for following along!!






(art from here)