Okay, so today I’m gonna walk you through my little “lore piano” project. It was a fun little dive into combining, uh, well, game lore with a musical instrument. Sounds weird, right? But stick with me.
The Idea Sparked:
It all started when I was replaying this old game I love, right? And the music, the ambiance… it just clicked. I thought, “Wouldn’t it be cool if the piano keys triggered lore snippets?” Kinda like you’re playing the game’s story instead of just the game.
Getting My Hands Dirty:
- The Piano (Sort Of): So, obviously, I don’t have a real piano lying around. I used a MIDI keyboard I had stashed away. Pretty basic one, but it did the trick. Connected it to my computer via USB. Easy peasy.
- The Lore: I grabbed all the interesting text, dialogue, item descriptions – the meaty lore bits – from the game. Organized them into a simple text file, each snippet on a new line.
- The Code (Here’s Where It Got Funky): This is where I got to use my Python skills. First, I used `pygame` for MIDI input. I could detect when a key was pressed.
- Mapping Keys to Lore: This was the core. I made a dictionary (think of it as a lookup table) where each MIDI key number (like 60 for middle C) was linked to a specific line number in my lore text file.
- Playing the Lore: When a key was pressed, the program looked up the corresponding lore snippet. Then, I used `pyttsx3` (text-to-speech) to read it out loud. Yep, a computer voice narrating the game’s secrets.
Putting It All Together:
Okay, so I pieced all these bits together. Run the Python script, press a key, and BAM! The MIDI keyboard triggered the text-to-speech, spitting out lore directly into my ears. It was kinda janky, but it worked!
The Challenges (Oh, There Were Many):
- MIDI Jitter: Sometimes, the MIDI input was a bit unreliable. Keys would trigger multiple times, or not at all. Had to mess with the `pygame` settings and add some debouncing logic (basically ignoring really quick repeated presses).
- Text-to-Speech Weirdness: The default computer voice was kinda robotic and… well, boring. Spent some time tweaking the voice settings to make it sound a bit more, ya know, dramatic.
- Lore Mapping: Figuring out which lore snippet should be assigned to which key was surprisingly tough. Tried to match the mood of the lore to the musical note. Higher notes for happier lore, lower notes for darker stuff. It was subjective, to say the least.
The End Result (and What I Learned):
It wasn’t perfect, not by a long shot. But it was a super cool proof-of-concept. I learned a ton about MIDI input, text-to-speech, and how to mash together two seemingly unrelated things into something… interesting. Plus, hearing the game’s lore read out loud as I “played” it was strangely immersive. I even thought of making a simple GUI with a visual piano display that highlight pressed keys but I’m too lazy lol.
What’s Next?
I’m thinking of expanding it to use different sound effects instead of just text-to-speech, maybe even integrating actual music clips from the game. And definitely needs a nicer interface. But for now, it’s a fun little project to show off and a testament to the fact that you can turn almost any crazy idea into something real with a bit of code and a lot of caffeine.
So yeah, that’s my “lore piano” story. Hope you found it at least a little bit interesting!
