Gods - No music

[Sonica]

I am using WinUAE, and when I play Gods, there is no music. Only music on the Genesis version. Is the amiga the games's main platform, or is it an unfinished port?

[TCD]

If you mean background music ingame, then no, the Amiga doesn't have it.

[Sonica]

Why? Very lazy.

[s2325]

Game have great atmosphere only with sounds, music is on console versions because "every game must had it", not because that music fit to the game (or not).

[Galahad/FLT]

Originally Posted by Sonica

Why? Very lazy.

Not lazy at all, The Bitmap Bros felt the use of high quality samples for sound effects created a better atmosphere, music would have felt utterly out of place in the game as it wasn't a typical platformer, it wasn't fast paced at all.

[jotd]

I quite agree with Galahad.

moreover I think there's a technical issue as well: music would have eaten some precious audio channels (only 4 available on the machines). And don't forget that the game runs on a 512k A500.
Chaos Engine has good music and OK sfx, but needs 1Meg.

the in-game tunes for the megadrive/snes/PC (roland sound card) are very good, and have been composed by John Foxx of Nation 12 as well as the awesome title music (not present in the console releases!!!!)

On consoles, it's more like: rule #1: thou shall have parallax background, rule #2: thou shall have background music, etc...
And the console versions of Gods are much much fast paced, making speed puzzles pointless.
No such rules on computer games, fortunately.

[andreas]

Originally Posted by jotd

I quite agree with Galahad.

moreover I think there's a technical issue as well: music would have eaten some precious audio channels (only 4 available on the machines). And don't forget that the game runs on a 512k A500.

And the third reason?
Space!
"GODS" would not have fit on 2 disks but would've had to be shipped on three, which always was quite an issue in those times.

[Bronko]

I think, money is the biggest reason, if not the only one.
It's true, the absence of music creates quite a mood, but if we look at Turrican II, it's the same thing. The C64 version comes without ingame musics (Except the flight levels), due to technical reasons. (You can hear the crippled SFX in those flight levels ).
The atmosphere is great, but won't you say, playing the Amiga version with Hülsbeck's soundtrack makes the better mood?

[Galahad/FLT]

Originally Posted by Bronko

I think, money is the biggest reason, if not the only one.
It's true, the absence of music creates quite a mood, but if we look at Turrican II, it's the same thing. The C64 version comes without ingame musics (Except the flight levels), due to technical reasons. (You can hear the crippled SFX in those flight levels ).
The atmosphere is great, but won't you say, playing the Amiga version with Hülsbeck's soundtrack makes the better mood?

Er, money had nothing to do with The Bitmap Brothers not putting music in, in fact some of their games were reknowned for their music.

It was simply atmosphere, they felt music wouldn't help the game and that better sound samples would carry the atmosphere better.

On the consoles, the game played differently and faster, its not the same experience at all.

I certainly didn't feel short changed by the lack of music, as the game had the required atmosphere.

[Loedown]

I read this thread title and had a laugh, wasn't PC Gods one of the games that could make sound without a sound card using the PC speaker and awful bitrate sampling / decoding?

[jotd]

No, the sound in Gods is standard (i.e. awful) on a speaker. No sampled sound AFAIR. It's another game.