Hello! This is GINGER , Game Director of Tobor, and you are watching 'Hotline Tobor' on CH 7.
On our previous episode of ‘Hotline Tobor', we briefly showed some details about the 'Characters' and the 'Story'. On this episode, I would like to share some details on we created our 'Main Theme' Background music which will be included on our Original Soundtrack.
Today we will have a special guest on the Show. We will be inviting our music writer and composer for Tobor. Before we begin the interview, let's first listen to our 'Main Theme' of the game.
GINGER: Allow me to introduce to you NAVY NAIL. Thank you for accepting our interview request NAVY NAIL! So, let's go right in with the first question. Could you tell our audience on how you set the overall concept and direction of the Music in TOBOR?
NAVY NAIL: Hello everyone. Thank you Ginger for inviting me to this interview. I am NAVY NAIL and I am in charge of the BGM and SFX of TOBOR. If you ask me how we've set the overall concept of the music, I tried to stick to the main key concept of the game. If you look at the overall structure of the game, I think it's important to note that our protagonist, Tobor's main goal is to observe the surveillance camera to follow the main story and narrative . So I thought the story of the individual characters that appear inside the surveillance camera would be more important than that of TOBOR. So initially, I tried to stick to the ambience of the rooms along with the character personalities. Looking back, the main theme song for TOBOR was not heavily considered even as an agenda between our meeting.
The concept of Tobor
GINGER: Yes, that's absolutely right. I also initially considered the the content inside the camera to be more important because the game is a 1st person PoV and also because the players can't even see directly see TOBOR until the ending of the game. Hence I also thought that the Music should be expressing the ambience of the room and the characters that fill those rooms. So why did you want to have the main theme song to focus more on our TOBOR character? I mean you can't actually see TOBOR since the player is TOBOR, right?
NAVY NAIL: That's correct. I thought it would be okay for the rest of the songs to follow the initial direction, however the Main theme song concept needed to depict the TOBOR's story feeling very lonely, dark and convoluted down the road. I thought the players would feel the same while playing the game. Imagine yourself all alone in an abandoned research facility trying to focus on the given mission with a strong crave to get out and go home. I thought the players would immediately be able to assimilate themselves in this situation, making the game more immersive and scary too.
GINGER: I personally loved the idea of making the players feel as if they are TOBOR. What where some aspects that you wanted to express through the Main Theme song?
NAVY NAIL: Since TOBOR was intuitively created by XLCR and was born with a specific mission, I think the players might immediately consider TOBOR to not have opinions or feelings. Moreover, the difficult part is that TOBOR's feelings are that of the player. So if the player doesn't understand the circumstances the job would be very difficult. However, as long as the players are able to understand the history of TOBOR throughout the game, I think it would be quite easy for the players to assimilate themselves being in a situation where they are trapped somewhere deep down the sea with anxiety building across the story questioning the future of the player within the game.
The left side of Tobor's Room
GINGER: If the players feel a lot of insecurity regarding the future and plus if they feel extremely lonely, TOBOR must feel very gloomy and dark. Then may I ask what musical elements you used to create these emotions for the players?
NAVY NAIL: Sure, I've proceeded the song in minor melody using instruments like an organ and a piano to emphasize the loneliness in the music. Also, I've maximized the use of reverb and cut-off sequences to express the darkness and the tragic atmosphere at the bottom of the sea.
GINGER: Listening to the song after hearing your intentions in the music, I think it helps me see things more from TOBOR's perspective. TOBOR must be worried about how to get out of this mess and would have to continue the given repetitive tasks without knowing the meaning of life. I think the music reflects this concept of loneliness and make the story more tragic along the way. Thank you so much for the interview today! Any last words you want to deliver to our audience today?
NAVY NAIL: Thank you everyone for your interest in TOBOR and of course the music. Hope you enjoy the music as much as the gameplay.
GINGER: Thanks for taking your time to watch this 'Hotline Tobor' episode. If the Main Theme song is still playing, please take your time to finish the song. I hope this music can help you understand TOBOR and I Hope to see you all in another episode. Bye!