a chess-based video game by avalog games.
The game is based around the idea of ‘continuous’ chess, in which the movement of the pieces is freed from the discrete squares of a regular chess board. I created a generative score for the main gameplay.
You can choose to play as different ‘factions’ inspired by the world of Arthurian legend, such as Albion and Rome, each of which have their own combination of pieces which build on the rules of movement in regular chess. The score reflects the character of the faction you are playing with, both in terms of their lore and their strategic features – Rome’s sinister ecclesiastical politics is depicted in dramatic organ chords, whereas Turkiye’s particular ability for its pieces to change between two states is represented in a theme characterised by binary contrast. Each theme is written for 16 parts, one for each piece – the Queen is represented by a central percussive section, with the pawns each acting as one voice in a polyphonic part such as a choir. This way, the score is responsive to the gameplay. As pieces are taken, their corresponding instrument is removed from the score, and so as the game goes on, the score will naturally thin out.
The extra strategic twist is that pieces from different factions can be mixed and matched. For this reason, all themes in the score are written following complementary harmonic structures, so that one of Albion’s pawns, say, can be swapped out for one of Bretagne’s, and this can be reflected in the music. If you form a team with members from all five factions, you will create a new theme constructed of parts from all of the other themes.
Working on this game was a very different challenge for me to my previous work on short films, as writing music that could be reactive to gameplay in a way that felt intuitive required a completely different way of working. I am currently building on the skills I picked up working on Avalog whilst working on a second game for Avalog Games – Orcball.
olly flaig 