The Combat Cards team is working on several areas right now:
- Adding new features, beginning with the seasonal ladders (more on these soon).
- Fixing issues and bugs, such as improving matchmaking and server issues when new Campaigns start.
- And polishing the game.
This polish will cover several areas, such as better filters when you’re editing your deck, an improved pack opening sequence, more clarity on Readying buffs / debuffs (more on this soon, too), new battlefields, and the area I’d like to talk about today – more music tracks.
Variety
As it stands, we have three combat tracks in the game, one each for our allegiances: Destroyer (Chaos + Orks + Tyranids), Imperial (Space Marines + Servants of the Emperor) and Ascendant (Aeldari + T’au + Necrons).
I wrote about those tracks a long time ago, but even back then we knew we wanted to add more, giving each faction their own music.
Well, I’m pleased to announce that an update will soon take us from three battle tracks to eight, meaning each faction will have their own. Let’s run through them:
Space Marines
These are going to inherit the old Imperial track, as it captures the ‘warrior monk’ aesthetic of the Space Marines and, strange as it sounds, isn’t too ‘military’. Contrast this to…
Servants of the Emperor
Their new track is much more in your face and regimental, highlighting that the Imperial war machine is all about huge numbers of soldiers and tanks (note the really not subtle brass and drums once the Servants of the Emperor Warlord has arrived):
Chaos
This faction will keep the old Destroyer track as we felt that the use of electric guitars suited the aggressive, old-school ‘heavy metal’ feel of Chaos.
Tyranids
We wanted their new track to sound threatening, relentless and alien, with strange noises in the background and as the Warlord arrives a build to a feeling of inevitable doom. Here’s a sample:
Orks
The final Destroyer faction track has a similarly ‘aggressive’ feel but this time is more in your face and without subtlety. We wanted the track to have ‘electrical / mechanical / metallic’ sounds because everything the Orks make is heavy and brutal. Here’s a sample:
Aeldari
The Aeldari are keeping the old Ascendant track as it had a strong feeling of ethereal other-worldliness (good name for a band that). For us this fits the strange, ancient, unknowable element of the Aeldari when viewed from a human perspective.
Necrons
The new Necron track feels very ‘dry’ and cold, with no warm elements, evoking dusty desert winds . We also have it feeling quite formal and stately once the Warlord has arrived, as befitting the immortal rulers of all they survey. Here’s a sample:
T’au
This is actually the final faction track being worked on by our amazing musician, so I can’t share a sample yet, but it’s mixing futuristic tech and kind of eastern influences to capture the complex themes of the T’au Empire. Their track will be in the game update with all the others so listen out for it then.
Why?
Given that music can be seen as quite a minor aspect for mobile games, why did we make the effort to add extra tracks?
- At the most basic level we wanted to avoid the game sounding repetitive for players who do play with sounds and music.
- We’ve talked about how important authenticity to the Warhammer 40,000 universe is to us many times, and this is another area where we can really dig into the unique personality of each faction.
- Finally, as mentioned at the start of this post, we want to polish the game in many different areas, and audio – like artwork – is something that we can improve without taking many code resources away from working on new features. Basically, why wouldn’t we?
Conclusion
I wanted to use this post to demonstrate the level of thought that goes into a game like Combat Cards, so I hope you found it interesting even if music isn’t a big deal to you. As with many elements of the game, this sort of ‘soft’ polish may not seem important but it all adds up to make a game a cool place to spend your time, so it’s something that we’re keen to get right.
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Come back next Friday as we have something special planned for the 100th blog post!
Thanks,
Stu
Well, I can’t speak for my fellow players, but I found this interesting. Looking forward to the next post!
This is a great idea, can’t wait to see (listen to) it in-game.
Hi guys, wonderful new additions to the audio. I know it would involve a bit of coding, but how about individual sounds for weapons. I’m sure that a shuriken catapult does not sound like an auto cannon or even plasma rifles. It would be real cool to have does sounds. And if you are interested, I have an idea on how does should sound and would be more than happy to create them.
Thanks for the suggestion. The next set of improvements we’re making are to balance and pack opening, but we may well add more audio at a later date. Of course, adding new weapon sounds isn’t purely about the audio, we’d have to make a matching effect for each weapon as well (otherwise it might see, weird), so this isn’t a small piece of work!
I agree with that suggestion too! The sound design would then be absolutely perfect. It is already great and I guess there is other priorities!