Exclusive: watch Okomotive explain how it scored ‘Far: Changing Tides’

Far: Changing Tides publisher Frontier Foundry has shared a behind-the-scenes look at how the 2D adventure game’s soundtrack and audio was created – check it out here.

In the video, Far: Changing Tides creator Okomotive reflected on creating a soundscape that suited the game.

“On the sound design level, working in a flooded world has brought quite some challenges. Almost every sound had to dynamically react to whether the player was sub-surface or over surface,” reflected Fabio Baumgartner, programmer and sound designer at Okomotive.

Composer Joel Schoch added that the second game’s “bigger environment” increased the scope of his work, and added that looking for suitably aquatic instruments was a “whole new journey”.

The video showcased several of the instruments that Okomotive used for the soundtrack of Far: Changing Tides, and you can watch it below.

On balancing Far: Changing Tides‘ music and sound design, Baumgartner shared the following:

“For Lone Sails, we used to have a very clear system on when there was gonna be music and when there was gonna be more sound design present, and I think in Far: Changing Tides we had to kind of figure out how these worked together, because the hubs the player encounters during the game are more elaborate so we needed to have some musical support to really make those hubs work on an emotional level.”

In the video, Okomotive also touched on topics like using music to support key moments in Far: Changing Tides, and how Schoch decided to use certain instruments in creating the soundtrack.

Looking ahead, Schoch said there’s still “thousands of possibilities” on creating dynamic soundtracks in gaming.

“Even though we dived quite deep into this topic, it feels to me – and it’s not frustrating – like we’re [still] scratching on the surface of what is possible.”

In other gaming news, a 2001 demo for an unannounced Gex Jr title has been released.