TSA Talks To James Mielke On Lumines: Electronic Symphony

And so onto the music.  The game starts with Deep Dish’s Stay Gold, I ask whether this was intentionally meant to kick off the game the same way Shinin’ did with the first game, being such a strong track?  “Definitely,” says James.  “Choosing the first track was the most important thing for us, because ‘Shinin’ was so melodic, memorable and uplifting, but you could also hear it hundreds of times and not get sick of it.”

“That’s because it has a sublime melody,” he says. “If the song was too catchy, you’d hate yourself every time you started playing, so we were careful to avoid that. But Future Of The Future (Stay Gold) is a lush, lavish, builder of a track that starts the game off on the right note. I’ve been spinning this song in clubs for over 10 years. That’s how I knew it stood the test of time.”

I compliment the team on the rest of the soundtrack, the whole team here thinks it’s amazing.  “Thanks very much for saying so,” is the reply. I’m glad to hear you’re enthused about our song selection. When creating this soundtrack, I really wanted to compile something that would standshoulder to shoulder with the Wipeout 2097 and Rez soundtracks, without shamelessly duplicating them.”

[drop]”Hopefully I’ve managed to achieve that,” he says. “The game went through a few conceptual changes, so as the concept transformed, so did our needs in the tracklisting. I really wanted to use music in this game in the way movies use music, to anchor and emphasize emotional high points or meaningful shifts in theme. I can say with honesty that we definitely achieved everything we wanted to on our tracklist, and that there’s no filler, but I certainly discovered that some artists that I wanted to include just generally don’t license their music out for video game use.”

Did anyone not make the cut that were intended to be in the game, I ask?  “Some of the artists we inquired about, but were ultimately unable to license were Bjork, Yello, and Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark,” admits James. “But overall I would say that 97% of the artists we checked with were open to letting us use their songs.”

Did the team ever consider moving to completely original music from someone like ColdStorage or Baiyon?  James laughs.

“In the case of Baiyon specifically, I absolutely love his music, and I consider him a good friend, but there is already enough confusion in the gaming community between Q-Games and Q Entertainment.”

“Examples: Q and Q confuse folks, and then Pixeljunk Eden and Child of Eden, and then, on the day we announced that Kaskade’s ‘4AM’ was confirmed for Electronic Symphony, Q-Games announced that they’d changed the name of their new game from Pixeljunk Lifelike to Pixeljunk 4AM.”

“Dylan Cuthbert over at Q-Games would probably send ninjas up from Kyoto to assassinate me if I asked Baiyon to compose for Lumines,” Mielke jokes.

“As for completely original music, Electronic Symphony features quite a bit of original music, in addition to the licensed tracks. We have 10 original songs composed by Makoto Asai, for our unlockable skins, and then we have special modes, like Master Mode (for hardcore players only), and Stopwatch Mode, each of which uses original music composed in-house at Q.”

[videoyoutube]The next obvious question, then, is DLC.  “The game is built and ready to add DLC to,” reveals James, “but it really depends on the fanbase and whether they demand it. Q is totally happy to create more skins, and we have some really great ideas that Lumines fans have actually been asking about, but it’s up to our publisher to decide.”

“If you would like, for example, a Genki Rockets DLC skin, then you need to let Ubisoft know.”

I’m a big fan of Josh Wink’s “Higher State” – included in the game – and ask how that one came about.  “This is a track that I have a long appreciation for,” says the producer, “from when I was actively dropping it into DJ mixes back in the mid-90s.”

“When I first told the team I wanted to use Higher State of Consciousness, one of the guys on the team thought I wanted to use the ‘Tweekin’ Acid’ mix, which is probably the most famous mix of that song. But he was surprised when I told him that I actually wanted to use the slower, original version, which has a great ambience, and pulsates and builds as it goes on.”

“That’s why the visuals of that particular skin are evolving, 3D DNA strands. It starts off slow, in all blue tones, to signify the awakening of your synapses. This is where your consciousness begins. As the song begins to pick up, the visuals evolve, adding color and brightness. I think it’s a pretty obvious metaphor, but it’s definitely one of my favorite skins in the game.”

And the last word on Vita, then?  “From what our programmers were saying in the early stages of development, it’s actually quite easy to program for Vita,” says the studio head.  “Sony has obviously gone out of their way to make it as simple as possible to get great results out of the system, and the simple fact that we were able to do what we’ve done with Lumines in such a relatively short development cycle, I think, speaks to the ease of programming on Vita.”

We thank James for his time.

Lumines: Electronic Symphony is out on February 22nd, published by Ubisoft.