59 lines
3.0 KiB
Markdown
59 lines
3.0 KiB
Markdown
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---
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title: "A Programmer Makes Music"
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date: 2020-10-01
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description: ""
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---
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A few years ago, I found the lovely [Godot Engine](https://godotengine.org"),
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and decided to make a game. It's called Fronter and it's not much of an
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improvement over the Flash game I made by copying a tutorial in 2009. Though I
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wrote it myself this time instead of just swapping out assets (I was 13, okay).
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It's sorta fun, but very incomplete and _terribly_ balanced. It does, however,
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have exquisitely-crafted graphics:
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<a href="../assets/fronter_full.jpg">
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<img src="../assets/fronter.jpg"
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alt="The main "character" of Fronter: a very simple, significantly sloppy
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black and white drawing of what some might call a spaceship."></a>
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<small>Yee-haw</small>
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I love programming. I love solving problems with clever solutions. I think it
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can be hard in certain types of creative project, though. I've had tons of fun
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working on my little LISP implementation because, there, programming is the
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journey _and_ the destination. Those problems are fun to solve, and have a
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clearly-defined scope. With a game, it's way easier for me to glom on a bunch
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of nonsense, and barely get anywhere with the actual gameplay.
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So, somewhere in there, I got tired of scratching my head, "Make enemy strong?
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But no make _too_ strong." and just worked on the music. I'm no musical
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genius-man, but sometimes programming is stupid, and you just want to make
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drums go bop and synths go bzz.
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Most of the music is overtly game-y, with the aforementioned buzzy synthesizer,
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but I think it works most of the time. A lot of the songs I've done are also
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way too intense for background music, like they'd only make sense at the climax
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or the closing credits. Part of the reason I dropped the game was because I
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couldn't find anywhere to put the music I worked on!
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I've hardly ever _named_ a song, either. Nearly everything still has its
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placeholder name. "Organ", "Game Tune", and the especially horrifying "Poppin'
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Freestyle", are all in desperate need of a rename. And no, "freestyle" refers to
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several minutes of synth noodling. It is not rap. If you ever see a post on
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here titled, "Me Rapping is a Good Idea, Actually", please reach out to my
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emergency contacts.
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This post isn't intended as a plug, but if you're itching to hear some
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bleep-bloops, there is technically a [Soundcloud for Fronter](https://soundcloud.com/fronter_game).
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I didn't spend much time on a lot of the songs, so they severely lack polish,
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but the three I mentioned above are, I think, the best (more or less in the
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order given).
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I haven't had the power cable for my MIDI keyboard (a rather cheap-o Yamaha
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YPT-240), so it's been a long while since I attempted a tune. Finally bit the
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bullet on ordering a new one yesterday, so maybe I'll work on more stuff in the
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near future.
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Also annoying FOSS-lover that I am, [LMMS](https://lmms.io/) is the
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music-making software I've used. So, if you have a melody kicking around in
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your head, I highly recommend that you try and play it out. It's very fun.
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