Hello everyone! This time, we would like to talk about the instruments we use for the composition of music in Dragon's Heart. 

Composing music can be very (very very lmao) challenging,  yet it serves as a cornerstone of our vision. For the vision of our project, we want to highlight the musical instruments from Asia because that's where most of our team is. We believe that music is a representation of something. It tells something. 
We want the listeners to be immersed with the culture we love so much. From the beats of the taiko drum or the ethereal melodies of the guzheng, we want it to reflect Dorian's journey with his companions.
For us,  showcasing Asian instruments in our visual novel is not just a stylistic choice but a matter of storytelling since Ena is mostly inspired by Asia.



Almost every one of our team is Asian. I myself, am a Filipino and I hail from the Philippines. BAC, our main composer, is purely Chinese but he's residing in the Philippines. Runjee, our character designer, is from the Philippines. Giomere, our sprite artist, is from the Philippines as well. Ji-yoo is half-Korean half-Japanese, but she's residing in the Philippines too. Matthew, our programmer, is from the Philippines. Muteeb is the only one not residing in the Philippines. He's from Pakistan, which is also in Asia. The only people in the team that are not from Asia are the amazing voice actors who made the demo a reality 😍

Well anyway, we want to celebrate our Asian heritage by incorporating the music into the demo. We used mostly Asian instruments to do this. Let's take Hyon Chung-hee's theme. The theme that plays in the Prologue.  

For Hyon Chung-hee's theme, we want it to showcase Chung-hee's character. He is a powerful and important figure in Kyeongjang as their emperor. But, we also want it to showcase his feelings. What is he feeling right now? What did he experience after his parents died and his coronation was immediately scheduled? What did he felt when his aunt begged him to not pursue his plan?

The gayageum, a traditional Korean zither, was used here as the main instrument to highlight Chung-hee's importance and strength as the emperor of Kyeongjang. 🙂 We also used the erhu, which is commonly known as the "chinese violin" by some since it really compliments  the rhythm. Both of them are used for the melody.
Complementing both of them is the dizi flute, a traditional Chinese instrument known for its airy, expressive tones. We wanted the dizi flute to show Chung-hee's sense of calmness, serenity and grace.

For Niko's theme, we wanted to showcase his strength and stubbornness. We wanted to display his strength first and foremost. With an air of mysteriousness as well.

For his theme, we decided to use the koto, which is the Japanese national instrument.

The koto, with its long history dating back centuries in Japan, possess a unique ability to convey a wide range of emotions. We used it to make show it display's Niko's strength and determination to prove the elders wrong. We want to showcase Niko's character. We hope it showed his character as well!

I can talk more in detail about the other MANY OSTs that we have, but we might be here for a while if we do that. Hahahaha. But I can talk about the future OSTs we have planned. This is an original song we have composed and prepared for the later chapters.

While I would leave certain specifics of the story in Chapter 2 and 3 so you can look forward on playing it, I would say that this was a very challenging piece to make because of the lyrical composition. We used the taiko, a traditional Japanese drum.
We really hope you guys are looking forward to what we have in store!  

We also have a SoundCloud, which you guys can visit. Our OSTs are there too 🥳



 As I've said earlier, I really hope you guys support us on our Kofi 🥹 We're really operating on a shoestring budget and I hope you guys help us. Any amount would help a lot! Also, many rewards await as well! Such as a future copy of the game, some physical goodies and everything hehe. You can click the link below to visit our Kofi page.

Please support us haha 🥹 We really need it haha. Thank you!

We can't wait to show you what we have in store!! 🎉🥳