Even though Blue Callisto’s strategy game, Fantastic Creatures, was released in November via Steam, the title is seeing a new wave of players during this current quarantine. The official summary states: Mythological Units. Ancient China. Experience a turn-based 4X strategy game where the land around you is slowly dying. Incarnate one of the four Fantastic Creatures: Dragon, Tiger, Turtle or Vermilion Bird and fight for survival. One aspect that both gamers and critics are buzzing about is the game’s original score by Ian Chen. Chen’s score is actually currently Game Audio Network Guild award nominated for “Music of the Year” alongside Neal Acree (Rand), Jesper Kyd (Borderlands 3), Gordy Haab (Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order), and Austin Wintory (Erica). As you know awards were supposed to take place March 19th, but because of the Coronavirus pandemic they will be taking place digitally sometime later in April or May.
Below is an exclusive Q&A with Ian Chen discussing his work on Fantastic Creatures.
-Did you have any musical influences for the Fantastic Creatures score?
Fantastic Creatures was a particularly personal project for me. Growing up in Taiwan, I was always surrounded by old Chinese and Japanese tunes, even while studying Western music at school and learning Western instruments such as the violin and piano. I loved listening to soundtracks from animated films such as Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind and Princess Mononoke (both composed by Joe Hisaishi), and as I grew older, soundtracks from live action films composed by great Asian composers such as Shigeru Umebayashi (House Of Flying Daggers), Kitaro (The Soong Sisters), and Tan Dun (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon). I think these must have been the greatest inspirations for my Fantastic Creatures score.
I’m also a gamer at heart from a young age, and often visited internet-cafes secretly, unbeknownst to my strict Asian parents. The soundtrack for Age of Empire II (composed by Stephen Rippy) is one I remember fondly and is part of the reason I was excited to take on Fantastic Creatures, which is also a top-down strategy game taking place in a historical and mythological world.
-We read that many of the stories and characters that are featured in Fantastic Creatures were bedtime stories for you as a child. Because of this did you already feel a connection to game? And have an idea how you wanted it to sound?
Yes, absolutely! My brother and I used to have a set of cassette tapes with all sorts of Chinese mythological stories, and we would listen to them at bedtime, or whenever we were on the road and our parents wanted us to quiet down. I connected immediately to the stories in the game and wanted to create a sonic world that’s befitting of these amazing characters and their epic adventures.
-You were brought on to this game very early on. Did your score change at all from when you first began working on it with the concept art, to the end?
This was actually one of the smoothest collaborations I’ve had, with almost no changes or revisions throughout the scoring process. Before starting, the head developer Fabien and I spent a lot of time discussing the direction for the soundtrack. He came from the world of 4x strategy games and loved soundtracks from games such as Endless Legend and Oriental Empires. From there, I added my own interpretations for the stories and ideas from the Chinese music diaspora, and he quickly fell in love with the first few demos I sent.
-According to your IMDB, this is your first video game to score. Is that correct? How different is scoring a video game such as Fantastic Creatures compared to a tv series?
I actually have written music for one other video game a long time ago, back in college, as a passion project with some friends. I was just starting to get interested in media composing and that was one of the very first experiences I had! The game didn’t do particularly well, but I stuck around and continued making music for films, TV, and theatre. It hadn’t been until Fantastic Creatures when I finally returned to the world of video games.
I think, fundamentally, the processes of scoring video games and TV series are quite similar. I draw my inspiration from the characters and stories and look for sounds that complement and enhance the unique idiosyncrasies of each world. The biggest difference is that with video games, the composer often gets more time to develop musical themes and motifs, and can approach the score from a grander scale without having to worry as much about meticulous details such as timing or dialogue. When writing for TV, the music must elevate each emotional cue and interaction between characters on a scene-by-scene, moment-by-moment basis, while also observing the overall themes and character arcs. In other words, I find that writing for video games allows me more time to explore and develop the music, and grants me more freedom of expression.
-Your score for Fantastic Creatures has been nominated for a G.A.N.G. Award for Music of the Year. Congrats! When you found this out what went through your head?
Thank you very much! I was ecstatic, but also shocked, to see the nomination and had to double check that I didn’t misread the categories. Fantastic Creatures is such a small and niche indie game that I was sure it wouldn’t stand a chance against AAA games and other popular titles. I feel honored to be on the same list as some of the most revered composers of our generation, many of whom I’ve admired and respected for a long time, including Neal Acree (Rand), Jesper Kyd (Borderlands 3), Gordy Haab (Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order), and Austin Wintory (Erica).
-About how much music did you create for Fantastic Creatures?
I wrote just over an hour of music for the soundtrack, and almost all of it made it into the game. I was originally only commissioned for three main theme songs, but Blue Callisto liked my music so much that they soon decided to expand my commission to include the entire soundtrack for the game.
-If there were to be Fantastic Creatures follow up game, are there things you would experiment and try that you didn’t get to for this one?
Certainly! There are plenty of instruments that I wanted to use, but didn’t find the opportunity to do so in this game. Chinese instruments are traditionally classified into eight groups: silk, bamboo, wood, stone, metal, clay, gourd, and skin. In Fantastic Creatures I was able to make use of instruments from six of the groups, including instruments such as the Chinese violin erhu (silk), flute dizi (bamboo), woodblocks banzi (wood), gong (metal), mouth organ sheng (gourd), and ceremonial drums tanggu (skin). For a follow-up game soundtrack, I would love to incorporate bianqing, which is best described as a huge set of stone chimes hung on a wooden frame and struck with mallets. Another instrument I wanted to use but didn’t get the chance to is the suona, which is a double-reeded instrument often used in weddings, funerals, and other festivities in China and some East Asian countries. It produces a powerful sound that I can only describe as somewhere between a bagpipe and a person wailing, and is especially haunting and beautiful when used in the right context.
-Was there anything that surprised you when you started working on this game?
I think what surprised me the most was how naturally the melodies and inspiration came to me throughout the process. Before moving to Los Angeles and pursuing my career in media scoring, I had spent a few years on the east coast as music director of a traditional Chinese music ensemble. Fantastic Creatures was the first project where I was able to return to Chinese music and reconnect with the instruments. This project also allowed me to reopen the trove of memories from my childhood and stories from my culture. I’m very grateful for the opportunity.
Fantastic Creatures is available for PC via Steam.
For more information about Ian Chen, please visit: https://www.ianchenmusic.com/
I have always enjoyed playing video games and am a programming team lead for a video game company. I co-founded Gaming Cypher because I enjoy the gaming community and would like to provide the best news service around. Feel free to ask me any questions and I will make sure to get back to you quickly.
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