01 STEP
Listen for the lute changing when something enters the Bard's music aura.
The Bard's Runtime Lute
Tied to the Bard
DOSSIER
What this entry covers
The Bard's lute is a real in-game instrument rather than a fixed track. The audio team recorded a range of variations for every note in 2022 with lute player Fredrik Bock, including stopped and open strings, trills and chords, producing 1,300 individual sound files that are triggered note by note at runtime according to gameplay and musical context.
PROTOCOL CHAIN
How to work this entry
02 STEP
Expect smooth starts and stops; the point of the sample set is avoiding awkward crossfades.
03 STEP
Treat the lute as an audio cue for proximity effects you cannot see.
04 STEP
Note that it is generated at runtime, so it responds to what you actually do.
FIELD NOTES
Reading The Bard's Runtime Lute in play
FIELD NOTE 01
Reading the board before you move
Listen for the lute changing when something enters the Bard's music aura.
FIELD NOTE 02
Working the chain in order
Expect smooth starts and stops; the point of the sample set is avoiding awkward crossfades.
FIELD NOTE 03
How this entry reads in motion
Treat the lute as an audio cue for proximity effects you cannot see.
PLATE WALL
SOURCES
Where this entry comes from
Each record below backs a specific claim on this page. Tier 1 is the developer or publisher speaking in their own words, tier 2 is established press, and tier 3 is creator coverage. Quotations are rendered in written form; the exact spoken wording from the source is kept underneath each one for verification.
- 01 TIER 1 - OFFICIAL Steam News - Community Announcements VERIFIED 2026-10-11
The Bard's lute is a real in-game instrument rather than a fixed track. The audio team recorded a range of variations for every note in 2022 with lute player Fredrik Bock, includin
“We built an in-game lute sample instrument from scratch to achieve this.”
OPEN SOURCE → - 02 TIER 1 - OFFICIAL Steam store page (Thekla, Inc.) VERIFIED 2026-10-11
Entity identity and official naming for The Bard's Runtime Lute
“From legendary director Jonathan Blow (Braid, The Witness) comes Order of the Sinking Star, a massive puzzle adventure featuring more than one thousand hand-crafted puzzles designed to put your intellect to the test. You”
OPEN SOURCE →
GRID RELATIONS
Cross-board links
Dossiers reference each other directly, so no entry is a dead end. Outbound links leave this entry; inbound links arrive from elsewhere in the atlas.