The Spawn Chunks 166: Tuning Up The Terrain

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FROM: Garrett D.
SUBJECT: A Music Teacher’s Take

Hey Joel and Jonny,

As a music teacher by profession, I have a couple thoughts on the allay.

What if the allay already made a pitch with a certain timbre when you found them in the world? Interacting with one could open up a GUI where you can equip an item, and it also shows their pitch on the grand staff with a material type. (Think villagers, or horses with saddles and armor)

For example: If I find an allay in the wild that’s making a pitch of G4 on a bell set, I have two options:

1. Interact with it to give it an item only. The allay will then start bringing that item to me.

2. Interact with it to give it an item, and see the G4 on the grand staff and see a gold block. I can then build a collection area with a bell set (gold) note block that will match what’s in the allay’s GUI.

This would be made easier if note blocks themselves had GUIs that opened and showed a tuneable grand staff. A music teacher’s dream come true as it would introduce the concept of standard notation – a system used worldwide – into the game.

This would also act as an in-game way to help “explain” note block mechanics to players, as interacting with allays would “teach” the player what materials to put under note blocks to get the sounds they hear the allays making in the wild.

Obviously, I’m probably overlooking some things when it comes to accessibility, and I won’t even start to pretend to know what this would mean in terms of programming, but I think it could be a cool feature that more strongly connects the allays to in-game music, while building on music education in terms of notation.

I also think it would throw a bone to people asking for music-making “birds” in the world, since you all of the sudden have wild allays making a lot of random notes from a lot of random instruments, and would require exploration/breeding to get new/different ones.

Again, always enjoy the podcast, and staying chunky,

Garrett D.

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