The Programmed Music of “Mini Metro” – Interview with Rich Vreeland (Disasterpeace)
I sat down recently with Rich Vreeland (aka ‘Disasterpeace’) to discuss the project. Rich was the composer and designed the music system in Mini Metro. Pretty much everything you hear in the game consists of samples that are trigged in real-time as a result of player actions.
DS: Are all musical elements tied to the player’s actions? When we play, we hear melodic / rhythmic elements, tonal / chordal elements and percussive elements as well as different evolving rhythms and harmony. What’s the controlling source for these musical components?
RV: Each city/level has an inherent set of musical qualities; access to certain rhythms, harmonic choices, and train engine sounds among other things. Which of those are played at any given time is somewhat controlled by the player through their decisions around the size and shape of their subway system. Each level contains strings of notes that represent the harmonic structure and the voice leading of the music. Each subway line has a rhythm and a note tied to it at any given time. Altering the subway line least recently altered replaces the oldest note in the harmonic structure with the next one in line. The rhythms work in a similar way. Altering a line alters the rhythm by shifting it to the next available rhythm in a list of possible rhythms. Sometimes the harmonic structure of the music will change depending on which week of gameplay you are currently in.
More of the interview at designingsound.org
