When composing the music for Deus Ex I had to consider the style and context that the game fit into. The game is often identified as a ‘cyberpunk’ game, meaning it depicts a world set in a post-information age in which humans have begun enhancing their bodies with cybernetic implants and prosthetic limbs. The punk element refers to a breakdown in some aspect of society, challenging the popular expectation that a progression in technology always leads to more freedom and a higher quality of life. From this understanding of the basic context that the games themes exist within, I decided the instrumentation should be broadly synthetic and electronic, it should also imply unrest and uncertainty. I had two write music for three threat levels within two different environments, for the lowest threat level I used pads and industrial sounds to create a mysterious and threatening soundscape by using lots of semi tone intervals and detuned sounds. The lowest threat level is when the player is unseen and in hiding, so i tried to make the music reflect the pressure and tension of that state. For the medium threat level I continued many of the themes on as I needed it to still feel tense and mysterious. I added some percussive elements to suggest a kind of urgency, as the player is now in a situation when they are in danger of being seen. I also introduced an arpeggio playing between an F and an A, this implies the Lydian mode making the piece sound distant and ambiguous. For the highest threat level i concentrated more on making it sound open and aggressive rather than tense, secretive and mysterious. I built a half time break-beat/jungle esque groove to be the driving force moving the piece forward. I made the arpeggio more prominent by adding another diad to the pattern up an octave, this gives the player something more like a hook or melody to grasp on to. Throughout all aspects of the percussion i layered different orchestral drums to make the music sound more appropriate for a AAA game such as this which often style much of their game after aspects of cinema.

I had no previous experience with the programme Wwise and so it took a few days to get adjusted to the layout. I soon found that the audio tab acts as a storage tab for your audio that you can trigger from the other tabs. I started by adding a switch named after the level (DCP_The Core), this would contain the various pieces to be triggered at different times in the game. I then made three playlists to correspond to the three events within the game level, the first was DCP_Music (the default music when you start the game), the second was DCP_Enter01 (the next bit of music to be played when you enter the next area) and the third was DCP_Enter02 (the piece to be played when the player presses the button). Within the playlists i loaded my music and put the cues in to mark the fade ins and outs of each bit of audio. Next I headed in to the game sync tab and created a switch group and dragged the playlists onto the corresponding switches. Then in the events tab in the DCP_Music event i added two new actions, the first was to play the DCP_The Core switch, the second was to set the switch to the correct playlist. For the next two events i simply had to change the playlist that the switch was playing to the other pieces of music.

Cube is clearly taking a lot of inspiration from the original Doom games so i thought i should takes inspiration from those games soundtracks too. The idea for the style was to use cheesy sounding dated resonant synths to bring a kind of early 2000s retro futurism sound. for the default music i wanted it to be sparse and atmospheric, so improvised some ominous sounding pads to sit in the background and began to layer different textures and synthy noises reverbed out over the top. For the next piece i wanted it to be similar but with more rhythm and more high end content to build excitement, for this i added a shaker and some more synths. For the final piece i wanted it to be even more energetic to match the rising tension in the game, i added a full drum groove and a driving distorted bass line. Throughout all the pieces i kept certain themes and synths playing to keep continuity in the level.

Deus Ex not only had the same event triggers as cube, but it also had threat level music changes for each level environment change. I began by setting up a switch for each environment in which i put a playlist for every threat level. In the end i had 2 switches with 3 playlists in each. I then created a new game parameter for the threat level to control which state is playing within each environment. Next I created switch groups to connect to the threat level. This is so when the threat level increases it switches to the correct music. Within each switch group i made three switches to correspond with each threat level. Then I made the switch groups use the game parameter of threat level in the property editor. In the audio tab two music switch containers to correspond with the switches in the game syncs tab, I then made a playlist for each threat level which each contained the music for the threat level that was set to play continuously upon being triggered. I Found implementing the music a lot more difficult than the making of the music, it was also a lot more dry and felt like the program resisted being understood.