Welcome back to an all-new Tunche Development Blog!
As you may already know, one of the reasons we decided to make Tunche was that we wanted to show players other ancestral cultures in Latin America besides Inca and Maya. Even our own country, Peru, has more than 10, each with rich enough folklore and lore to make a whole game about.
When we decided to make a game about the myths and legends of the Amazon rainforest we knew we had to exalt every single aspect of the culture: lore, creatures, and an integral part of the amazon folklore, the music.
The music of the Peruvian Amazon Rainforest
There are two main types of music from the area that we are focusing on: the timeless sounds of the tribes of the Amazon and the more modern sounds of “cumbia chicha” music.
Traditional Music
This music is inspired by ancestral tunes and rhythms of all the different tribes that live along the Amazon River and beyond. It is heavily influenced by winds that resemble the sounds of the animals and mystical creatures of the rainforest.
Whenever we hear these kinds of sounds, we imagine a tribal setting deep inside the jungle with shamans dancing and performing rituals. The music emanates the mystical and magic aspect of the cultures of the Peruvian Amazon Rainforest and it is something we want to show all of you in Tunche as well.
Cumbia Chicha Music
Next, cumbia chicha. This type of sound is the modern equivalent of tribal music. It is meant to be a reevaluation of the traditional customs and folklore of the amazon people while also modernizing it in order to make it fit in modern times.
One particular thing about this kind of music is its use of a special kind of guitar, one we call here at the studio the “chicha guitar”.
As you can see, this type of guitar is somewhat psychedelic. Its distorted sounds are the ones that transport you to an oasis-like setting when you listen to them and in Perú I can certainly tell you that when we hear this type of sound we instantly think about the riverbed of the Amazon river. It's quite ingrained in our imagination. These iconic sounds from the rainforests are the pillars of Tunche music.
Fusing it all together
Once we knew what our pillars were it was time to turn them into actual songs for the game. Because of this, we had to establish some rules
- Every single track should have the Peruvian Amazon Rainforest’s music DNA.
- Every track must have the necessary energy worthy of an action game.
- Every track should have both low energy and high energy versions in order to change between combat and non-combat states.
- Instruments should enter and exit the song dynamically in order to make every single run through the worlds of Tunche sound a little bit different.
To make this possible we partnered with the ultra-talented team at The Audio Hive. They have made the soundtracks of games such games as Dauntless and Remnant: From the Ashes and we are really excited for you guys to listen to what we have created together.
The task was not easy, as we had to fuse both chicha music, traditional amazonian music and what would you expect from an action game (guitars, drums, and so on) but after so many versions I really think we have struck gold. Here is a sneak peek.
You can hear the chicha guitar playing at full force with an upbeat rhythm and being accompanied by some amazon winds and percussions like timbales. This is what we meant by keeping the Amazon DNA, every single part of the pillars is there, we are just fusing them with other elements to make your adventure even more powerful.
Here is another example where the amazon winds take center stage and make you reminisce of the typical amazon tribal sounds that we talked about in the previous section. Again, this type of fusion is what we consider 'the sweet spot' of sorts and we hope you'll love it as much as we do.
What should you expect?
From a chicha induced battle theme to empowering hard rock tunes and many different kinds of weird stuff, these tracks are designed to connect you to the cultures of the Peruvian Amazon Rainforest while also making you feel like a total badass while playing Tunche.
For those of you who have never heard the culture’s music before, we hope these tracks serve as the first step in your journey of discovering the amazing sounds the Amazon rainforest has to offer.
We hope this post makes you as excited as we are for the game’s music and we will have more info to share with you soon.
Stay safe.
Francisco - Tunche’s lead programmer.
