Welcome to The Greek Theater, official 0 A.D. music blog!
This blog will chronicle the making of 0 A.D.’s music, since I assumed the role of composer and music department lead for Wildfire Games!
It is most appropriate to begin with a brief thank you to Aviv (Jeru on the forums) for recruiting me to WFG in the first place.
It was March 2011, and around the release of Alpha 5, Edetania:
Being both a (casual) gamer and a (professional) musician, I knew exactly what I want to hear in game – I had no interest in creating a period score, nor do I posses enough knowledge of the actual music of 0 A.D.
I decided the score had to be first and foremost – game music, and it must be compelling in that context!
In the interest of maintaining continuity, and ensuring each civilization in the game had it’s own, unique sound – I decided to completely rewrite the score, one piece at a time.
The first three tracks that came to be are “Celtic Pride“, “Forging a City-State“, and “Harsh Lands, Rugged People“: peace tracks for the Celts, Hellenes and Iberians respectively.
Given that these pieces had to feel relevant and integral to a massive war game – I chose to fully orchestrate them.
A simple yet effective device to identify the various civilizations was instrumentation:
On top of the orchestra, the Celts were portrayed with tin-whistles, highland pipes, a bodhràn and a fiddle, the Hellenes with a harp, bouzouki and flute, and the Iberians with a classical guitar (true, it did not exist around 0 A.D., but within the context of modern game music – it worked for me).
Thanks for listening, stay tuned for more 0 A.D. music!
– Omri Lahav
Tracks mentioned in this post: