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Description
In the minigame “Câtisserie”, part of the larger “World of Cakes” game, the player controls a cartoon cat who is working as a pastry chef.
The task is to make as many cookies, croissants, and muffins as possible before the shop opens, but a horde of mice keeps stealing ingredients and finished sweets and is generally causing havoc in the kitchen. The gameplay is a chaotic race hunting for flour, butter and chocolate chips before the mice carry them to their nest, keeping an eye on the oven's temperatures and baking times, all while keeping the little furry thieves away from the cakes cooling on the racks.
The difficulty is slowly ramping up by increasing the complexity of the recipes (more ingredients, changing the oven temperature while baking) and the number of hungry mice. Ultimately, the player will run out of time and the final score is based on how close to instructions the sweets were made, and how many of them actually made it to the shop.
Creative decisions:
The core instrument is the fantastic amhonky from adammonroemusic, a honky tonk piano to fully lean into the ragtime sound. In several parts, this is accompanied by an accordion, doubled up with a digital piano for overtones and note attack.
Towards the end of the piece, the music moves from 133 bpm to 145 bpm to signal to the player that time is running out and at the same time, the music modulates from C major to F major. Again, to increase urgency, the key is changed to G major before the music fades out. As the music enters this final section, a whisk in a metal bowl is used to emulate the sound of a snare brush.
Chosen Precision Level
Bonus Challenges
URL to Streaming Service
https://youtu.be/JN71E2B7PNM
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Comments
this is such a fun sounding song!
This soundtrack is exactly what I would imagine a cute simple baking game with cats would sound like! I like the honky tonk sound and the use of syncopation, the ragtime influence is unmistakable. The increase in tempo and the key changes worked great together to heighten the tension and panic!
The way we modulate from C to F goes from C - D - Gm - Bb - C - F, which felt a little clumsy. It feel like it could work if we first modulate to Gm through C - D - Gm, take some time to establish ourselves in the key of Gm, then modulate to F through Bb - C - F. For a very short modulation as it is now, a C - C7 - F would serve the function without tripping over itself.
The creative question is, with the piece ending in 145bpm, how would you loop it without it feel like it's slowing down back to 133bpm?
Hi, thanks for the advice on the modulation. I was clearly overthinking that part to the point of confusing myself. I should have taken a step back and just reworked those few measures without trying to force adherence to the harmonic structure of the previous, similar sections.
The idea with the piece ending at a higher tempo is that the parts would loop independently - the beginning would loop until time begins to run out, which causes the modulation and speed up section to play, followed by the urgent, higher speed part. So there is no intent to loop the earlier sections, because we want to keep up the pressure without reintroducing the more relaxing accordion or some slower feeling parts dominated by longer harmonies.
Again, thanks for the constructive criticism, I'll definitely spend more time actually learning about proper modulation technique.