Music!

Well, progress over the past few weeks has been terrific. I've added some scripting support to add a tactical element to a couple of the levels. I've improved the look somewhat. Added in-game messaging.

Only one thing remains (probably): music.

Now the status of that so far: I have an mp3 file of a piano composition of mine, and it serves quite nicely as the menu theme, but what I want ideally is a way to make it a bit more dynamic. In other words, to have the music change depending on context. I remember old games like X-Wing, for which LucasArts had a system called IMuse (or something like that) to do this. I wondered: is it possible to do similar with mp3s?

The answer: yes - but it would prove too fiddly to implement.

Yesterday, however, I dug into MSDN's badly-documented midi functions, to see whether I could make headway there. Yes I could. I now can play scales of notes in code, in any one of 128 GM instruments. The disadvantage is of course the quality is pants - then again, Surrounded! is a retro game, so what does it matter? Not a jot, says I! So now I shall come up with a way of properly sequencing - from a text file, something like
3GAB4C DEF#G
where the numbers flag a change in the octave index. Perhaps use brackets for chords, and other symbols - ';:po - for quarter, half, full, double, four-beat note lengths.

Well, I'll give that a stab today and see how I get on! :-)