Was God Birthed!? title card Photo: Finnsoft Games
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Finn Johansson is an industrious guy.
His 9-5 crowdfunding operation had him live-streaming music-making 40 hours a week for an audience of subscribers. He holds workshops for people struggling to finish writing songs (the next of which are in Wellington and Whanganui).
Finn Johansson Photo: Finnsoft Games
And his latest endeavour is as a solo game developer, specialising in interactive music videos, or music video games.
Johansson moved from Wellington to Auckland to enrol in a Bachelor of Game Programming degree at Media Design School.
“There’s physics papers, there’s graphics papers, and something called ‘rapid game design’, which is my favourite,” he says.
“You’re in groups, you make a game every week, and then two of your games get taken as prototypes to be turned into four-week games.”
After completing the first two years of the degree, Johansson has paused his study to launch Finnsoft Games, which he says highlights how accessible game design is compared to the past.
“You don’t need to know about graphics, shaders, physics. It really helps - the papers I’ve done have helped a lot - but now Finnsoft is almost an exercise in rapid game design.”
He credits the Red Hot Chili Peppers' music video for ‘Californication’ as inspiring him, saying, “It looked like the best video game graphics ever. A band running around doing video game-y things.
“And then it ends, and you think ‘I would play that game’.
“With [Finnsoft], you watch a music video, you have those same feelings, but right at the end a text comes up, saying you can actually download and play this game that you just saw the music video of.
“The incentive for a band is, if people get addicted to the game, they’re hearing your song way more than a video. You play a game and three hours later you’ve been immersed in this song, or EP.”
Finnsoft’s first release was for an EP by the band Club Ruby, called Was God Birthed!?
“A band could work with me and integrate their music into an interactive experience in whatever way they wanted,” Johansson says.
“Maybe the gameplay could trigger different parts of the song. Maybe the song could have an unlockable demo as an Easter egg.
“In this particular case, the song was in the background diegetically: you play a tween, and they’re listening to the song on their phone while they escape their bad dad, while scooting through a museum, trying to get to a rave.
“Jade, the singer in Club Ruby, shared their story with me. The title song is about growing up Mormon, about having a dad that they had conflict with around Mormonism, and feeling stifled.
“It was a beautiful thing to collaborate with them about, because you play the game and you don’t really know that’s the story of the song, but you can piece it together.
“It’s like the surface of the water is calm, but there’s some real whirlpools underneath.”
In the game, players navigate their way through a virtual museum, trying not to knock over any exhibits as they attempt to find the basement rave.
At its start, the song’s intro can be heard on a loop, and as you venture into the museum (avoiding your dad, and trying not to annoy the large creature called Aimee who works there), the song begins properly.
Once players descend into the basement, they are greeted with a vast open space, populated with cartoonish dinosaurs and other creatures, who ascend into the sky and light up with neon colours if you bump into them.
It is during this part of the game that ‘Was God Birthed!?’ launches into its most energetic section.
The game's warmly lit environment was achieved using virtual reality.
“I don’t know how to use any 3D modelling programmes, but if you have a VR headset there’s a free programme where you use your hands, and you can build things with hand movements.
Finnsoft HQ Photo: Finnsoft Games
“All those dinosaurs, all those characters were made with hand strokes, and turned into 3D models that you then interact with.”
The game incorporates the themes of Club Ruby’s song into its structure. It is this aspect of Finnsoft that is particularly appealing to Johansson.
“The thing I’m most excited about,” he says, “is making games where the gameplay, and the setting, really does intertwine with conversations I’ve had with the bands around the song they want to turn into a music video game.”