North Edinburgh Local Legends – Music & Games Jam
Over the summer, we piloted a new, collaborative project between the Tinderbox community music and games team, focussing on local legends from the North Edinburgh and Leith areas. Working from Drylaw Neighbourhood Centre, 9 participants collaborated on creating new music and a video game, brainstorming who their local inspirations were, and what inspires them about their local area. We developed mind maps of local inspiration, and a physical map of North Edinburgh & Leith.Â
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We finished off the week with a showcase at the Tinderbox Lab/Wee Hub at Ocean Terminal on the final day of the project, joined by family and friends, where the music team performed Shells of the North against the It Grows game as an interactive visual backdrop to the music, rounding off the day with a brilliant open mic.
Play the game ‘It Grows’ here!
The music team creating brand new song “Shells of the North”!
The games team creating brand new game “It Grows”!
Nicola in front of the ‘It Grows’ game, with song lyrics for ‘Shells of the North’!
About the Music
From this, young people who wanted to focus on music split off into groups, including music production, melody and lyric-writing, and chord sequences. We all worked off similar themes: Granton Harbour, West Pilton, Ice Cream, Gardening, Skate Parks and Home, to build a beat, chords, and develop melodic and lyrical ideas. We also had a young person develop a rap section for the song.
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The song: Shells of the North, was written with the idea that young people’s shell collections grow over time collected from Granton Harbour, representative of their memories and growing up in North Edinburgh. This was nicely tied into the games-design of: It Grows, inspired by community gardeners, like those at Drylaw Neighbourhood Centre.Â
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As the game took shape, the music team practiced a performance of Shells of the North, ready for a showcase at the Tinderbox Lab, at Ocean Terminal on the final day of the project. Invited family and friends attended, and we piloted the projection of the interactive game, It Grows, behind a live performance of Shells of the North. Young people finished the day with a brilliant open mic.
Getting ready for the final showcase!
Showing off the game!
Building 3D models for our game!
About the Game
The games team during the summer project worked together to come up with a game that could be played alongside the composition of the songwriting team – a backdrop for the music that would function almost like an interactive music video.Â
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We had a wee games design team working on the game itself, and we decided it’d be cool to make a game where you take care of a plant, helping it to grow. This was partly inspired by talking about local gardening communities, and we tied this into the theme of North Edinburgh by putting the plant by a window, and on each scene we see a different backdrop of North Edinburgh… As if you are living in the city, taking care of your home.Â
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It was such a cool little game, and everyone involved put so much effort focus and concentration into the making of it! With only two days to put to put it all together too! They did such a great job.
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Here’s a wee insight into how we did it…Â
- We began by brainstorming a few ideas, with the connecting theme being Edinburgh, Local Legends, Green, and Nature!Â
- Once we settled on an idea we all quite liked, we made a storyboard so we could see how we all thought the game should look.
- We compared all those ideas, found the connections between them all, and grasped a shared sense of what the game will be.Â
- We then wrote up a big list of Assets (these are items that will make up the game, like characters, objects and backgrounds), contemplating all the possible things we will need for the game… And then we got to work designing them!Â
- We opened up Construct 3 and Pixelart and started creating all our assets and getting them into the game engine (which brings all the assets together into a working game)! We also kept in touch with our songwriters, to ensure we were all heading in the same direction and all happy with the content
You can hear the song and play the game here!
With thanks to
Our friends at Drylaw Neighbourhood Centre and The Wee Hub, family & friends, and everyone who took part!
Play the game ‘It Grows’ here!
This idea was developed by composers Harry Whalley & Jack Nissan – in essence an old-fashioned overhead projector, some acetate sheets & marker pens. The projector projects what is basically a blank canvas onto the wall, and a composer starts to make things up – notes, chord symbols, abstract visuals, graphic scores – anything to communicate ideas to the orchestra (and audience) who are seeing it appear for the first time in front of their eyes!
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