callmeDJ's Behind The Scenes and Postmortem

Hey all! This is callmeDJ; Motel Nebras music composer, concept creator, monologue specialist, and Nebraska survivor. I wanted to start by thanking you all for the warm reception toward Motel Nebras. It was a fun little game to work on and I'm very happy with how we performed. I'm shocked at how high we placed in sound considering we only had three songs and no SFX!

The Early Months

It all started in May when Nateplays95 posted about GBJam 11 in my game's Discord server. He was interested in entering and proposed a game which he, Axial creator Sawyer Friend and I would all make as a rock-solid trio. Nate's goal was to encourage himself to learn project management, push Sawyer out of his RPG comfort zone, and get me more team experience to prepare me for making my own games. Both of us were down, and Mooglerampage caught wind and wanted in as well. From the get-go, we were zeroed in on GB Studio as our engine. Our initial idea was a platformer where you could change the gravity a la Super Mario Galaxy. We all loved the idea, but we weren't sure how feasible it would be in nine days especially with an engine we had never used before. Regardless, we hyped it up as a big epic training arc where we'd grind GB Studio for the next four months and reap the rewards!

Plotting and Planning

So yeah, that didn't happen. Sawyer ultimately put Axial Disc 2 and other projects first, Nat joined The Guardian Dog Studio, and I had so many responsibilities between my new composer gig over at a dinky little game called Toontown Rewritten and tons of other commitments that I didn't even think about GB Studio in depth. We all kinda forgot about the jam and our excitement from May dwindled.

As such, GBJam started a bit rougher than we would have liked. Sawyer and Nat had a good enough understanding of the event-based GB Studio, but I completely forgot to learn the music editor and ended up practicing on a pathetic travel laptop in an AirBnB in Minnesota days before the jam. However, I managed to learn just enough to get a good head start, and I kept the other three on their toes about the the incoming jam.

And we were off! Sorta. Sawyer wanted an entire game bible done by the first day, but we had yet to decide a concept. We ended up spending the first three days going through different approaches we could take. As all of us came from a RPG Maker background, the possibilities GB Studio offered seemed endless. Our concept was a game that you could theoretically beat in 5 minutes but have enough replay value to keep you engaged for a half hour or so. I wish we had settled on a generic yet solid enough idea so we could adapt the space theme to it later on. I've seen Sawyer crush game jams in days just by having a solid gameplan before it started.

Our most developed unused idea was called Alien Rock-Paper-Scissors Tournament. The game would be about a human abducted by aliens who could only get back to Earth if he fought them all in a rock-paper-scissors tournament. What made this idea stick was each alien having more and more fingers to build up difficulty; a stroke of genius by Nate. Ultimately we struggled to figure out how we would make engaging RPS mechanics in a week, as it would either be complete RNG or a telegraphed pattern you could solve instantly. In retrospect, the telegraphed patterns may have worked for a jam game you'd only play once or twice, although we did want replayability. Sawyer also proposed a Pink Floyd-themed game called Empty Spaces where you finish building The Wall as a joke. I unironically liked this idea!

Whoa I'm In Space Nebraska

So now it's day 3 of the jam. We don't even have a rough idea we're willing to commit to. I haven't been able to start writing music because my vacation in Minnesota was over and I had to spend my entire weekend driving back to Colorado. I had just woken up from a sleepless night in a Motel 6 in the middle of Grand Island, Nebraska, and hit the road. As I peered out at the morning sunlight echoing over the plains, I realized Nebraska felt like a space that only existed to bridge a gap. An empty space in the middle of the country with plenty of liminal space vibes to boot. I had wanted to pursue a more ambitious and abstract take on space, so this was really clicking with me!

Spent a week visiting family in Minnesota and honest to god my favorite pictures came from the highway in eastern Colorado and Nebraska the first day of driving. The sky was smoky and the eerie liminal vibes were through the roof pic.twitter.com/A9SF2hS9BX
— callmeDJ (@callmeDJ169) September 17, 2023

After five consecutive hours of spitballing, I proposed a more concrete idea of a mystery or even horror game that would take place during an otherwise insignificant stay in a motel, directly alluding to my current environment. I really wanted to stress the eerily calming aesthetics of Highway 76 in eastern Colorado and Nebraska at sunset. The others loved the idea of doing a mystery and we finally had our core concept; the second 8-bit-style jam game the four of us worked on together about being stuck in a liminal space this year.

Unfortunately it was a little tough to quickly devise a plot. I originally wanted the game to be set in the real world and have a very grounded feel, but after Nat and Sawyer pushed space as a location I realized taking those real-world elements and adapting them to outer space could be a ton of fun. We've seen space as a lavish or futuristic environment so many times but it's not often we see a space version of an unglamorous truck stop or a run-down motel. I wasn't exactly set on what the plot would be about, although I wrote the intro and ending monologues and had some ideas for characters you'd meet. Sawyer eventually compared my idea to The Hateful Eight. Moogle had the idea of a motel stuck in a dimensional loop which you couldn't escape until you triggered the correct sequence of events. Ultimately Sawyer came up with the space whale plot. I wasn't 100% on it at first, but time was getting low and it reminded me of that Gojira album so I greenlit it and we went ahead.

My initial idea gameplay-wise was a side-scrolling motel hallway with areas you could interact with such as doors to other rooms, a hallway, a coffee bar, or a receptionist's desk. These would trigger either a point-and-click sequence where you could find items to help you escape or a visual novel sequence where you would talk with a staff member or motel-goer. My big inspiration here was the 2006 Flash game Riddle School, a childhood classic. One idea I had was talking with a receptionist at the beginning of the game and getting more or less items based on how you treated them. This would affect the items you'd need to find and people you'd need to talk to, essentially serving as a difficulty toggle. I also really wanted a motel-goer you would work with to escape and develop a close bond with, even though both of you would know you wouldn't see each other again once the night was over. While neither of these came to pass, I did like the idea of the motel only being you and a janitor. Ironically enough, the game would ultimately be a top-down walking simulator with interactive objects on the map, almost exactly like the RPG Maker games we would make for any other jam!

Song-By-Song Breakdown

I wrote all the music using GB Studio's built-in music editor. It's unlike any tracker I've used before in that it lets you switch between DAW and tracker view. This was a godsend for a week-long jam soundtrack, as I could sketch down ideas in DAW view and apply final touches in tracker view. This combination guaranteed I could write music fast. The music editor did get annoying though. No macros for duty cycles or arpeggios, not being able to use multiple effects at once, and having to spam effects across every cell instead of applying them to a single note sucked. I will say that writing Game Boy-style chiptune is outrageously fun though, and I am such a huge fan of the custom wavetable channel and what you can do with it.

You can download the soundtrack from my itch.io or listen to the embedded SoundCloud songs below!

Motel Nebras

I wrote this song as a title theme. My thought process was the song would technically play in space but before you arrived at the motel so I wanted a distinctly space-y feel for it. It turned out sounding like Metroid so I guess it works. This song was a sacrifical lamb; far from my best song but I figured getting it out of the way quickly could give me more time for the other songs. Unfortunately I failed to consider that this was not RPG Maker and we did not have a title screen. It ended up being used for the opening monologue; not the most fitting use or transition but it's nice having it in the game.

Nebras Sunrise

I had two goals for this song; make it feel like you just woke up in the most liminal space ever and make it long. This would be the song you hear throughout the entire game; even a minute-long loop could get repetitive. I unfortunately had to squeeze most of this one into the final day of development so much of it is stream-of-consciousness. I decided to loop the song with an additional harmony and drum beat just to build momentum while minimizing time spent coming up with more song, along with an extension that sacrifices main melodies for space whale vibes. Overall I think it works well enough, although I think it could have had more open air and less big melodies for maximum liminal space vibes.

This song nearly ruined the entire process. It was 11 PM my time on the last day of the jam, and the deadline was at 5 AM the next morning. Mere notes from being done with the song, GB Studio decided it would be funny to not even play the song properly and instead generate a bunch of garbled white noise. I restarted GB Studio countless times, switched projects even more, plopped random notes everywhere; nothing happened. To rub salt in the wound, it worked just fine on everyone else's end. I ultimately had to install hUGE Tracker and finish it there which thankfully worked. Very close call!

How Could I Ever Leave Something So Beautiful

The last song in the game was the first song I came up with! Day 1 of driving to Minnesota from Colorado, pitch black, middle of nowhere Nebraska. I'm trying to think really hard about GBJam when the chord progression forming the first half of this song pops into my head. The only way I could archive it was to write the name of each chord in the Discord thread, a little easier said than done since it's much easier for me to actually write the notes. Regardless, I seriously wanted to use this progression as an ending theme, and the title of the song stuck with me just as long. This chord progression ended up in the Elevator Mix later in, which in return influenced the final product as I reused the free-flowing melody I fell in love with. The B-section came while I actually wrote the final version of this song during the jam. I think I ever so slightly beefed it near the end, but otherwise this is one of my favorite songs I've written in a while. It's all chromatically descending basslines and Sus4 chords, both tropes I indulge myself in way too much. It's also the fan favorite as well which honestly doesn't surprise me.

Get Shaboogieing! (Unused)

My very first attempt at GB Studio's music editor. The song itself didn't come super easy, but I had used enough DAWs and trackers that learning GB Studio was no sweat. Tronimal's music editor tutorial was a huge help as well; props to him for putting together such a comprehensive guide. I stopped writing this one when GB Studio started mixing up the patterns, but I salvaged what I could and recorded it in hUGE Tracker because GB Studio did not like this one. 

Spaaaaaace (Unused)

Written day 1 of the jam when all we knew was our game would have to do with space. We didn't have a concept ready, but I just had to start writing something in the event we'd use it. Obviously enough this didn't make it into the game, but having the extra practice and the possibility of a safety net in case we were short on music was nice.

Nebras Sunrise (Unused)

Early idea for what would become Nebras Sunrise. While it was a decent start, I figured it didn't feel cold and neutral enough for Motel Nebras for lack of a better term. I only got to this point before writing the ending theme and then settled on a better concept for Nebras Sunrise, leaving this one unfinished.

How Could I Ever Leave Something So Beautiful (Elevator Mix)

My second GB Studio test song. Get Shaboogieing wasn't working out and started glitching near the end, so I scrapped it and tried something using that chord progression that had languished in my head for a few days. I was gunning for a beefy sound a la Alberto Gonzales and Stello Doussis, who are my benchmark inspirations for any Game Boy music I write. While the chord progression was planned, the melody was completely off the dome and I'm a huge fan of how it turned out. I really hate writing melodies so I'm surprised I pulled that off without even thinking. I ended up cranking this sucker out in an hour and a half, which might not seem fast but sure felt that way to me. Unfortunately this couldn't make it into the jam as it was written before the jam started and Motel Nebras does not have an elevator.

Postmortem

I think our big crux was not being consistently active and caught up on each other's ideas. We were making great use of a Discord thread, but I would either be completely out of it or so focused on trying to write music I wouldn't even know how the rest of the game was going. I didn't even know what most of the game even looked like and hardly tested it at all. Most of the development happened in the final two days of the jam, and even then Sawyer was working late into the night those days so Nate had to shoulder most of the weight. I offered to float and help where neccessary, but even I felt slightly crunched on music. I really do think had we settled on an idea quicker, I had communicated what we needed for the game better (I really should've done a storyboard and concept doodles), and we had all been more consistently active, Motel Nebras would be something completely different. There is so much I would have loved to see in this game that didn't make the cut, such as more fleshed-out cutscenes with more custom art (especially for the intro) and more developed plot and characters. There was a ton of potential for some incredible visuals which mirrored my two-day drive such as skylines of glowing roadside signs and ethereal space sunsets. It's personally hard for me to accept not bringing my all to a jam this established, but we all had a good time and I didn't feel like I was dying in a game jam for the first time in two years ago so I'll call it a win.

In short...

+ Having fun
+ Writing neat music
+ Practicing writing and developing ideas as a team
+ Not dying
- Not communicating well enough
- Procrastinating
- Being detached from the process

Big props to Sawyer, Nate, and Moogle for being three of the best game devs I've had the honor of knowing and helping make this game happen despite the time constraints. I also want to shout out the organizers of GBJam for honoring the game console I'm proud to call my first every year. This jam really made me love the Game Boy and especially its sound chip a lot more, and I'd love to enter the next one whether as a developer or a composer. Thanks for all the love and I can't wait for next year's GBJam!