Space Raft video game
“They were unexpectedly called back to their home planet,” was the explanation that came via press release from Milwaukee band Space Raft.
After three albums, ending with “Positively” in 2020 (shepherdexpress.com/music/local-music/dust-never-sleeps-milwaukee-label-dusty-medical-releases-fiv) listeners were left with radio silence from the outer galaxies.
Yet during the pandemic, Space Raft’s Jordan Davis began a meta project. He would develop an old-school cartridge video game; the storyline based on the band’s adventures in retrieving stolen master tapes from a disgruntled former bass player: youtube.com/watch?v=fVejjG1Blr8.
Recently Davis, who also worked on the NES cartridge game “The Storied Sword,” released the Nintendo Switch version of “Space Raft.”
Davis offered a look behind the curtain about the differences between making music and video games, as well as his creative process.
How does working on the game creation compare to writing songs for an album?
Games and records are very different animals, but I tend to view all my creative projects with the same goals and ask myself the same questions. Where do I need to put the frame to effectively communicate my viewpoint to the audience and, how can I narrow the scope of this down to a scale that I can actually finish within my means?
Other than that, the two have little in common other than the way I approach my work. With games, there is usually an intense period of research and pre-production knowledge building, like studying architecture if I need to draw something outside my understanding.
On my last game project (“The Storied Sword”) I spent months researching castle construction and watching swashbuckling movies to populate my imagination with stone walls, corsair ships, and spires.
Writing a record usually requires meditating on themes I’d like to combine and creating what I guess could be called a mood board. As well as trying to eliminate any ideas that I may have already touched on, I just don’t have much interest in repeating myself when there is always more that I want to do.
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Did you bounce ideas off other folks, similar to making song demos?
100 percent—I have a trusted stable of friends and comrades that I am constantly showing my work to for critical review.
There is a lot of overlap here between my friends from music and games. Once I establish a relationship like this, where I seek creative approval from a trusted confidante, it usually applies across the board. As in, I run game ideas, song ideas, jokes, and other musings past my collaborators for opinions as I work to tighten things up.
As much as I like cutting my own path, there is nothing more valuable to me than input from friends. But I also have specialists that I’ll call on, like authors that help me with editing the structure of my stories, or art teachers to help me improve my pixel art.
I have a big village of valued perspectives I can draw from. It’s one of my greatest strengths as an artist!
Do you have a set process for working on video projects—a certain time of day or simply let inspiration take over?
I used to be a night owl but am now very much a morning person. I’ve been working steady jobs since I was 14, requiring me to be up early when I really didn’t want to be. That broke me over the years, now my brain is most active and productive in the morning.
When I have the luxury, I have my tea and my coffee and saddle myself with my most challenging creative tasks as early as possible. That leaves my nights for being introspective, where I can feel a little more free to wander through my ideas as I discover them, rather than forcing myself to be a taskmaster on items I know I need to complete. Both states of mind are really valuable to my creative process.
