It's me again, Black201.
This year's BOF has a new alias "Chiyomomo the Magician" in Team "Kizuna Paradise," and I wrote a shuffle-style BGM — "☆Walking Simulator☆"
Whether it's the song title, style, or this alias, anyone with a certain understanding of BMS should immediately recognize it as a nod to one of my favorite BMS authors, Nekonimi the Magician. More on that later.
For those who don't know what Shuffle is, I recently saw this video that explains it quite well, you can check it out:
Speaking of Shuffle Beat, it always gives a feeling reminiscent of Galgames or Japanese mobile games. For me, it's like "an exciting first date or a dramatic encounter with someone destined," that's the kind of feeling I aimed for when writing this song. If you're interested, here's the event link:
https://manbow.nothing.sh/event/event.cgi?action=More_def&num=231&event=140
Please be sure to support it!
I started playing dating games because of music games. I first got into rhythm games around middle school when I saw a video about the iOS version of OSU on my family's TV (I think it was on a casual gaming segment of a show, not sure if anyone remembers this game). I downloaded a bundled package with some songs from a piracy site and started playing.
Later, I got involved in the community and met a lot of people. I moved during middle school, and I lost contact with most of my elementary school friends. I spent my days holed up in my bedroom, playing the best and smoothest games I could on my laptop that cost less than 2000 yuan. At that time, the game charts were mostly new anime songs and various Galgame music. Many members of Galgame translation groups were also OSU players, and that's how I got introduced to it.
In the following years, I became deeply immersed in the game (and it was one of the only two types of games my laptop could handle). I got into the habit of waiting for my family to sleep every night to pull out my laptop and play in bed. I remember struggling for several days after finishing a few routes in the games, even learning Japanese just to tackle raw content, but that's a story for another time.
However, all these years, I never projected myself into the games. There might be characters I really like and want to be with, but I just feel that the characters in the game should be together, not me.
In reality, I have had romantic experiences. In real life, I liked four people.
The first person I met in elementary school. At that time, I was very introverted and didn't know how to communicate with others. She often took the initiative to talk to me, and over time, I developed a certain fondness for her. However, after a few boys in our class noticed that I liked her, they often teased us, and gradually, perhaps to avoid suspicion, she stopped talking to me.
The second person I met in middle school. Although she was my age, she felt like an older sister type, someone who acted on her thoughts. She was very proactive, probably similar to Haruhi Suzumiya. I played guitar in middle school, and although I played quite well, I felt like the protagonist of "K-On!" thinking I could improve my social skills through guitar.
One day, she suddenly wanted me to teach her guitar, so I started visiting her often during holidays. Gradually, she began calling me "master," and we started doing many things beyond guitar lessons, like eating together, watching anime and movies (to be honest, my introduction to magical girl anime was watching "Nanoha" at her place), and even going out to sell things together. However, the shadow of my elementary school experiences lingered, and I was afraid that if I expressed my feelings, our relationship wouldn't be the same. So, I kept this feeling to myself until we graduated. After we parted ways, the chances for us to chat together decreased.
The third person I met in high school. She was a girl who often read quietly by herself. It's hard to say how I liked her; perhaps it was because she reminded me of someone from before, or maybe her personality resonated with me. My friends were quite surprised when they found out I liked her, thinking I was a bit off. However, for a long time, we didn't talk much. When it was time to change classes, I thought if I didn't confess now, I might regret it for life. With that mindset, I confessed to her on the first day back from summer vacation.
Of course, I was rejected (later she told me she thought I was playing some truth-or-dare game, which is understandable since it is strange for someone you barely know to confess). Although I was heartbroken at the time, I didn't give up. After returning home, I messaged her, asking if we could start as friends. To my surprise, she agreed.
From then on, we chatted every day after school. A lot happened in between, but I won't go into details. Finally, on New Year's Eve, we went to see a musical together. After it ended, it was already late, and she suddenly started talking to me about her family and her thoughts on love. Looking back now, I realize I didn't consider anything beyond "I like her," and so that matter ended without resolution.
I'll save the story of the fourth person for another time; anyway, we broke up! (Writing this much has made me a bit embarrassed; if I keep going, I might just dig a hole and bury myself.) If anyone reading this doesn't find it too awkward, I might continue writing next time.
I wrote this song during the days right after the breakup.
At that time, I wanted to record my thoughts, so I conceived a whole storyline in my mind, from meeting and falling in love to the tragic breakup. I recorded it while taking a walk.
When I got home and imported it to my computer, I felt that what I had written resembled the plots of the Galgames I had played, completely out of sync with my own experiences.
"Indeed, reality and dating games are different!"
That's the sentiment I had.
However, looking at what I wrote, I thought that for the audience, at least for me, most dating games have happy endings that everyone hopes to see. It's because most people find it hard to have perfect or better experiences in reality that they might seek out those extraordinary experiences in artistic works.
I wanted to create something that would make more people happy, and with that in mind, I ended up with this cheerful Shuffle Pop.
As for the song title, after I sent the track to the cover artist Shika, she imagined a cute loli setting out from home in the morning, experiencing various adventures, and finally returning home, which led to the name "Walking Simulator."
I mentioned Chiyomomo the Magician earlier; it comes from another BMS author known for Shuffle Pop music, Nekomomo the Magician. Sega sound game players might have heard this song:
BMS players might have encountered this one:
It's a collaborative doujin piece that I really like; it's probably the BMS song I've played the most.
Besides that, there are many other songs I like, let me recommend a few:
When I finished the song, I felt like I couldn't compare to them. It seems I need to work harder as a magician. For me, they are such impressive figures, and I hope you check out the songs I recommended above.
Finally, let's talk about DTM-related topics.
As BGM for Galgames, Shuffle Beat's BPM is often around 120, while Nekomomo the Magician often goes for 180 or even 200+. I settled on a speed of 148. Black Cat told me it was "the theme is similar to PS2 era game music." The final result was a very simple piece, probably the simplest structure I've ever written, with only about ten tracks.
For the drums, I initially used Roland's SD-80 and other hardware MIDI sound sources for simulation. Fans of Touhou Project might know models like SD-90. For 90s and 00s PC games, that was pretty much the sound of the era.
However, Roland Cloud was too difficult to use, with significant latency. After trying to sample myself and encountering various issues, I ultimately gave up.
But I still wanted the drums to sound as plastic as possible without being unpleasant, so I used EZD2.
Although the effect isn't as retro, it's still quite nice.
For the piano, I used Pianoteq's piano forte (a harpsichord) preset. Since the tuning of the piano forte differs from modern piano tuning, I looked for a few options, and this was the only one tuned to A=440HZ. It's also very lightweight, which I really like.
Most of the other instruments and synthesizer sounds came from Korg's TRITON. As a classic synthesizer workstation from the last century, the software emulation includes a lot of very useful sounds from that era. In this piece, whether it's the vibraphone, bass, or lead, they were all used without much processing, making them very handy.
If you're interested in writing Shuffle-style music, you can check this out:
https://music-theory.aizcutei.com/post/%E8%8A%82%E5%A5%8F%E7%AF%87/7-Shuffle-Beat
Basically, it involves dividing a beat into three parts and focusing on the 1st and 3rd beats. That's how I understand it; it's a very easy style to get into, so if you have some free time, you might want to give it a try.
That's about it. In the future, I will release more fluffy songs under this alias, so please keep an eye on the other three works from Kizuna Paradise. My work really seems too rough compared to theirs, so please be sure to support them:
Thanks again for reading this far!