As I’ve been creating music for the first boss fight, I brainstormed a lot of musical ideas we could try out when testing gameplay. While we haven’t started testing gameplay, I’ve been working and reworking my musical ideas, trying to get them to fit the mood of our boss (anxious) as well as what players expect with a boss fight (tense, exciting, and percussive).
These ideas go well together, but I’ve been surprised how some of my B-tier ideas from the brainstorm have ended up working out well when I choose another instrument patch, or use them as accompaniment. It’s been well-worth my time to keep all of my ideas in one project file and then write my drafts in another. Sometimes it’s tempting to delete lackluster ideas during a brainstorm, but I’m learning it works out better for me to hold on to them. Even if they never make it into the final project, they can be used in something else. Or at the very least, you can hold on to them and laugh at them later, grateful that you went with something else.