The Music of Amoeba Battle: Kenny Wood and Igor Nemirovsky

The Music of Amoeba Battle: Kenny Wood and Igor Nemirovsky

Amoeba Battle is a new breed of real-time strategy game where you control versatile amoebas in the battle for the microscopic world.

About Amoeba Battle

Unlike other RTS games, there are no bases to build – new amoebas are created through the miracle of binary fission! First though, your amoebas must forage for food in the beautiful yet alien environments that make up their world.

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Once well fed, these amoebas can replicate into two identical amoebas of the same type, doubling your army with a press of a button. But multiplying amoebas won’t always be enough. You will need to introduce mutations to evolve your weaker amoebas into stronger species. Experiment with different amoeba combinations to field a diverse force that can face any threat.

Amoeba Battle is now available on Nintendo Switch, PS4, Steam and Xbox One.

The music behind it all

As gamers journey through four exotic landscapes not only does the pixel art and watercolors stand out, but so does the score by composers Kenny Wood and Igor Nemirovsky. When discussing the score, Nemirovsky said he wanted to keep things feeling organic he relied partly on the nuance that an orchestral texture can bring, combing samples and live performances.

And then underneath that, depending on the track, he would layer on a variety of moving synth elements and percussive attacks, and even at times choral elements, in order to give each chapter its own flavor.  Both Wood and Nemirovsky go into more detail about not only the game’s score, but also how they got into the business and where they see the video game world going in the future. 

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Meet Igor Nemirovsky and Kenny Wood

  • First off, how did you both get into video game scoring?

Kenny: I’ve had an appreciation for game music ever since playing my first NES console, playing Super Mario Bros and Legend of Zelda. But even though I loved it, I never imagined creating it professionally—even when I made the decision late in high school that music would be my career choice.

It wasn’t until I attended USC’s scoring program that the possibility existed. Hersh Choksi, a USC business student at the time, had come to our class to try and recruit a sound designer for a game that his USC engineering friends were working on. I and three of my classmates joined in and helped create the missing sound effects they needed.

I had no prior experience doing sound design, but I stuck with it as best I could and my perseverance proved to be worth something. Later on, I was tapped to create some additional music for the game alongside Igor, who had been already been composing tracks from the year prior. I was finally creating music for games and I fell in love with the process so I was sure to make myself available whenever these guys needed music or audio.

That first game, Divergent Shift, would go on to be published and released by Konami for the Nintendo DS and it put the Intrinsic Games team, led by Keith Co, on the map. They would later be acquired by Grab Games and they have spent the last decade living their dreams of developing games. Amoeba Battle is their latest release and Igor and I are fortunate to have come together again to work on it. 

Igor: I was already an avid gamer prior to writing music for the medium. And there were a number of game scores that had long piqued my interest. But my real introduction to composing for games began at a USC grad program for film music, which had a video game component to it, taught then by Lennie Moore.

There we were encouraged to team up with USC’s interactive media students to help create new games. That was how I met the development team for Divergent Shift, the first game Kenny and I worked on. And that same team would later come together again to create Amoeba Battle. 

  • What is the first thing each of you did when starting work on this project?

Kenny: With a bit more sound experience under my belt, I first dived into the character sounds for Amoeba Battle. Igor and I put our resources together and I took hundreds of animal and human sounds and morphed them into these ferociously cute and squeaky amoebas that were visually designed by the incredible Hans Tseng.

The goal here was to give each amoeba its own personality and attitude, which went beyond just assigning an animal and altering the sound. I had to think about what these little guys and gals would sound like having a conversation with one another. As the game development went on, I started doing more of the music, including the title/menu and battle mode tracks. 

Igor: For me the sketching process is always first. I tend to sketch a lot and quickly. And then I throw away, revise, edit, sketch more, etc. We were given artwork, designs, and story concepts by the team to start work. And from there we started sending material, with notes going back and forth.

Kenny started with the sound FX and I worked on the music for the campaign mode. Later I did some sound and Kenny did the Battle Mode tracks.

  • How would you all briefly describe your score for the game?

Kenny: The characters are small, but the worlds, the missions, the battles, and the satisfaction of winning are very, very big! We knew the music had to enhance all this so we pulled out all the stops with style, attitude, and instrumentation.

You’ll hear instruments from all over the world, but what I love about this score is that stylistically it’s entrenched in its own world, not any particular ethnic or domestic vibe. Igor did a great job of setting the tone early with his campaign tracks and I followed suit when it was my turn to compose the battle music. 

Igor: I think it’s a nice mix of adventure and fun with an explorative spirit. I tried to present each world in the game as if seeing the micro through a macro lens. These are tiny amoeba but they have their own personalities with their own stories.

And I wanted the music to help in telling those stories. To keep things feeling organic I relied partly on the nuance that an orchestral texture can bring, combing samples and live performances. And then underneath that, depending on the track, I would layer on a variety of moving synth elements and percussive attacks, and even at times choral elements, in order to give each chapter its own flavor.

  • When you first started working on the game, what sort of musical direction were you given from the developers?

Kenny: By the time I began writing, Igor had done a great job establishing the style, so my direction was to use that sonic vocabulary and test its limits, see where I could push it and stretch it. The sound effects played a part in this too, all the music had to make sense as the amoebas shouted commands over top of it.

This was a fun challenge because the sound world we created would get reinforced with every new asset we added. 

Igor: We actually had a lot of freedom in our musical choices. Primarily we were given artwork and story and told to “go at it.” From there we would send material to the team, get feedback, revise, and so on. But there weren’t really any temp tracks or references. We were told to help create the amoeba world and that was how we approached it.

Initially I went for a more ambient and synthesized approach. But as we got more artwork and story development, we realized something with a more adventurous spirit would be needed, so I began to shift toward a more organic, hybrid orchestral approach, with cinematic touches. 

  • Did that direction change once the gameplay began being created or did it pretty much stay the same?

Kenny: I think in any large and successful endeavor, you want to exhaust as many creative possibilities as you can. The direction was always to push further and see how this thing can go, and there were a few tracks that didn’t make the cut.

I remember Keith telling me on one deleted track: “I really want to play the game that this could be a part of, but it’s not Amoeba Battle.” That’s probably the best rejection I’ve ever received, and it’s the kind that fuels me to nail it on the next one (which I did), and not get timid or discouraged when starting again. Keith is an excellent director in this regard and he inspires great output from everyone. 

Igor: As the story unfolded Kenny and I began seeing what the game was to become. Initial expectations and even preliminary artwork don’t always do a great job of representing the final output. So we constantly evolved our approach with the rest of the team.

For me that meant that what had begun more ambient and experimental became more adventurous and story-driven. Soon after we were given designs for the four worlds of the campaign mode, and from there I began sketching four different soundscapes to support those worlds.

  • How would you say your score evolved from the beginning of the game to the end?

Kenny: Igor’s initial campaign tracks were exquisite. They spark wonder and awe and get you curious about what’s around every corner and the medium pacing gives you an environment where you can make great strategic decisions. I won’t give too much away here, but his music for the last level really ups the ante as well as the speed and it starts to get really intense when you’re trying to make critical decisions to beat the waves and waves of enemies coming at you.

The online multiplayer battle music puts a fun spin on things with a bit more dance groove injected in (all within the context of the Amoeba worlds) and when the battle royale slashes down to only a few combatants left, the music shifts into high gear and makes for an intense final round. 

Igor: For the campaign mode, in addition to giving each land its own voice and style, I also wanted to make certain the music changed as the story unfolded and the challenges increased. So that at the beginning we’re presented with relatively serene, almost whimsical music, but by the end it’s full-on epic finale time.

This is also represented in instrumentation choices. The early levels have a lot of harp, flute, and quick string runs. The middle section has darker percussive elements, shifting synths, and melodies in mid and low strings. And by the end we’re hearing brass stabs and percussive attacks. And that’s just the campaign mode.

On top of that Kenny did a fantastic job on the battle mode tracks, pushing the player forward with quick flurries of percussive madness and whirlwind ostinatos to build a fun environment for players to compete in.

  • Were there any specific challenges you had to overcome when creating the score for Amoeba Battle?

Kenny: I hinted at it earlier, but the big challenge was defining the outer reaches of the musical universe we created. Playing nicely with the sound effects was very important. There wasn’t a huge amount of music that got cut, but there were a few things, all of which were just as passionately put together as what stayed in the game.

In hindsight, another challenge we had was that there was no reference music or “temp tracks”. We were given literally a blank slate at first, which can be daunting, but Igor took it as a great opportunity to explore, the same as you would when you play the first few levels and he really hit it out of the park. It was a much more focused world when it was time for me to add my stuff in there. 

Igor: We wanted something that sounded different from what one might expect in a game like this, but still fit and help tell the story. And I think one of the bigger challenges for me was in doing this while also staying focused on precisely what the game needed. I have a tendency sometimes to let the music evolve as it does and write in a storm of sketching and improvisation. And that’s something I had to be mindful of because the music is just one small part of the equations, and it has to play nice not only with player expectations and needs but also with other elements that co-exist in the soundscape, like sound effects, transitional jingles, and so on.

  • What do you think gamers will be most surprised about when first playing the game?

Kenny: How approachable (and subsequently addictive) this game is no matter your experience level with the RTS genre. It’s got a lot of control features, but Keith and company did a tremendous job of introducing all of them throughout the course of the campaign mode, arming you with the entire arsenal by the big battles near the end.

I also think a lot of exclusively downloadable games aren’t given a fair look by consumers as compared to all the big titles they know and love. Amoeba Battle has been given some high praise by critics and hardcore gamers, and it’s a game that I guarantee you’ll love when you start playing. 

Igor: I think the game is just a blast. It has a great sense of balance and control, a wonderful story, and the developer team crafted it carefully to make certain it constantly challenges without feeling frustrating. Which is what a great RTS should do. It makes you want to play to the end.

  • Where do you see the video game world going in the future?

Kenny: As cheesy as it sounds, wherever people’s imagination wants it to go! In this current social distancing situation, I see a lot more potential for MMOG and games like Animal Crossing because this could be where players decide to hang out and socialize. And wouldn’t it be something to make a world like the Oasis from Ready Player One? I don’t think we’re that far!

Igor: We’re clearly living through a transitional moment in history. Entertainment, and particularly mass entertainment, is still in its infancy. I think film, which is much older than video games, is still evolving. For that matter, so is literature, which has been with us for centuries. I suspect gaming hasn’t even scratched the surface of its transformative potential.

We’re finally beginning to see games as art. And as a means of telling stories both personal and universal. And genres within genres are still exploding. It’s hard to say where it’s going, or if it’s even going just in one direction, to one place. But it’s clear gaming will be transforming the way humans think and work and play for years to come.

Lead Designer – Battle Match Analysis

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Once again a shout-out to Jordan von Netzer!

NintendoReporters wants to thank Jordan von Netzer for being the main influence in getting this interview. Thanks again for the wonderful talks we had and the stellar interview you brought us, as always this is very much appreciated!