Well, I never thought I'd get myself to do it, but stranger things have happened. Lobby Loitering is out NOW with an all new soundtrack, 100% free of generated music!
When I originally developed this game in college, I made use of a website called "Melobytes" to generate music instead of composing my own. At the time (2021-2022), the ethics around AI had not fully been discussed, and I was unaware of the harm I was causing in feeding the machine. However, that doesn't really change things, now does it? I made heavy use of the "image to music" tools, feeding in my art and pictures I had found online, and waiting for it to spit out a track. The tracks themselves were odd, typically being off-key and out of tune, or making use of things like non-instrument sound effects or notes played in reverse. They also seemed to pull from a predefined list of beats and instruments, as a lot of the tracks had similar... sounds? I guess you could say? I don't know the correct musical term for it. And this alien sound felt like it was perfect for what I needed. The game came out as intended and on time. And it was around said release that the ethics around AI began to circulate. Concerns about the environment, or how fed data is stored, as well as the integrity of art as we know it and what it means for the future. However, I was stubborn and felt that because my damage had already been done, there was no point in sweating over it. I had grown too attached to the soundtrack to completely overhaul it, and I was too bad at composing (and too much of a perfectionist) to try and painstakingly recompose every single track by myself as accurate as possible. I had a future-focused mindset, and I still do.
But, I started to worry about my ability to market the game. Selfish, I know. As public opinion (and my own opinion) soured against AI, I knew that this holy grail project of mine would have to be advertised with a bunch of awkward asterisks. Part of me was wondering if it wasn't generative AI as much as it was procedural generation, considering how similar the tracks ended up being and how early on in the AI landscape these tools were created. Maybe, I thought, it was only ever called "AI" to cash in on the hype. I ended up reaching out to Melobytes over email, asking if they would be willing to share with me the exact kind of generation they use and how they source their data. However, I never heard back from them.
Regardless of whether it was true generative AI based on scraped data from hardworking artists, or if it was a simple procedural generation using public domain sound fonts, I took the easy way out. I do not condone the use of generative AI in any way, shape, or form. Not even my own past use.
Things compounded, and my own miserable speed at which I've been working on Lobby Loitering's follow up project, Flyshooter, made me realize that there was a good chance I might not have any long form games to share with people beyond what I've already put out, at least for the foreseeable future. And knowing this AI bubble has only gotten bigger and more rotten, I felt like something had to be done.
So, using the power of ADHD flash-motivation, I sat my happy ass down and got to work, composing 36 original tracks over the course of about 20 hours. Are they all good? No. Are some of them good? Yeah. Are they all super short? Yep. Do they get annoying looping in the background during gameplay? I can't lie, they kinda do. But are they guaranteed AI free and filled with true artistic intent? Indeed. I opted for this over public domain music or paying someone because I'm rather poor and also very paranoid about licensing as well as musical cohesion. I also have always planned on future games being completely solo-composed, besides Sweet using engine music, and I certainly needed the practice.
The build available for download, and all future available builds will only contain the soundtrack that I composed myself from scratch. No AI to be seen. The only exception to the "from scratch" rule is the small handful of free use sound effects, as well as the portal music, which is a heavily modified version of a song called "Iowa Stubborn". This also means I have removed the demo and it will no longer be available for download. But, considering the full game is free, there's no reason to have the demo available anyway.
I plan on going back and composing new tracks for my other two AI-Soundtrack games, Today I Went on a Quest and ONE CREEK: the house, although these games are not available on Steam to begin with and can be downloaded from my itch page. Those are much smaller, and could reasonably be done in a day, but I might be completely winded by tomorrow and spend the day playing video games. Expect them at least by the end of the week.
Thanks everyone :D Hope the new beats aren't too ear-bleedy.