Flower (video Game) - Music

Music

The music for Flower was created by Vincent Diamante, a video game music composer and professor at the University of Southern California's Interactive Media Division. He had previously scored the music for Cloud, Chen's first game, and Dyadin when they were both at the University of Southern California. He worked directly with the development team to integrate the music into the game by adjusting the placements of flowers and the tones that each type played when they were reached. He did this by harmonizing the gameplay with the music, and adjusting the music dynamically to correspond to changes in the game world. Diamante used his music to influence the development team in adapting ideas he had for the game.

The music and instruments in each level were chosen to correspond to the game world and the level's placement in the overall emotional arc. The music is composed of multiple layers of acoustic instrument tracks that rise and fall in correlation with the player's actions. The instruments used include pianos, string instruments such as classical guitars, and woodwinds such as bass flutes and bassoons. The number of instruments playing increase in correlation with the amount of petals that the player gathers. The music is meant to suggest natural sounds like wind. The instrument tracks were intended to be able to stand on their own, even when used in a large orchestrated group as in levels three and six. Several times in the development process, Diamante became so attached to a piece of music that needed alteration that he composed a new piece to replace it. Diamante was long in talks with Sony to produce an album of music from the game. On April 8, 2010 a soundtrack album was released by Sony for purchase on the PlayStation Network. The album, titled Flower: Original Soundtrack from the Video Game, contains 8 tracks with a total duration of 1:04:37.