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[In another GSW-exclusive piece, Jeriaska puts together PixelJunk Eden co-creator Baiyon and Katamari Damacy maker Keita Takahashi, and documents the resulting -- and extremely interesting -- conversation.]

Where do new game design ideas come from? It's the kind of question that might come to mind playing PixelJunk Eden or Noby Noby Boy for the first time. Here game creators from both titles voice their perspectives on the subject of creativity in the videogame industry.

Baiyon as art and music director on Q-Games' third installment in the PixelJunk game series for the Playstation 3's Playstation Network. His background as a DJ and graphic designer based in Kyoto lent the title an outsider's perspective, but was also supplemented by years of passionate interest in the industry.

Keita Takahashi played a central role in creating the breakthrough Katamari Damacy series published by Namco Bandai Games. An enhanced remake of the original title was recently released for the Playstation 3, called Katamari Forever.

Also on PSN, Takahashi was responsible for the innovative Noby Noby Boy, which has been evolving through gradual updates on the Playstation Network. In addition he was recently interviewed by Simon Parkin on his work designing a playground in Nottingham, home of alternative UK game conference GameCity. The discussion between the two creators offers various insights into their views on what matters most to creating enjoyment through game design.

Baiyon: This is a question from Jeriaska, the website correspondent: People sometimes describe PixelJunk Eden and Noby Noby Boy as being out of the ordinary, but being different has not stopped them from appealing to game players. When there is demand for novel game experiences, is it an important requirement of game designers that they exercise their imaginations?

Keita Takahashi: Are people hoping for a new experience?

That's what I thought when I first read the question. I wasn't sure if this was true, especially for Japanese audiences. They like the big, familiar titles, not stuff that's out of the ordinary.

This session is going to sound self-pitying before long. "No one appreciates our games!"

I think we've talked about this before, how experiencing really good game design motivates people to innovate themselves. However, I feel it gets harder and harder to inspire someone as the development process gets larger and more impersonal. For instance, let's say you're someone who loves Final Fantasy. Now, if you want to try to make a game like that, it's going to take forever. Is it even a realistic ambition to set out to make another Final Fantasy?

In music, someone could listen to my songs and decide to make their own. This happens all the time when people go to clubs and then decide to DJ. On the other hand, in the case of designing games there are barriers to sharing your expression because it's all happening within the context of large companies. It's unfortunate because I think for instance young people could draw all sorts of inspiration from your games and make their own.

This is something that I've thought about myself since the development of Katamari Damacy, but I can't get lured into thinking I have such a broad influence and that I'm such a source of inspiration to people.

There's always the fear that in creating a totally new kind of game your audience won't get it. That would be so embarrassing, don't you think? In fact, a lot of people were concerned when I told them about this latest game idea [Noby Noby Boy]. They were wondering whether it was risky to go in such an "artsy" direction, instead of doing something everyone already knows and accepts as conventional.

I think the game is straightforward in a good way. I don't think it's trying to be artsy or something.

That's it exactly. I can totally understand when people are wary of pretentiousness. I'm always careful about it and I don't feel out of touch with what people are actually interested in playing.

You don't feel controversial as a game designer? Sometimes I wonder if I'm a bit of a hypocrite because while it's one thing to complain about mainstream games, what makes my own independent game so special?

I had a lot of these kinds of complaints myself around the time when I was working on Katamari Damacy. Now I try not to say too much. Although I don't think of myself as inciting controversy, I do want to do my part in expanding the possibility of games.

We both have things we want to accomplish, but game development is new to me. I began this collaboration with Q-Games only two years ago.

That was my same experience with Katamari. It was my first game and I think it was my second year in the company.

I still feel there's reason to be hopeful.

You mean in terms of the game industry?

Not exactly. More in the value of media in general.

By the way, is there a clear ending to Noby Noby Boy?

Yes, it's in the game already.

So if the player meets the right conditions, the game ends?

Yes, you can see for yourself. The ending will bring tears to your eyes, for sure.

And you had a broader vision for the game initially?

That's right. The first release of Noby Noby Boy had about 30% or 40% of what was intended overall. I think that's one of the strengths of the downloadable platform for games. You can keep updating to your heart's content. There are the server costs, and the price of the downloads of course, so it does have its limitations.

The Noby Noby Boy updates seemed sizable when I last checked online. It was like 580MB.

That's because it's pretty much a renewal of the entire game. And the sound files take up a lot of space.

For PixelJunk Eden, our music tracks were generally over ten minutes in length. I wrote one hundred minutes worth of music, which took up a lot of disc space.

That particle effect looked great. I wanted to see it a bit more.

At the beginning there were about 5,000 pollen particles visible on the screen. Eventually that number exceeded 30,000 thanks to the efforts of the main programmer. I really wanted to avoid using HDR, though. People say HDR makes everything look better, but I'm not so sure.

I don't use HDR myself, but I'm not that picky about visual effects.

People say that HDR is more vivid but I think the color combinations of Eden are enough to catch your eye. I thought there was some great use of color in Noby Noby Boy as well. On this game I found I had the chance to spend some time learning about programming, especially in making the extension pack. It was a new chance to experiment with the visual design.

The downside is that the more you do, the more money it costs. I do agree though that it's fun to try new things: spend time on your game, and bring it closer to your ideal.

Even upon reaching the end of the project, I was still discovering new things to try out. Game design can be a lot of fun...

Well, it seems we've reached the end of our conversation.

What should we do now?

You know, you see all these explosions in shooting games. They're bright and shiny, but so what? Is it really beautiful to people, these explosions?

Sometimes it's just to show off the technology. Many of these games idealize things that are actually really boring. I sometimes wonder whether this is the best use of our efforts. Videogames are luxury items, after all. As I mentioned at the Game Developers Conference, it's not game design that interests me but creating a fun experience. It doesn't have to be electronic media that provides that experience. For example, kids in developing countries in the world don't know about these videogames. Those kids don't care about HDR and stuff like that.

I've heard that in some region in Africa kids don't know the concept of colors since they don't paint or draw. Sky is sky and they don't have means to express what color it is.

If you were to make games at a lower price so that everyone could afford them, even that wouldn't solve the problem. There are so many things besides games out there that are interesting, and people in developing countries have different sources of enjoyment. I don't think it's the right idea to set as your highest priority in life popularizing your brand and making money. That whole idea is totally misguided. Sometimes just to think of myself as being a representative of this industry and making a living of it is hard to even consider. These are the kinds of concerns that many people think about briefly in college or something, but for me it never ends.

I think for those who want to make games, they should go for it. Game creators like us would probably prefer they were out there exercising their opinions and not just letting business decisions dominate the whole process.

That's a good goal to aim for. There are times I wish everyone in this business would stop acting so serious.

What do you mean? You take your work seriously, don't you?

Yes, but there's a certain inflexibility I notice in this industry. There are games that boil down to going around killing people, and yet they're venerated. It makes me wonder about these people. How can you treat it as such a serious matter when it's just a game, right?

Along those lines I think humor is important to games. Let's move on to the next question from the game correspondent: Is it necessary for game designers in Japan to interact more with international media? You've appeared on Boing Boing Video, and I've helped organize a videogame music roundtable at GDC. What does the industry as a whole have to gain from this kinds of international discourse on games?"

Hm... I have no idea.

I think it's really cool that there are these writers in other countries that are curious and want to know more about our games. I was fascinated by GDC because these developers that make projects costing millions of dollars wanted to talk to me in person. I felt that people really care about the experience, not the profit margin or anything else. There was this great atmosphere there and it was really fun. I wanted to interact with more of these people. Don't you feel the same way?

I think it's important. At the same time, I think game designers need to put more of their energy into making fun games.

Okay, for one, if someone on your project team was struggling with their role in the game industry, I would definitely suggest their checking out GDC.

Are you serious?

Sure. They should go and see what it's about.

Well, that's because you had just made PixelJunk Eden. I think that if you didn't have a game to your name and you went there, it wouldn't be so exciting.

Maybe you're right about that. At the same time, I think that rather than being lost and struggling in Japan, it might be worth checking it out and seeing if you get inspired. I think games can be an incredible source of inspiration.

There's something to what you are saying, but GDC has grown too big to be what it once was. I honestly cannot stand those sessions that are all about the keys to sales success, the keys to not making a game that fails in the marketplace. I haven't attended all of them, so I might be wrong about this, but I presented on Katamari for the Experimental Game Workshop, and it seems to me that every year the games in that booth just get worse and worse. It is called "experimental" but the content is just not creative at all. It limits itself to a single gimmick. The presentations are aimed at getting people to laugh and that is pretty much all there is to it. This year it was particularly painful. I didn't think it was experimental at all.

Maybe part of the problem is that there is this concept of an "experimental" genre. People imitate the surface elements and make some superficial play experiences out of it. How do you feel attending these events outside Japan?

I received a prize at GDC and it certainly made me feel happy. It was never my expectation that games developed in Japan would receive such attention from around the world. I think even if you go out there, if you don't have anything to show, there is not much point in going. They will recognize you if you have something that others can be interested in, right? So before looking to GDC or other external sources to validate their efforts, game designers should look to themselves to create the best possible games.

At the very least I think it can be an opportunity for people to get interested in the possibilities available within this industry. In arriving at GDC, I suddenly thought, "Hey, I'm not alone!" I am a little out of the ordinary because I do many different things. That is what made me so excited to be there, to feel that my way of doing things was appreciated. I felt there were greater possibilities all of a sudden, like my battery had been recharged.

Yes, but PixelJunk Eden is a very special case. I don't really concern myself with international collaborations, and for that matter, I am not so sure they are at all necessary. I was happy to see my game receive recognition in Japan. When it gained some popularity abroad, I was flattered. To be honest, I felt maybe I was too happy about it. I think many of us here in Japan are made too insecure by Western culture. Why should it matter to us? I heard a story about an elementary school child in Japan who was playing with a ball and called out to his friends, "Hey, it's Katamari Damacy!" Those kinds of stories makes me happy. If you hear something like that, the number of overseas units sold really doesn't matter.

But you don't set out with the goal of making your games specifically for a Japanese audience?

No, it's a game after all. It works fine as a non-verbal medium.

I think there are career advantage if you are able to communicate with people outside of Japan. It's good to present at one of these conferences outside Japan, even if for no better reason than to overcome feeling intimidated by Western culture.

I personally feel, having attended the event, that the barrier has been lifted. People in Japan have this concept of "Western games." "This is a Western game." It seems like people know what they're talking about when they say a game made in Japan looks "Western," but I what are they talking about? Has anybody said Noby Noby Boy looks "Western?"

Once.

Don't you find that irritating?

What do you mean?

I don't know. Maybe it's a compliment. (laughs)

Is it a compliment? How should I know?

Maybe this is some kind of Japanese inferiority complex.

Maybe. I'm not so sure.

You don't think so?

I'm not sure. Is it a compliment or an insult? Some people insist on knowing the genre of a game before they play it. While promoting a game the question always comes up first: "What's the genre?" I never want to have to deal with that question.

In the music industry, if you want to do business with overseas companies, they ask for a genre first so they know who to forward the calls to. Since my music is electronic and dance music, I call it house or techno. If I said, "This is Baiyon music," they would would throw it in the trash. Or they would say "I don't know who's in charge of the Baiyon music department, so I'm going to put it aside for now." Then it's never heard of again.

Honestly, I never feel terribly satisfied upon shipping a game. Before getting started, the whole thing's already completed in my head. The rest is just a matter of getting closer and closer to the image I've conceived of previously. That's my style. When the game's finally finished, it's followed by this feeling of dullness. "So, that's it?"

It does take a long time to get to the end. There's endless tweaking here and there for what seems like an eternity, and then it's complete.

That's one reason why it's good to work in a team. You're confronted with ideas you never expected to come across and often it's pretty interesting. I think the teamwork aspect of making games is what makes it is so much fun. I don't program and really, I don't have to.

Okay, next question. What role does it serve to give the game player an interesting character to play as? Both Boy in Noby Noby Boy and the Grimps in PixelJunk Eden are completely new and different personalities for their game worlds. What thoughts went into the creation of these characters? Did you have Boy in mind from the start?

Yes, we had the idea for Boy.

Was stretching in there too?

Stretching came first. Maybe it's worth mentioning that the game was not single-handedly created by me. For the character of Boy, one of the staff members handed me a sketch and I liked it, so we decided to go with it. I made a few minor modifications to the idea, but that was it. In terms of graphics, we had to find a way to make the character not look disgusting. We started out with puffballs attached to both ends of a string, but the long string for an abdomen made it look kind of gross.

For Eden we didn't even have a character for awhile. Someone suggested a circle shape, a simple character. However, I was determined to work on the art of this character and I designed it. We had too little time, it turned out, to add some animations, but I would have liked to do that as well. This was midway into development and we eventually concluded that using the physics engine and incorporating arms and legs for the character would be sufficient. There are three characters you can choose from and each have unique characteristics, since I wanted to make this a little like a traditional adventure story.

The concept for PixelJunk Eden was developed by the game's director?

Yes, in conjunction with the company president, Dylan [Cuthbert]. I'm not credited as the game director. Rather, I composed the music and oversaw the art design.

I see.

The company allowed me total freedom, and it's been a great opportunity to work with game designers. I felt that I was allowed to be totally honest with my opinions, and everyone at Q-Games was receptive to my input.

Okay, next question. What role is there for humor and surprise in games? Do you want to surprise the game player and give them an experience that they were never expecting?

That's the idea in a nutshell. I don't go out there with the intention of surprising the player by adding some unfamiliar elements to the game. However, I do think "There might be a place for this kind of game." Some people will react with incredulity and say, "Can this really be a videogame?" That's what I'm looking for.

I think that once you accept a game that is an unfamiliar experience to you at first, you open up the doors for the possibility of enjoying more kinds of games.

That's true. Your capacity expands when you start to enjoy a bad game. Suddenly you can enjoy all sorts of bad, terrible and mediocre games. (laughs)

Okay, let's say I was a journalist and I said, "Takahashi-san, please give us a keyword that wholly encapsulates the experience of playing your game."

Hmm. I would have to go with "Nonsense." This is a nonsensical kind of game, but that does not make it any less fun to play. The player is meant to feel like if this can legitimately be called a game, then maybe they could make a game themselves. That's what I had in mind for a long time actually.

I see. In my case the keyword is "Feel-good." It's that feeling you get when you are at a club between 3:00 and 4:00 in the morning and you get that exhausted adrenaline rush.

Wow, that's a tall order.

It seems to me like your work is focused on developing the game concept, while mine concerns the treatment of the art style.

Maybe.

Perhaps we should make a game together.

Would you like to?

Yeah, for sure.

I bet we'd get into arguments all the time.

Like where to put the fart sound.

That's it exactly.

[This article is available in Japanese on 4Gamer. Images courtesy of Q-Games and Namco Bandai Games. Translation by Ryojiro Sato.]

[Continuing his 'Sound Current' series talk to notable game audio creators, Jeriaska sits down with Civilization IV soundtrack co-composer Christopher Tin on his new album, inspired by one of the signature Civ IV songs.]

Musician Christopher Tin made his debut as a game composer with the tracks "Baba Yetu" and "Coronation" for the 2004 strategy title Civilization IV. His contributions to the score earned him two awards from the Game Audio Network Guild, for Best Original Vocal Song and Rookie of the Year.

Music from Civ IV has graced the stage numerous times as part of the Video Games Live concert series, allowing for "Baba Yetu" to be performed around the world. On October 1st the composer is publishing an album of music inspired by the piece.

Called "Calling All Dawns," the collection assembles twelve songs in twelve languages, including a brand new rendition of the celebrated videogame vocal theme. The album represents the culmination of an artist's personal interpretation of a computer software series that has inspired him since his youth.

In this interview coinciding with the release of "Calling All Dawns," Christopher Tin describes being a part of the VGL concert series. The discussion offers a personal perspective on the position of game soundtracks as an art form with international appeal.

As an intersection of Civilization IV and the entirely new material present on Calling All Dawns, "Baba Yetu" is also an example of bringing together ancient musical traditions and modern game software. In your work as a composer, what have you observed about the interplay of the canon and today's videogame industry?

Sadly, on a macro level, there is no interplay between classical music and videogames. This is not to say that the classical world doesn't explore adaptive and dynamic music (Steve Reich, John Cage) and that game music doesn't flirt with the classics (Civ IV had a number of licensed pieces, including 20th-century works by John Adams). But the circles have been wary of each other for awhile.

Tours like Video Games Live are helping to redefine those boundaries, but it's an uphill struggle, and videogames and the classical canon have little to do with one another for now. But really... why should there be any interaction between games and the classical canon? Why can't game music evolve as its own distinct art form? Why should it rely on the Western classical tradition at all?

Videogames (and their music) are complex, evolving, and technologically mediated. Why should the music in videogames rely on a the classical tradition that's centuries old, linear in definition, and based on artifices of 16th-century technological limitations?

Does the idea interest you of writing music that includes an interactive component and responds dynamically to the feedback of the player?

As far as effective uses of interaction in games, I'd have to say that Troels Folmann does this very well in his scores (matter of fact, Troels does many things very well).

I would certainly love to write more dynamic and adaptive music. I've done it for various sound installations and product design applications, but not yet in a game context. I certainly have a lot of ideas as to how it could be done; some of which may extend beyond the limitations of the current generation of consoles.

The key, though, is that I consider myself a highly structural composer; for me, the second most important element of music is form (the most important element is melody). So the challenge becomes how do you maintain a cohesive and satisfying musical form, while still relying on an adaptive engine? How do you have sensible modulations, recapitulations, developments, counterpoint, etc.? Is this possible, practical or even desirable? Maybe someday when the technology catches up, someone will hire me to solve this dilemma.

Prior to contributing to the score of Civilization IV, what had been your experience with the computer game series?

Civ was a huge part of my childhood. The funny story is that it was my college roommate, Soren Johnson, who turned out to be the lead designer for Civilization IV. I ran into him at our five-year reunion at Stanford. We had done an overseas study program together at Oxford. He was studying history and computer science, which is perfect for Civilization, and I was studying music. We caught up and he had just finished Civilization III as one of the co-designers. I told him I had been a huge Civilization fanatic growing up.

A couple months went by and I got a phone call from him saying, “Hey Chris, we are in the process of putting together the opening animations for Civilization IV. I took a track from one of the Stanford Talisman a capella albums recorded back at Stanford, and everyone loved the world vibe of it.” Talisman specializes in African choral music, so Soren came back to me and asked if I would be up for writing something new that was an epic sounding African vocal track with drums. And it was right up my alley.

I spent a month writing the main theme for Civilization IV, which is actually a long time in composer terms. I then recorded it with Talisman a capella back at Stanford. I got it into the game and that was it.

What is it that appealed to you about the series when you played it in your youth?

I’ve always been the type of person that likes to build, cultivate and tinker with things. I get fixated and obsessed on little projects. A game like Civ, where you’re growing a Civilization, expanding your borders and expanding new territories, that all fits into that pleasure center in my brain.

Your music for Civilization IV has been a fixture of the Video Games Live concert series program. What has been your experience working with the event organizers?

Well, Tommy and Jack are great. To me, they’re living the life right now. Having gotten to know them over the years, they have cultivated a great sense of community among game composers.

For example, Tommy has an annual summer barbecue where he invites everyone in the Game Audio Network Guild to his house. I can’t think of another industry where one of the top composers says, “Hey guys, everyone come over and hang out at my place!” It doesn’t matter if you’re an A-list composer, an assistant or an intern, you can come over, play videogames and hang out.

Has participating in the Video Games Live concert series directly contributed to the design or realization of your concept for Calling All Dawns?

I think that any time you're able to take a piece of music out of the context of a game and still have it stand on its own it's a validation that you've written a good piece of music. In a sense, the success I've had with my music being featured in Video Games Live (and the hundreds of other live performances of my music) gave me the motivation to create an entire album of music that would stand on its own, apart from any visuals.

On your blog you mentioned an audio/video experiment that took place at a recent performance of your Civilization IV medley at Video Games Live in Kalamazoo, Michigan. You had attended the concert virtually from your home in California and participated in a Q&A session by being projected on a monitor at the venue. How did the experiment turn out?

It was a great experience! And kudos to the VGL guys for trying to integrate this technology into the concert experience. In this day and age, why can't we do more of this stuff?

I'm relatively young, but I still remember a day when the idea of a 'video phone' was some sort of distant, newfangled technology. Nowadays we can beam anyone's voice and image anywhere in the world (and for FREE, on top of it), so why not have more remote participation events where composers 'virtually' attend concerts of their music? If any orchestra or choir out there wants me to do such a similar broadcast, even if it's just to say 'hi' during a rehearsal or do a Q&A, I'd be ready and willing.

Do you find it rewarding as a musician to interact directly with listeners and hear their feedback, for instance during the Video Games Live series' post-concert meet-and-greets?

Absolutely! I love meeting game music fans in person, and especially getting emails from people who are fans of my music (I usually write back). I'm very 'public' in my composition process. When I have the time, I love to workshop works-in-progress with a trusted circle of friends for feedback. The act of playing your works for people is a very revealing part of the creative process; you can no longer avoid those weak points that maybe you've been turning a blind eye to, but instead, are forced to confront them.

How would you say your academic training, both in terms of your literary background and training as a musician, contributed to your career as a composer?

Well, one can be inspired in the head, and one can be inspired in the heart. My cerebral inspiration, of course, was my study of the musical canon, which in one form or another gets subconsciously translated into the music that I write. But as for what moves me? What inspires the heart? It comes from far and wide.

I suppose that looking at the music I grew up listening to, there's a common thread of good old-fashioned tunefulness, that seems to work its way into what I write. I don't talk about it much, but when I was a tween I was absolutely obsessed with the musicals of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Schönberg and Boublil. (In fact, I originally wanted to be a musical theatre composer!)

There's a certain sweeping drama in their works that I loved growing up, AND you can't get their melodies out of your head. Once I entered high school I traded that love for the likes of The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, The Who, and the rest of the 'classic rock canon'. And again, the sort of repetitive riffs and hooks that you find in their music work their way into the stuff that I write. I write very riffy, hooky orchestral music. Maybe I'm a rock musician trapped in a classical musician's body.

Is "Calling All Dawns" a reflection of your academic training or experiences traveling?

A little of both, perhaps. The two aren't mutually exclusive. Book knowledge and life experience are often spoken of as competing ideas, but really they're two sides of the same coin. In fact, what you learn in school and what you learn in the real world should teach you the exact same thing: that it's important to look at the big picture, to think big, to take it all in, and to be unafraid to make a statement in the world.

Anyone who has traveled has been humbled by the enormity of the world's cultures and landscapes. Likewise the more schooling you have, the more awestruck you are by the depth, breadth and history of human knowledge. So whether you went through years of academia or years on the street, you should graduate with one important lesson learned: respect. Respect for the world, for the people around you, and for the people who came before you.

So what is Calling All Dawns? It's a vehicle of respect.

Christopher Tin conducting 'Baba Yetu' with the Golden State Pops Orchestra

What has been your experience meeting Afrika composer Wataru Hokoyama? You’ve both received GANG Awards for Rookie of the Year.

Wataru and I did a concert together with the Golden State Pops Orchestra at Game Music in Concert (four of the six composers there were GANG Rookies of the Year). He’s a great guy and a great composer. We did joke that when the game community wants something African, they turn to the Asian composers.

One of the songs on your forthcoming album, "Mado Kara Mieru," was recorded in Japan. Did you receive any advice from videogame musicians in the creation of this Japanese-language music track?

Absolutely! Hitoshi Sakimoto (of Final Fantasy XII fame) was instrumental in helping me get the vocals recorded. The song itself was conceived and written several years ago with the help of various Japanese-American friends, but when it came time to record, I didn't have the resources to find the right vocalists on my own.

As it turns out I was passing through Tokyo earlier this year, and decided to see if I could find some leads through the Game Audio Network Guild. One member referred me to Sakimoto-san, who referred me to the excellent singer Lia.

Through Lia's management I met two other excellent singers (Aoi Tada and Kaori Omura), and the three of them are the featured vocalists on my song (entitled 'Mado Kara Mieru'--translated as 'Through The Window I See'). It really speaks to the closeness and camaraderie in the game industry, I think; Sakimoto and his company were amazingly helpful in contacting the vocalists, arranging the recording session, and even helping out with the paperwork. I hope I can repay them in some way, someday.

How did you go about finding lyrics for "Mado Kara Mieru"?

With a lot of these songs, I tried to capture a cultural understanding of the language that the song is based on. There is a tendency to rely on clichés in striving for ethnic legitimacy. Whenever possible, I try to go a step beyond and find a deeper cultural raison d’etre.

This is where the understanding of literature and poetry comes into play. As it is, each of these songs draws from texts about life, death and rebirth. You have the requiem mass in Latin, you have excerpts from the Bhagavad Gita, an excerpt from the Torah, a Catholic hymn, a Japanese haiku, Māori proverbs, Persian poetry by Omar Khayyám. It’s not just sacred material, but also secular. 2009 has been spent recording soloists like the Soweto Gospel Choir performing "Baba Yetu," various singers in Japan, and Anonymous 4 in New York. The Portuguese Fado singer Dulce Pontes also sings a song for me, as does Iranian singer Sussan Deyhim and the legendary mezzo-soprano Frederica von Stade.

The dominant poetic form in Japanese is the haiku. In doing research into haiku, I got to understand that basically every classical haiku has a kigo, a seasonal word. They will say something like, “I look up in the sky and I see the moon.” The moon in that case is the seasonal word, because in autumn the moon is its roundest. That grounds the haiku in a particular season. If you see the word “sakura,” --meaning 'cherry blossoms'--it refers to spring, when the cherry trees blossom. Many of these haiku are grounded in particular seasons.

At the time I was writing this, I knew that my overall theme for Calling All Dawns was the cycle of life. Life, death and rebirth are a never-ending cycle. Even our distant ancestors observed this cycle in the turning of the seasons and the crops rejuvenating themselves in the spring.

What I did was take five haiku with corresponding words for spring, summer, autumn, winter and spring. Then I put them in order and treated them as a rondo. The goal was also to have singers at different stages of their lives singing these solos. The spring haiku would be sung by a young girl, for example. The summer haiku, by a young woman.

In the end is this how you went about recording the song?

Not quite. Ultimately, while all this artistic vision is important, the emotional impact of the vocalist is the most important thing. While you can theorize that it would be ideal to get a young girl to sing this, if an adult woman who can sound like a young girl is more capable, you should side with her. In other words, you should always choose quality over strict authenticity.

Looking back at your own experience, is there any personal advice you might offer someone who plans on going to school for musical training and is interested in working in videogames?

I wouldn't encourage prospective students to look *specifically* to get into video games, nor anything else for that matter. Just focus your energies on becoming the best possible composer you can be, and don't worry about what you're going to compose for--that will sort itself out later, and frankly you have no control over what's going to fall your way.

The truth is, though, that if you're a good musician, you'll be able to apply those skills towards any field you wind up working in. One thing in particular is that I've always believed that if you can write a good melody, you'll never go hungry. Why? Look back on history: every single piece that's established in our collective memory has always had a good melody. Even the great composers have pieces that stand out from the rest of their canon, and most often those are the ones with the great melodies.

Beethoven wrote nine symphones. How many people can hum the Fourth? The Eighth? Yet everyone knows the Ninth, the Fifth, the Third, and to a lesser extent the Sixth and Seventh. Why? Because they're great melodies. Even canonical dissonant works like the Rite Of Spring have great melodies. Want to write a piece that everyone connects with, that will stand the test of time? Write a good melody.

[Find more about Christopher Tin, along with ordering information on the album, at the composer's official website. Images courtesy of Christopher Tin. Hear samples of "Calling All Dawns" on Soundcloud.com.]

[Why aren't there more traditional developers attending casual game-specific events, like last week's Casual Connect in Seattle? In this opinion column, Divide By Zero's James Portnow warns of the peril in treating casual games like a separate industry.]

Each year, the Casual Connect conference in Seattle takes up more space. This year it had more vendors, more lectures and more attendees than ever before. This isn’t unexpected. What surprised me is how we, the "proper" video games industry, seem not to have noticed.

It’s not that we don’t know that "casual games" are big business: we just don’t seem to think that they’re our business, or, at the very least, we seem to think that we can enter the field of casual games without being involved with any of the companies that call themselves "casual game developers."

Why do I say this? Because as I walked the halls of Casual Connect I realized how few people I actually knew there. This may sound ridiculous, even pretentious, but I’m sure many of you have the same problem: you can’t go two feet at GDC without running into someone you know.

Somewhere between the parties and the lectures at Casual Connect it clicked... these are two different industries.

Fractures

This splitting of the industry is terrible. Not just for us, but for everyone involved.

We can see this clearly simply by looking to the serious games industry. I try to stay involved with the serious/educational games community, because I find much of the research coming out of that sector fascinating…and the one thing that doing so has made me certain of is that there is plenty both serious and “big”(we need some term for our sector of the industry other than “the videogame industry”) games can learn from one another.

In general, I’ve found that the serious crew could pick up a fair amount about production from “the industry,” and we in turn could learn a lot about conveying complicated ideas and addressing weighty subject matter. Learning, or at least leeching, from each other, we might be able to present games that are fun, polished and deeply meaningful (which is something neither industry does well consistently).

If we let the casual games industry go the same way, we leave an enormous amount of money on the table. Not because of the fact that we won’t be making casual games – lots of developers specialize, making only RPGs or only racing games – but because of the knowledge we leave behind.

We’ve seen how successful crossover hybrids can be (Puzzle Quest, Portal), and we’ve frequently acknowledged that we often have a hard time including puzzles in our games without them seeming forced or hackneyed. There are people out there who have already spent 10,000 hours thinking about these problems.

The Split from the Other Side

A few years ago I used to hear casual games guys talk about how they were going to revolutionize the industry, about how they were going to achieve legitimacy and be recognized as a driving force in the industry. Nobody talked about “the industry” this year.

And why should they? They’ve got Mochi and Wild Tangent throwing parties that rival anything put on at GDC. They’ve got PopCap grabbing its own headlines and making profits on par with many of the most successful AAA games developers/publishers. They’ve got their own big ballers. They don’t need our recognition any more.

What they do need is our knowledge. They do need much of what we bring to the table... but this year I certainly sensed that we as industries had alienated each other to some degree.

After all those years of looking to us for support, for publishing partners and distribution channels, I got the feeling that some on the casual side of the table were quite happy to become a separate industry and to keep to themselves what they had earned.

More Damage

It’s more than just information exchange, there’s all sorts of advantages to having a unified industry. As a block we can do more. It sounds silly, but there are things we’re going to want to lobby for. There are things which we’ll want a unified front to address.

The near future is going to be a complicated time, morally and legally, for the games industry. We’ve finally grown to the point where many issues have to be tackled on a national and international level (for example, digital property rights). To get the results that best suit us all we must be willing to act together and in order to act together we must rid ourselves of this imaginary divide.

Conclusion

I don’t ask that we all start making casual games. That would be ludicrous. I simply ask that we don’t drift so far apart as to become two separate industries.

Right now we have no embassies and we have no envoys to the strictly casual world. There were a handful of guys from Bioware and a few of the local Games for Windows crew in attendance this last week at Casual Connect, other than that almost all of the tags came from strictly casual game companies. Almost every major developer I know of could have learnt something from that conference.

Does this mean that everyone needs to send somebody to conferences like Casual Connect? No, but every AAA studio should have somebody in the office who has a good contact at PopCap or Zynga or WildTangent. They’ll be a day when you’ll be wanting it.

[James Portnow is a game designer, formerly of Activision, and now at Divide by Zero Games, where he is also the founder and CCO. He received his master's degree in Entertainment Technology from Carnegie Mellon University. He can be contacted at jportnow@gmail.com or JamesPortnow on Twitter for comments on this article.]

[GameSetLinks is GameSetWatch's daily link round-up post, culling from hundreds of weblogs and outlets to compile the most interesting longform writing, links, and criticism on the art and culture of video games.]

Continuing inexorably in the direction of that miraculous invention, THE WEEKEND, we start off with Crispy Gamer's surprisingly fluffy, erudite piece about what authors like Brian Crecente (pictured) would do with game commentary. Oh, wait, that's Edgar Allen Poe, never mind...

Also in this set of links - extending gameplay without cheesing everyone off, the latest in the great MindCandy demo-scene DVD series is announced, why you might like working on MMO live teams and still not be crazy, the latest GAMBIT MIT Game Lab art-game, Lord Putnam on the importance of games, and some other tings.

Super sharp shooter:

Crispy Gamer | What-If Dept.: What If Great Authors Had Written Game Reviews?
'What if, between writing their masterworks, these authors slummed a bit as game writers? Cue the harp music and fog HERE.'

Press Pause to Reflect: How to Make It Last
'Many game designers seek ways of either extending a video game’s play time or encouraging multiple playthroughs of a game. If done well, these strategies can add considerable value to a game.'

"Killing Fields" Producer Working Toward the "Overdue Political Legitimacy of the Games Industry" | GameCulture
'Gamers should be heartened to learn, then, that Puttnam has been working closely with British game group TIGA to "raise key videogame industry issues amongst interested Parliamentarians."'

GAMBIT: Updates: Introducing The Bridge
'Saying I wanted to make a game about "mourning" or the connection between "love" and "fear of loss" would be bullshitting... So, let's just stick to the dirty truth of how it really went.'

Elder Game: MMO game development » The Warcraft Live Team’s B Squad
'But to people who enjoy the live team, well … there is nothing as good as it. The power you have! The instant feedback! The ability to literally make hundreds of thousands of people happy with just a few weeks of work.'

MindCandy Volume 3: PC Demos 2003-09 on Blu-ray and DVD
'Production of the next volume of MindCandy is underway. It will feature PC demos released after Volume 1, in widescreen HD. Blu-ray and DVD versions will be included together in one package.'