Audio is an integral part of all our games, and music specifically has been a central focal point. From working with talented musicians to compose original scores for the street musicians in Mosaic, to using a lullaby the whole team grew up with in Among the Sleep. In our two smaller games, The Plan and Sunlight however, we decided to use powerful classical works to carry the narrative and emotion of the games, and we thought it would be fun to elaborate a bit on this process.

Contains spoilers for The Plan and Sunlight.

On all our projects, the starting point for the music was the emotional and narrative goal of the project as a whole. It might seem obvious, but really picking apart what the game is, was key to understanding what we want to achieve with the music.

In The Plan, we chose Death of Aase by Edvard Grieg (give it a listen!) because of its grandiose feeling of ascending ever upwards, going somewhere. To us it also manages to combine a sense of personal and delicate tragedy, with the enormity of life and death, which will make sense to anyone who has played the game.

For Sunlight, we chose Tchaikovsky's Cherubim Hymn. Firstly, we knew we had to work with a choir, as it captures the core theme of being one with each other and our surroundings quite literally. This piece also has a divine existential element to it, which hit all narrative nails on the head. And just listen to it – it really does sound like sunlight. We were lucky to work with Kammerkoret Aurum and Ambolt Audio, and the session can be seen/heard here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvS_jaIogV8
While working on The Plan we were fortunate to get a local orchestra, Oslo Cameratas, permission to use their rendition of Death of Aase. This was most likely possible because the project had little to no budget, and we were releasing it for free.

For the first section of the game we used manipulation techniques, separating chords from the song into long ambient drones. This creates a serene and subtle musical backdrop, while at the same time allowed us to establish the song before it would play.

We then split the piece into parts, selecting the first two major parts we wanted to use. The first part plays as you approach the canopy of the forest. The second, and more climatic section, starts once the forest disappears, and you enter the universe. The hope was that players might not notice the transition, so it is somewhat timed to your move speed, if you are in continuous motion.

In the games end, it was crucial to time the musical climax perfectly to the fly impacting the lamp – which was tricky since the player naturally controls the fly. To achieve this we actually move the lamp in addition to the fly for the final minute of the game – so if you continuously fly up we push the lamp away, and if you stay still the lamp is actually approaching you. Because of the framing this turned out to be completely invisible to players.

Now on to Sunlight! Here we also split the piece into parts, although a lot more. We ended up looping sections of the music based on how far in the game narrative the player is to tailor the general structure of the piece to the dramaturgy of the experience. Below is a visualisation of how the parts were isolated, which made it easy to talk about and implement the correct sections where we wanted.

Playing through the game, you can for example hear how the red “Intense” section is only used once, timed to a specific section of the manuscript. The yellow “Intro” section on the other hand, is repeated a number of times throughout the game, and based on how much time you spend in various parts.

We recorded the choir with Ambolt Audio, who engineered the session. We had a lot of ideas on how we wanted to experiment and make the music more interactive, so we captured the choir from as many angles as possible, some singers up close, the room itself etc.

Amongst others, when you approach the end of the game, the wasteland, the music slowly fades, but left behind are 3-4 lonely voices standing alone, against the absence of the rich forest you used to wander in. The unified choir returns to the individual. As they also slowly fade, the song leaves you not with a crescendo, but with a whimper. We did this by placing spot-mics on specific singers, that would capture their voices in isolation away from the rest of the choir.

We also recorded versions with 1/3rd of the choir singing, for a sparser sound, as well as only 1 person per voice, and while we did not end up using these recordings, it informed later decisions.

Since we worked with the choir directly, we were also able to experiment beyond recording music, so if you listen closely to the sounds of creaking wood and wind, you can hear it’s also the choir. As a finishing touch, we also decided to record the choir entering and leaving the room, which we play as the game starts, and as it ends.

Working with older classical works has its pros and cons. In general you do not need to get the rights to the music itself, as past a certain age, all music is free to the public. You do however need permission to use the performance/recording of it.

A potential caveat is how some pieces come with a lot of baggage. We did not want the music to be a distraction, which is another reason why we were happy with the specific pieces we chose. They are not Beethoven's Symphony No. 5, or Bach's Toccata & Fugue, so to speak.

But from The Plan, which was the very first game we released, to Sunlight, which is our latest, we feel it’s obvious how the music greatly lifted the experience, while enhancing the themes and narratives we wanted to explore. To use works of art that never was intended for this new form of media, like translating a linear piece of music into a non-linear experience, is also a rewarding process.

There is so much gold in our musical history, and it seems to be a piece for every specific emotion, however nuanced and unique it may be. They are right there, just waiting to be discovered, harnessed, repurposed and enjoyed anew.

If you’ve made it this far, I’m guessing you’ve played the game or don’t mind spoiling a 6 minute long game from 8 years ago – which is fair.

When we all those years ago decided to implement a starry sky, where players can contribute a message to future players, we didn’t really know what to expect. We also assumed the game might be played by a few hundred people, if we were lucky.

But we just checked the database, and there’s currently no less than 782.676 (!) messages in there. Here's a little sample:

We spent some time reading, feeling like digital archeologists. Who are all these people, and what are their lives like? And even now, as new messages pop in daily, it keeps filling us with joy and a regained purpose in making these types of games. In our most recent game Sunlight, we even decided to do a very similar thing, which turned out to be just as rewarding.

To end, thanks to everyone who has played and contributed to the experience! And I hope our paths will cross again one day, as something more than an ID-number in a database.

Much love,
The Krillbite team

Sunlight, a sort of spiritual successor to The Plan, is finally out in the world. It has been a strange project to work on, especially since it’s been developed in isolation during a very strange time. It’s always scary to share work, but when people seem to like it it’s also super rewarding!

Everything is connected, and Sunlight is no different. For every copy of the game that is downloaded, a tree will be planted.

Visit the Sunlight steam page

Hope you like it!
The Krillbite team

We’ve made a new game that shares quite a bit of DNA with The Plan. A spiritual successor if you like. It’s called Sunlight, and will be launched on Jan. 14th, check out the trailer below, and wishlist if you’re interested :)

All the best,
The Krillbite Team

When we released Among the Sleep and The Plan five years ago, we didn't really know what our next game would be, we only knew that we wanted to make something completely different from Among the Sleep.

That game turned out to be Mosaic.

It's a very different game from Among the Sleep. In Mosaic you play a disillusioned office worker living in a dystopian and dark version of our modern society. You are a tiny part of a complex and ungraspable huge machinery. You have no direction in life, no influence and feel alienated and alone. Whereas we tackled horror from the perspective of a child in Among the Sleep, Mosaic is more about horror seen through the eye of an adult tackling our modern lifestyle.

The development of Mosaic has been a long and complicated process for us. We signed on with publisher Raw Fury last help to get assistance and help to wrap this game up. And now it's finally done. It's out and released. Available on Apple Arcade, Steam and GOG.

If you liked Among the Sleep and/or The Plan, we hope you will check it out. We feel that we have put a lot of ourselves and our identity into the game. It's a very personal story about humanity, society and life. And we are so happy to be able to share it with you.

https://testx-steam.c5game.com/steamstore/app/349270/Mosaic/

Hey good people! On this day two years ago, we released our little experiment The Plan[www.krillbite.com]. We’ve been through some exiting times since then, and felt like providing a little retrospective.

• Over 600.000 people have played the game!
• Over 50,000 have downloaded the game through torrents, even though the game is available for free through both Steam and our own website[www.krillbite.com] as a direct download.
• 1,293 number of posts in just one of the discussions on steam.
• Almost 8.000 reviews on Steam, lingering at a 9/10 score :D
• Houndreds of thousands of views on lets plays on Youtube.
• 1 unlockable character to be found in the game *wink*
• 1 hidden soundtrack to be found in the game *wink*

The game was made in the afternoon and evenings in the winter of 2013, with no money put into it. It was launched on the 10th of february, with a brief mail to the press and a newsletter to our friends. There it was, right on our page.

Strangely, people actually seemed to play it. Kind people even wrote about it on sites like Eurogamer[www.eurogamer.net], RockPaperShotgun, Escapistmagazine and indiegames[indiegames.com]. Numerous lets plays popped up on Youtube.

We expected it to be this small thing, but suddenly it was talked about, played, loved, most probably hated, in any case cared about. It was a short game, and a humble beginning for us, as we had actually never released anything before.

Releasing a game turned out to be healthy, and The Plan gave us a moral boost that helped a lot during the heavy months of crunch left until ATS was released.

The following summer, it was even selected to be showcased at the Nordic Game Indie Night in Malmø, and later for the Notgames fest exhibition in Cologne!

After that we suspected everything would calm down, and the game would fade away. Until one day, when an email materialized in our inbox, letting us know the game suddenly was Greenlit for release on Steam! This was part of the first huge batch of games to be greenlit, so it came as a huge surprise back then. We were even greenlit alongside one of our friends Rain Games[rain-games.com], and their awesome Teslagrad.

And thus, one year after the initial release, our free experiment saw rebirth on Steam as well. Once again, we got to experience countless discussions and more writing.

In the new version we also made an addition to the end, combining previous player’s thoughts and comments into a huge starry sky. Again, we were amazed at some of the reactions, a huge thread detailing what people had typed, discussions about what a game is, stories about overcoming difficult times. We even received touching emails from people around the world.

Numerous lets players also posted lot’s of great videos, delving head first into the game. One made a little short film, and another asked himself after playing the game “Is purple really purple” while looking at his hand. Poetry.

I guess what we’re trying to say is that in the end, hearing and watching the reactions of you people is what makes game development worth it. What makes it count. And we are very grateful for every last person who play and share their thoughts on our games.

Thanks so much playing! (For those planning to play it, make sure you have the newest version: 1.1.3)

• A hidden sound with a hidden message
• Additional error checks when using the Steam API to prevent crashing