Shadow Fields: New spectrum 128k game - Music & Sound effects

I’ve been struggling with the game’s sound. For the first time I left the beeper for effects, and everything now goes through the AY-3-8912. It’s taken me quite a while to understand how trackers work to handle sound effects.

As for trackers, I’ve tested three engines:

• Vortex Tracker: I had already worked with VT for music at certain points in previous games, but not for sound effects. The player takes up quite a lot of space, and I haven’t found a way to generate a relocatable source to integrate into the code, so for now I’ve discarded it.

• WYZ Tracker: It looks promising, but I haven’t seen a way to import; it only works with files generated in Augusto Ruiz’s own tracker. I think to use it I’d need to get in touch with the authors, and I’m not sure it’s supported. I’ve set it aside for now.

• Arkos Tracker: This has been my provisional choice, at least. I haven’t had any problems integrating the player into the code (though you need to use a couple of external tools to be able to use Pasmo as the assembler), and the tracker has lots of options. It’s taken me quite a while to understand how to integrate the sounds and how the instrument editor works. I don’t fully master it yet, but I’m getting by with the basics.

I’ve added music to the menu. For in-game sound I’ve only put in sound effects and a background engine noise, like in 80s arcades (Scramble, etc.), which was my original idea. It’s not final.

Overall, using trackers for Spectrum games feels like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. They support a ton of very complex features that most of us don’t need (or even understand 😇). I’d really like a tool that lets you add 128K sound without overloading the Spectrum so much.

Now I’m going to focus on developing the rest of the stages to try to have the game ready before the end of the year (maybe too optimistic 😆).

Here’s the video:

See you later!