Thanks so much to everyone who supported the label throughout 2023! Listed below is everything we announced in the calendar year (although some titles will ship in 2024.)
Extra special thanks — as ever — to mastering wizard Joe Caithness, who expertly prepares all our soundtracks for release on vinyl and streaming platforms.
Except for the Devolver Digital titles, all Limited Edition colour variants listed below are exclusive to the Laced store and won't be repressed. There is always a chance of new variants in future, or Standard Edition black disc represses.
To complement the visceral, nightmarish Giger- and Beksiński-inspired art design, Scorn’s composers created an ambient soundtrack that blurs the line between sound design and music. Brian Williams, aka Lustmord, is often credited for creating the dark ambient genre, and has arranged two whole-side suites of his cues for Scorn. His pieces slowly unfurl in a broodily meditative way, resonating with emptiness and loss. Adis Kutkut contributed under the alias Aethek, delivering oppressive, sci-fi-industrial tracks filled with deep synth pads, twisted harmonics, and metallic sounds triggering cavernous reverbs.
Yakuza: Like a Dragon’s EDM and rock soundtrack threw up some mighty music moments: few boss battle themes go as hard as dubstep banger “War Maker” (aka “Cold-Blooded”) as your rag-tag team finally get to take on Mabuchi; or “Receive You The Hyperactive” kicking into gear as Majima flips down the stairs with Saejima in tow.
It took an entire family of talent to produce the OST, led by RGG Studio stalwarts Hidenori Shoji and Chihiro Aoki. Other contributors included, among others, Hyd Lunch (Yasuyuki Matsuzaki & Hiroaki Watanabe), Yuri Fukuda, 83key (Shunsuke Yasaki) and ZENTA; while karaoke songs were created by Shoji-san, Fukuda-san, Kiyo and ZENTA with lyrics by Ryosuke Horii and vocals by Kazuhiro Nakaya, Nobuhiko Okamoto and Sumire Uesaka (performing as Ichiban, Zhao and Saeko, respectively.)
For the fourth Gears of War game, composers Steve Jablonsky (Gears of War 2 and 3) and Jacob Shea produced a simmering, industrial soundscape made up of huge-sounding synths, crunchy guitar tones and sparing orchestral elements. Tightly structured, emotionally taut cues soundtracked a story framed by Damon Baird and Kilo Squad’s military tribunal.
Gears of War: Judgment is now streaming via Spotify, Apple Music + more music services: https://lnk.to/SJJS-GoWJ
30 tracks from the kung fu brawler have been specially remastered for the format, to be pressed to heavyweight discs in black and red. Sleeve artwork is by the Sloclap team, with art direction by Paul-Emile Boucher and illustration by Servane Altermatt and Chen-Yang Hsu.
Howie Lee is a consummate creative, a visual artist and experimental club music producer-DJ unafraid to fuse traditional Chinese instrumental palettes with sampled and synthesised electronic elements. Sifu’s brutal musical blend helps keep players on the razor’s edge — truly the result of mastery through practice. Gongs, gamelan, bamboo flute and big Chinese percussion sets interlace with the sounds of dub, techno and drum and bass in a soundtrack that bristles with tension and revenge.
These sets feature stunning new sleeve artwork by illustrator and Devil May Cry superfan StelarPidgin. Dante, Trish, Mundus and Nelo Angelo are all represented either in famous poses or during memorable in-game moments.
Providing Slammin' Beats for the series’ first outing were Masami Ueda (Resident Evil series, Okami, Viewtiful Joe), Masato Kouda (Darkstalkers, Monster Hunter, Resident Evil Outbreak) and Misao Senbongi (Resident Evil series). The soundtrack is a genre-blending master class, switching from rock to techno to ambient to multiple other musical palettes. It all serves to support the on-screen aesthetic fusion of grungy biker bars, late-’90s/early-’00s trench coat-action movies and vampire-hunting TV shows, and heightened gothic imagery.
Guillaume David’s soundtrack has garnered praise for its impossibly grandiose atmosphere, achieved through the brilliant blending of real church organ, choir, synthesisers and other electronic elements. One mustn’t be fooled by mentions of the organ or mechanical-religious overtones of the game though: David is also unafraid to drop heavy beats, with deep grooves to be found on tracks including “Warriors of Mars”, “Millennial Rage” and “Noosphere”. Numerous ‘reacts’ videos online attest to the overawing power of the score, both in its immediacy and depth.
Talk about a composer dream team — the credits of Yoko Shimomura, Grant Kirkhope and Gareth Coker speak for themselves. 35-year veteran Shimomura-san has touched many of the most beloved series including Street Fighter, Mario RPG, Kingdom Hearts, Final Fantasy and more. Kirkhope has created some of the most recognisable and beloved soundtracks in gaming, including GoldenEye 007, Banjo-Kazooie and Viva Piñata. The relative newcomer of the trio, Coker has amassed an enviable credits list, helming the Ori and Ark series as well as working on Minecraft and Halo Infinite.
The three talents were tactically deployed across the score by audio director Romain Brillaud, bringing different orchestral and electronic sensibilities to the game. Kirkhope retained his ‘friendly-epic’ sound from Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle, and was assigned the narrative and character elements of the sequel’s soundtrack. Nothing can rouse the troops quite like Shimomura-san’s stirring piano and orchestral style, and she typically wrote Sparks of Hope’s battle cues. Coker helped bring new colours and emotions to specific settings in the game as well as some boss fights, touching on styles including French impressionism to enrich the score. The whole OST is remarkably cohesive, aided by joint orchestral recording sessions that took place in Tokyo, Japan.
Legendary Nintendo composer Koji Kondo and Super Mario Galaxy co-composer Mahito Yokota supervised the soundtrack.
MARIO + RABBIDS SPARKS OF HOPE © 2022 Ubisoft Entertainment. All Rights Reserved. Rabbids, Sparks of Hope, Ubisoft and the Ubisoft logo are registered or unregistered trademarks of Ubisoft Entertainment in the U.S. and/or other countries. Nintendo properties are licensed to Ubisoft Entertainment by Nintendo. SUPER MARIO characters © Nintendo. Trademarks are property of their respective owners. Nintendo Switch is a trademark of Nintendo.
The Sludge Life duology is the contaminated brainchild of Vellmann and Adam “doseone” Drucker, with the latter handling the games’ writing, music and audio. doseone’s quirked-out, kick-heavy music across both games keeps players submerged in the hazy vibes of everyone's favorite potently polluted island.
The 4LP box set has been designed by Tango Gameworks’ formidable art team. The rigid slipcase features Chai and 808, while the inner sleeves highlight Chai’s Assist allies, including Peppermint, Macaron, CNMN, and Korsica.
Revealed to the public in an audacious shadow-drop, Hi-Fi RUSH was a breath of fresh air, harkening back to the early 2000s with its vibrant visuals and goofy humour. The game marries rhythm game and character action game mechanics, with the whole environment of the Vandelay Technologies campus literally bopping to the beat.
As it is for protagonist Chai, music is at the heart of Hi-Fi RUSH. The game’s substantial music team, including The Glass Pyramids, Shuichi Kobori, REO, Masatoshi Yanagi and Hi-Fi RUSH Game Director John Johanas, went all out for infectiously energetic rock. Immense riffs and propulsive drumming played an essential part in maintaining the tension and excitement of the whole experience and keeping players laser focused on the pulse.
The bulk of the soundtrack was created by Sascha Dikiciyan aka Sonic Mayhem and his then production partner, David Alexander — their first game project among an enviably long credits list. Having caught id Software’s ear with unofficial Quake album "Methods of Destruction", Sonic Mayhem went on to develop Quake II’s trademark aggro-industrial metal sound. The killer riffs, repeated for effect, urge players forward through the Strogg city and beyond, a trail of gibs in their wake. Jer Sypult’s “Climb” complements the selection with its driving industrial groove.
As the developers at Relic Entertainment busily crafted the grand space strategy of 1999’s Homeworld, series composer Paul Ruskay was left largely to his own devices in crafting the now iconic score. He took diverse inspiration from Vangelis’ score for Blade Runner, Brian Eno, the sampling of traditional instruments from all over the globe by Algerian DJ Cheb i Sabbah, and ambient electronica duo Delirium. Homeworld’s score was born of limitations thanks to Ruskay’s “primitive setup” of synthesiser, sampler and sequencer — at the time his Studio X Labs were being built around him — and this forced him to produce instinctive, live mixes.
During the Homeworld Remastered Collection restoration process, Ruskay dug out the original music DAT tapes out of a shoe box, dusted off decade-old Pro Tool Studio sessions, and had uncompressed versions made of all tracks. Subtle, faithful musical elements were added to help widen the mixes of the first Homeworld, before it was then mindfully remixed and sequenced.
Series composer Paul Ruskay was left largely to his own devices in crafting the now iconic sound of Homeworld. He took diverse inspiration from Vangelis’ score for Blade Runner, Brian Eno, and the sampling of traditional instruments from all over the globe by Algerian DJ Cheb i Sabbah. For the subsequent Homeworld titles, Ruskay moved towards rich, live recorded instruments, including elegant but intense strings, and traditional Indian singing and instrumentation.
During the Homeworld Remastered Collection restoration process, Ruskay dug out the original music DAT tapes out of a shoe box, dusted off decade-old Pro Tool Studio sessions, and had uncompressed versions made of all tracks. Tracks were then mindfully remixed and sequenced.
Agent 47 is no stranger to carefully placed needles…
Hitman: Codename 47 was a relatively early score for Jesper Kyd, now a world-renowned, award-winning video game composer. It was as part of the European Demo Scene that Kyd first worked with the eventual founders of IO Interactive, going on to score their stealth-action debut. Despite the memory constraints of the DirectMusic system at the time, Kyd delivered a simmering combination of ambient and cinematic music. His signature sound of grand melodies set against groove-based electronica is in evidence here, especially in the hypnotic main title track.
12 tracks from the 2000 stealth-action game
Sealed mailer marked “classified”
Laced-exclusive Limited Edition
Half/half effect heavyweight LPs in black & white and green & white
Deluxe double gatefold sleeve
Brand new illustrations by Daniel Weisz
Jesper Kyd and the team at IO Interactive agreed to change instrumental direction for the intentionally more grand and mainstream sequel Hitman 2: Silent Assassin. Plunging headfirst into the world of orchestral melodrama, Kyd worked with the Budapest Symphony Orchestra and Hungarian Radio Choir to imbue the second Hitman game with a sense of strife and splendour. His signature style is still intact in the live recorded orchestrations: strong melodies, catchy rhythms and harmonic influences from all over the globe. The early series’ trademark groovy electronica fills out the soundtrack, incorporating world music elements to suit 47’s globetrotting escapades.
The original Final Symphony programme explores music from some of the most popular historical Final Fantasy titles, scored in the main by Nobuo Uematsu. Roger Wanamo and Jonne Valtonen created resplendent arrangements including a Final Fantasy VI symphonic poem and full symphony based on the unforgettable Final Fantasy VII score. Final Fantasy X co-composer Masashi Hamauzu returned to that score to craft a stormy piano concerto.
The album recording was made in 2014 at Abbey Road Studios with the London Symphony Orchestra and pianist Katharina Treutler.
Final Symphony II explores more beloved music from the Final Fantasy series. Rich, deft arrangements of Nobuo Uematsu’s work for FF5, 8 & 9 were created by Roger Wanamo and Jonne Valtonen; Masashi Hamauzu arranged a suite based on his towering original score for Final Fantasy XIII; and Valtonen contributed the mood-setting opening piece “In a Roundabout Way - Fanfare”.
Pianist Mischa Cheung takes centre stage for the Final Fantasy IX suite “For the People of Gaia” and solo arrangement “You Are Not Alone”.
The Lords of the Fallen soundtrack is a sumptuously recorded dark fantasy masterpiece. It draws upon the melodrama of Romantic opera; the requiem masses of Mozart and co; the dissonant strife of modernist 20th Century classical; and the great horror movie soundtracks.
Composition duties were divided between multiple award-winning composers Cris Velasco and Knut Avenstroup Haugen to achieve a unique timbre for each faction and realm in the game. Music for the Rhogar faction (handled by Velasco) is raw and violent, with guttural vocalisations, pitched-down instruments, and processed human breathing used as a rhythmic device.
Avenstroup Haugen was assigned to score the Radiant/Attestants faction, with his cues more sweeping and evocative of fervent worship with a sinister undertone.
The bulk of the live-recorded elements were performed by the Budapest Scoring Orchestra and Choir. Vocal soloists include soprano Eurielle and contralto Jess Dandy. Principal cellist of the London Symphony Orchestra, David Cohen, was recruited to express the melancholy of the world of Axiom. Keen listeners may recognise flautist Tony Hinnigan’s distinctive sound from some of the biggest Hollywood scores (Titanic, Avatar.)
The Lords of the Fallen soundtrack is now streaming via Spotify, Apple Music and more music services: https://lnk.to/lordsofthefallen-soundtrack
Composer Tom Salta (Deathloop, PUBG, Halo) is a master of modern and traditional scoring techniques and is renowned for his ability to metamorphose his musical persona. The musical palette utilised in The Outlast Trials ranges from haunting orchestral compositions to the depths of dark organic and synthetic textures, culminating in moments of pure aural pandemonium. Salta's incorporation of unnerving diegetic music — spanning eerie pastiches of mid-century styles — creates an unsettling contrast that deepens the overall experience of the score. The Outlast Trials soundtrack is a spine-tingling journey through the very essence of fear and despair.
The Outlast Trials soundtrack is now streaming via Spotify, Apple Music and more music services: https://lnk.to/TomSalta-TOTOS
ZBW claims to take inspiration from old JRPGs, but he also brings a fiercely modern jazz fusion sensibility to his dizzying chiptune creations. While Demon Throttle’s sound palette adheres to old school chip-generated instruments, the sheer textural and musical variety of the soundtrack is extraordinary. There are innumerable flourishes throughout the score — killer riffs, maze-like chord sequences, time signature changes, mixing tricks, and cheeky pastiches abound.
By Thomas Quillfeldt
Seminal futuristic racer Wipeout — often styled wipE'out'' — first released in 1995 as the shiny, newfangled CD-ROM format was becoming more widespread in gaming. Although multi-platform on PC and SEGA Saturn, Wipeout became emblematic of the new, more mature-branded Sony PlayStation. Sony’s marketing team in Europe specifically aimed to appeal to young adults, tapping into club culture and emphasising driving and fighting titles to differentiate the PlayStation from Nintendo and SEGA consoles.
Style was everything. To achieve Wipeout’s techno-futuristic aesthetic, UK developer Psygnosis collaborated with Keith Hopwood and The Designers Republic on the look and marketing. Bold logos, colour palettes, and fonts contributed to the game’s distinctiveness and success in the market.
Music was also a crucial component. While certain territorial versions of Wipeout featured licensed music by electronica acts Leftfield, The Chemical Brothers, and Orbital, the soundtrack was ultimately helmed by young Welsh video game composer Tim Wright under the alias CoLD SToRAGE. The nom de plume was adopted so that it sat more comfortably beside the exotic names of the licensed acts compared to his relatively mundane given name. The lower case o’s were the doing of Lee Carus, a Psygnosis artist trying to match the odd cases in The Designers Republic main game logo.
Tim Wright in 1998: “I'd just started work on MUSICtm at Jester Interactive, working in a custom built studio in the Port of Liverpool Building.”
What Wright did next was arguably at least as culturally influential as Wipeout. After parting ways with Psygnosis, he worked on the 1998 music-making software MUSIC: Music Creation for the PlayStation. This was succeeded by Music 2000 / MTV Music Generator and, further down the line, he contributed to the eJay series. Some of the most influential producers working in commercial music today have cited these accessible titles as important steps in their creative journeys.
In November 2023, Lapsus Records released wipE'out'' - The Zero Gravity Soundtrack — featuring remastered, repackaged, and remixed versions of Wright’s original music. Digital and physical product details can be found at the CoLD SToRAGE Bandcamp page, alongside new apparel designs (other outlets are also carrying the vinyl.)
We spoke to the composer as he reflects on 30+ years since Wipeout’s release.
Unlike today’s relatively similar devices and vast digital stores, the 1990s was a time of marked differentiation between machines themselves, and between categories of hardware: PC, consoles, arcade, and handheld.
As a young gamer though, Wright wasn’t choosey about platforms: “I was never really an exclusive fanboy of any one particular brand. Growing up, I started with a very basic GRANDSTAND 2000 tennis/Pong machine, and then an ATARI 2600 (VCS). Through a twist of fate, I was going to get an Acorn Computers BBC Model B as my first home computer, but stocks were sorely limited as they were supplying schools before retail so we went with a Commodore VIC20. There then followed the C64 and the AMIGA — a Commodore user almost by mistake really.”
As with many game composers, this exposed Wright to music tracker programmes and the demoscene, where creators and teams would attempt to outdo each other through audio-visual computer creations. It was that demoscene involvement that directly led to his opportunity with Psygnosis, thanks to the Puggs In Space demo.
“I was very much a home computer user rather than a console fan, although I did enjoy my ATARI Lynx handheld while travelling. I was happy to simply use whichever hardware gave me what I was looking for — very mercenary!”
The story of Wipeout’s development and, notably, its marketing has been frequently covered. One of the most remarkable aspects of the game was its aesthetic cohesiveness.
Wright comments: “I believe the chef's secret sauce here was manifold. Those responsible for designing the game had a clear vision of what it should look like. This included the in-house 3D artists; the concept visuals; and The Designers Republic’s unique and futuristic stylings in creating the original Wipeout logo and fonts, along with other icons, logos, and cover artwork.
In a brilliant Twitter thread, Y2K Aesthetic Institute noted the construction of the original logo using the number 8 in Eurostile font:
Wright continues: “When you add cutting-edge electronic music — and a sprinkling of Red Bull advertising — you have a believable world in which these race teams could easily be a future version of Formula 1 racing.
“Psygnosis' marketing department also had a solid vision about how far they should go with the advertising. Some of it was really brutal, and not in keeping with previous PlayStation marketing. It was also aimed squarely at clubbing.”
Perhaps the most notorious example of marketing was the double page magazine advert featuring two women laid back with bleeding noses (including a very young Sara Cox.) Voletic hosts the disturbing image, with the feature including a comment from a member of The Designers Republic at the time, Ian Anderson, that the poster was about ‘speed’, however someone might interpret that.
The pitch perfect marriage of design and music exemplified by the Wipeout series is something that Wright sees in plenty of modern titles. “Taking into account successful games from different genres, I think it's fair to say that games with [strong] creative cohesion are quite commonplace nowadays. It's probably easier to name games [that failed on this front.]”
He cites various examples, including Cyberpunk 2077, World of Warcraft, Call of Duty, Overwatch, and The Legend of Zelda. “All these games and more seem to be successfully immersive and nothing really jars.”
Wright isn’t sure a platform-holder will be able to grab young people’s attention in quite the same way: “My gut tells me that the youth of today are more interested in an experience than a branded item. What it can do for them, rather than who manufactured it. Some hardware manufacturers try to stand out by way of special peripherals rather than their core hardware being unique.
“All that said, software pricing models, DLC, and in-product purchases play a bigger part these days, so the emphasis is largely on the software rather than the hardware. There are fewer hardware exclusive titles too, with many games being available on all the key platforms, so maybe that era [of gaming hardware differentiation] has passed.”
So the story goes, Wright wasn’t at all familiar with either clubbing or the popular strains of trance, techno and rave music in the early-to-mid-1990s (Waypoint - “Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater Exposed Millions to Punk. Wipeout Did the Same for Rave”.) To correct for this, his Psygnosis colleagues took him clubbing in order to open his eyes and ears to UK club culture and the music at the heart of it.
The project required a shift of mindset, as Wright learned about the protracted structure of dance music, spreading musical elements more thinly over 5-6 minutes (a typical Wipeout race) compared to more densely built-up Amiga/computer game music.
Wright remained at a disadvantage compared to the producers riding the rave wave. “In terms of the sounds and percussion that I felt would be necessary to make convincing music, I didn't have the equipment to produce those natively. For example, I didn't have access to 808 and 909 drum machines or the TB-303 for bass sounds that were very popular for the more Acid House-type tracks of the time. Sure, I wasn't really trying to compose Acid House, but those machines were still used a lot in various forms of electronica. I also didn't have access to a vast array of licence-cleared vinyl either.”
“This meant that I leant heavily on various sample CDs, something that was becoming more and more popular as a quick route to giving your music a certain vibe. Ultimately, the music I composed for Wipeout would blend sounds from sample CDs with 8-bit AMIGA samples, JD800 synth sounds, and various sounds from Korg synths too — a real hodgepodge. That’s probably why my music for the game sounded somewhat unique for the time. That, and I was creating my own take on what I thought trance, techno, acid, and/or drum'n'bass sounded like.”
Wright did enjoy one advantage. During Wipeout production, Psygnosis — flush from Sony placing a bit bet on the developer — moved to Wavertree Technology Park in Liverpool. Here, a custom audio studio was installed with the two in-house musicians (Tim Wright and Mike Clarke) able to pick out new gear, including a mixer and synthesizer.
Part of the rationale of the 2023 release wipE'out'' - The Zero Gravity Soundtrack was to give Wright’s original tracks the ‘respect they deserve’. Cutting edge producers including Kode9, μ-Ziq, Brainwaltzera, Simo Cell, Wordcolour, James Shinra, Surgeons Girl and Dattassette have been tapped to provide remixes with a modern spin.
Wright says: “The project came about after I was approached by Lapsus Records to release my Wipeout music on vinyl. At first, I wasn't sure if it was going to be something worth doing — whether there would be enough interest. Eventually, after a little badgering, I decided ‘why not?’ If it were to sell only a few units then at least my music would see the light of day on vinyl, and that would be enough to make it worthwhile. (Somewhat of a self-serving attitude, haha!)
“But after interacting with Lapsus for a few months, I realised they were taking this project very seriously, with a multiple disc release and some top-notch musicians and producers creating fresh takes on my music. That made it an even more exciting prospect. I’m delighted by how much work the label has put into the release schedule and promotion.
“We first started talking in late 2020, so it's certainly not been rushed in any way. It's been carefully planned and executed.
“The remixes were proposed by Lapsus, who had access to/relationships with the artists. Once the roster was confirmed, I provided as much source material as possible in terms of original masters, MIDI files, samples and even stems from re-workings I'd personally created over the years. This meant the remixers had as much raw material as possible to work with. Sadly, I didn't have the foresight to record the individual stems back in the mid-90s, but I did at least have MIDI data and some of the core samples I used. As it turned out, it was more than enough to allow these super-exciting remixes to come to life.”
“The clothing was another thing that I wasn't expecting at the outset, and although I've dabbled in producing clothing in the past, I've not really done much recently. I have a few friends and fans who can't wait to wear the t-shirt when it arrives!
“As for other projects, I'm actually still looking back across time, and finally getting old music up onto the streaming services, with games such as Krazy Ivan, Colony Wars and Tellurian Defence to name just three.”
Wright is thrilled by the recent interest in his music, which includes club remixes and a new generation discovering Wipeout for the first time. “I've always had a reasonably strong core following for my music, ever since each game I worked on was launched. These people have stuck with me over the years as I've released more game music and personal albums too.
“As more people get into digital archaeology, and run console emulators on dedicated hardware or use software emulators, it breathes new life into these old games. People want to know more about the people behind the development. That extends to the music too, so people are re-discovering my music by playing the games, and to an extent from other musicians who have taken to re-working old game music and posting videos online. Some of these re-workings have been very impressive, and it's massively flattering to hear someone else's take on your work. It not only keeps the original music alive, but it means a fresh audience is building memories around the old and new versions of the tracks. I feel quite privileged and humbled.
At the time of writing, we live in a world where Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) software is plentiful and widespread, e.g. GarageBand, Pro Tools, Ableton Live, and many more. While several DAWs existed in 2000, they tended to be targeted at audio professionals working in studios; although there was some democratisation of music software prior to this with the MIDI programming tools and music trackers of the Amiga era.
From c. 1998-2004 Wright was co-founder and creative director of Jester Interactive, and designer of the MUSICtm software line including MUSIC: Music Creation for the PlayStation and Music 2000 (MTV Music Generator) for the PlayStation. Wright explains: “The goal… was not only to kickstart a new company, but also to give as many people as possible access to a simple-to-use bit of software. They could then create music demos and maybe find a career in music, whether as a recording artist, a game musician, or even just backing tracks to play in pubs and clubs.
“Then, of course, there was [what I suspect was] the mainstay of users [of MUSICtm titles], who simply enjoyed being able to create music for the sheer joy of it, as a hobby, with no real burning desire to go much further. It ticked a lot of boxes. Including the later eJay titles on PC that I also designed, I think I more than achieved my goals — and then some. There are millions of people worldwide who have used one or more of these products, either as a bit of fun, a hobby, or actually for music that was commercially released, so I have to be proud of what we achieved as a team in developing these titles. The legacy continues too... as some people are re-discovering these titles and playing with them again.”
Big name producers including Lex Luger have cited some of the MUSICtm products as helping them get their start (at 11:40 of this Noisey documentary, Hudson Mohawke can be seen firing up one of the PS1 titles.)
Wright enthuses: “There's a [long] list of people who began their career, or certainly used the MUSICtm-style products as a stepping stone to greater things. It made quite an impression in the UK Grime and Garage scene. It's deeply satisfying to know that the tools we put out there were not only entertaining, but also enabled some people to begin successful careers and make their dreams a reality.
“It's also fair to say that I wouldn't create a product I don't use myself. I've released albums created using MTV Music Generator and Techno eJay, and even used them for other projects back in the day. I occasionally drag them out of retirement to have a play around, and it's a nice journey back down memory lane.”
There’s a mixed bag of games and software over the years that have similarly attempted to make music creation accessible and fun. Wright comments: “I recall games like Ecco the Dolphin and Vib-Ribbon being thin on the ground, initially. Eventually we got the likes of Rock Band, beat-matching games, and products like Let's Sing. It's true that these don't encourage music composition per se, but there's still a reasonably rich selection of music-based games [out there.]”
Tim Wright aka CoLD SToRAGE is a video game composer — coldstora.ge | coldstorage.bandcamp.com | Spotify artist page: open.spotify.com/artist/1TvILK3irgzmT4GzOBBrmY]]>By Jerry Jeriaska (The Ongaku) and Eric Bratcher
Back in July, TOEM: A Photo Adventure launched for Xbox One and Series X|S consoles, currently available through Game Pass and verified for Steam Deck. The independently developed, hand-drawn adventure game previously won a 2022 BAFTA Award in the category of debut title for the Swedish dev team based in the port town of Karlshamn.
Continuing the discussion, this time we hear from Launchable Socks (Joost Kraaijenbrink) and Jamal Green on scoring music for the Basto region of the post-launch downloadable contents. The tropical island getaway is the first location in the game to introduce a day-night cycle. Also expanding the gameplay options, a circus tent hosts a variety of minigames: from a water balloon shooting gallery to a horn-honking rhythm game.
Don't miss Part 1 of this interview: "Snapshots from TOEM with composers Launchable Socks and Jamal Green"
The trajectory of TOEM's meandering path through whimsical cities and vacation retreats, imaginatively patterned after real-world locations, reaches a climactic peak in the mountain town of Kiiruberg. Inspired by Sweden's northernmost city, Kiruna, co-composer Jamal perceived aspects of this destination percolating in the minds of the developers even in the earliest prototypes.
"I think Joost and I would agree: it's mystic and kind of otherworldly," Jamal observes of the snow-swept ski sloped, spotted by goats. "That was carried over from the previous iteration of the game, which was kind of a cosmic puzzle game. [Kiiruberg] appears at the end of the game and I think it perfectly wraps it up."
To progress past blocks of ice obstructing the mountain paths, the player character must equip a squeeze bulb horn and honk at the obstructions, shattering them into shards. Swapping between your photography equipment and this horn was a strategy the devs seized on to give player more to do while exploring the map. "It was the same kind of thing as the water balloon, when we added that," says Tom at Something We Made. "We wanted more interactions with the world."
Exploring Kiiruberg led to one music track that was directly inspired by an in-game event. "There's one track I wrote for the mountain area, called 'Tall and Shy," Joost explains. "There's a large character who is shy. He's giant but he's also very shy. I just thought he was so cool."
"You have to hide from him if you want to take a picture. I wrote that track and I put in a conversation between the main character and 'Tally.' I basically just went, for the large character, 'BOOP.' And for the main character I went 'Bop.' I made those into almost percussive instruments that did a call-and-response thing on the track. For me that was the backbone of that track, and it roots it in a very direct way in the world of the game."
After TOEM: A Photo Adventure launched in September of 2021, a community formed around recording speedruns of the base game. Tom took an interest in observing these challenges, discovering that much of the content lended itself to time attacks. This was an unintended discovery, seeing as the prevailing intention of TOEM's design was to allow players to take their time. One challenge, witnessing a snail leisurely traverse a race track, contained a hidden speedrunning hack. To move things along, the honk horn can be equipped and directed at the gastropod to turbocharge its pace.
"The speedruns are crazy," Tom observes. "They find the perfect angle for completing four quests in one photo. It's super interesting to watch." The developers responded to a request to push out a Steam update purely intended to facilitate these unanticipated challenges, emerging organically out of player experimentation.
In July of the following year, the TOEM sound team participated in the annual Save & Sound online music festival, livestreaming on YouTube and Twitch. The TOEM segment began with an intro by audio designers Markus Nilsson and Viktor Eidhagen of Rumsklang, responsible for sound effects and non-player character vocals, among other aspects of audio implementation.
"Ambiance was a big part of TOEM," Viktor explained in the video recording. "The goal for me was that you should be able to play the game both with music and without."
To complement the fantasy environment inspired by Scandinavian vistas, Viktor traveled to a national park near his home in Skåne to record ambient audio of forests, creeks, and waterfalls. For the user interface, the audio designers sought a balance of vintage analog devices, such as cassette decks, with sprinkles of nostalgic toy sounds. These informed the noise of the camera's shutter and loading of tapes in the signature "Hike Lady" music player.
Rumsklang also furnished a variety of vocal samples for the quirky cast of characters, using over-the-top Swedish accents to lend each encounter a unique personality. "I ran it all through a patch I made in Arturia Pigments," Viktor explained. "It's a bunch of randomized modulators. I could just drag in the big sample with the different accents, and it randomizes playback and pitch."
Additional filters and effects were applied to the voice samples so that there would be stylistic cohesion even extending to the animals the player photographs to fill out the compendium. "That was during lockdown," Jamal recalls of the livestream. "I was able to set up in my garden and around the house and did a cover of my track, recording some household stuff, like glasses and pots and pans. It was beautiful weather outside when I spliced together a video."
"I would like to do some live performances, maybe with Joost," he adds. "He's the band man, so I would let him organize it. He will take any opportunity to perform, even online as a video. He went away and absolutely smashed it. His performance is lovely."
"[Launchable Socks] had become a seasoned band by the time I started work on TOEM," Joost says of his home concert benefiting from a prior tour. "Basically, every year around a thousand acts submit to [the "Popronde."] Then they pick around a hundred out of those. There's about 42 cities in the Netherlands that participate, the whole circuit moving from one city to the next."
"We got booked about ten times, right about when my brother joined, and played across the country in a lot of amazing venues as well as some really cool locations like an old decommissioned church, or a salad bar in the center of Rotterdam."
We won a BAFTA?!?!?! WHAAAAAAT pic.twitter.com/nITKZvpixj
— TOEM 📸 (@SWMGames) April 7, 2022
The motivation behind developing the Basto region as a free update, delivered the following September, was driven by the desire to formally thank the players who had supported the project. Various items on the to-do list that never made it into the base game now had an opportunity to see the light of day.
"We had a bunch of ideas to explore within TOEM that we didn't have time for..." Tom recalls. "And there were a bunch of new ideas that we came up with afterwards that sounded fun that we wanted to try." Viktor had wanted to record the sounds of jet skis from day one, and that request became a top priority when branching out into the tropical holiday-themed content update.
As conference call discussions progressed, Lucas decided on designing a Honk Hero minigame for the squeezable horn device, while Tom came up with idea of the water balloon shooting gallery. Niklas oversaw the implementation of these new gameplay features, housed within a circus tent on the island.
Initially, the devs toyed with the idea of an open world design for Basto, where the player could zoom out the third-person perspective and view the entire island on a single screen. However, this concept proved difficult to implement for the Nintendo Switch console, and quickly proved incompatible with the previously established vibe of TOEM's interconnected, intimate spaces.
An opposing strategy proved more rewarding, taking maximum advantage of the island's separated screens. Implementing the day-and-night cycle made greater use of the island's real estate, effectively doubling the potential content the developers could pack into the region. Multiple quests make use of identifying times of day when specific goals can be met. To swap between nocturnal and diurnal events, the player can plop down on a hammock for a nap.
"I realized that we had this bedroom-pop indie thing to what we were writing," Jamal says of the evolution of the background music for the Basto album. "A DIY indie rock, pop beach-surf music kind of thing.... The one thing I tried to avoid was it sounding too cliche: We didn't want it to sound like an ocean level or a beach level of a Mario game. We wanted it to be kind of subtle."
"Joost started the track 'Night Jam,'" Jamal recalls of the theme associated with the newly-introduced gameplay feature. "It was the first time we had a day-night cycle in the game. We needed something that highlighted that there was a nighttime. We have a five-minute track that plays when you first shift the game from day to night. That's our collaboration track. That's probably one of my favorites in the whole game."
inspired by the campfire scene in the Basto DLC, Joost invited the developers to participate in humming the "Fisherman's Tune" melody for a staff roll remix. Even the marketing team at Popagenda joined in, along with family members of the development team.
"The ending was born after I heard the track from Launchable Socks," Niklas of Something We Made recalls. "I get emotional each time I see it, hearing everyone from the whole team—marketing, music, developers—singing in unison. It's truly magical!"
This just in!✍️
— TOEM 📸 (@SWMGames) July 18, 2023
TOEM is out now on @XboxGamePass
This means that you are able to buy and play TOEM on:
- Xbox One
- Xbox Series X/S
- Windows Store
Show us your favorite moments with #TOEM
Hope you have fun on your photo adventure! 📸
Grab it here:https://t.co/LNLoc4CiQR pic.twitter.com/qiegRtCeyf
Launchable Socks is a video game composer - https://soundcloud.com/launchablesocks | Spotify artist page: https://open.spotify.com/artist/33em1jtdQbEvQNxOpq64l0
Jamal Green is a UK-based composer for films, games and television - Spotify artist page: https://open.spotify.com/artist/50jTMgIPZrjKFgHbCvoeRt | https://www.jamalgreenmusic.com | Twitter @JamalGreenMusic
Something We Made is a video game developer - https://www.somethingwemade.se/toem/ | Twitter @SWMGames
]]>By Jerry Jeriaska (The Ongaku). Translation by Ryosuke Naoi.
In April of 2020, Riow Arai uploaded a three-hour live performance of the entire music score from Front Mission Alternative, streaming on the musician's YouTube channel. He explains, "Game music is meant to be listened to repeatedly while playing, so this is how the idea of a one-hour loop was given birth." In this interview, the composer offers his insights into the creation of techno music for the Sony PlayStation Front Mission title.
Front Mission Alternative composer Riow Arai
In 1996, Arai was invited by Sega to create techno music for an arcade racing game, which was overseen by Enhance Inc. founder Tetsuya Mizuguchi, producer of Rez and Tetris Effect. Sega Touring Car Championship set a high bar for game audio of that era. Upon its arrival in arcades, the racer's sit-down cabinet was flanked by speakers on either side, and equipped with a subwoofer located beneath the seat.
Sega ported Touring Car Championship to the Sega Saturn console the following year. However, two of Arai's techno tracks for the racer remained unpublished. Before long, those stranded beats would find a new home.
At the time, a friend of Arai's was working on the staff of Front Mission Alternative at Square, and introduced him to director Masanori Hara. Alternative was experimenting with carving out a previously unexplored niche by substituting turn-based commands with real-time strategy.
Direct predecessor "Sonic Drive" from Sega Touring Car Championship
Techno was a natural fit, matching the immediacy of the on-screen action. Arai's background in performing live shows suggested this was a music genre that would sustain interest across extended, uninterrupted action sequences.
Hara offered Arai total creative freedom in pursuing a unique sound for Front Mission Alternative. This offer extended to the adoption of the unpublished Touring Car tracks, now known as "Town 01" and "Desert."
"Utility" plays while accessing the menu screen to save progress between missions. There is even an option to display menu items in English
Arai set to work on recording drum'nbass for action scenes. His signature genre of "listening techno" informed the direction of the game's establishment tracks, serving to introduce new locations.
"For FMA, game programming [data] was limited," he says of the PlayStation audio source files. "As a result, detailed expressions, such as ambient music, became impossible. Music had to be simple. For example, 'Airport' is inspired by House music." Instead of 'listening techno,' I decided to do dance floor techno—inspired by minimal techno and drum'n'bass. I thought that making people dance in a club was (comparable to) fighting in a game.
The resulting prototypes created for the real-time strategy title were entrusted to game composer Junya Nakano for translation into the PlayStation Sound Format (PSF) for optimal data compression.
Target (prototype) Meeting from the FA Soundtrack Demo
As described on his artist page, Riow Arai was born in Tokyo in 1969, and as a teenager he began mixing tracks and performing in bands as a drummer. In 1996, he released his first album, titled "Again," released through the label Frogman Records. A mellow, ambient sound involving elements of techno, breakbeats, and dub evolved into a personalized music genre.
In a conversation with Arai in 2007, coinciding with the tenth anniversary of the launch of Front Mission Alternative, he described how his music involved more ambient genres, favoring the styles of The Orb and Autechre:
"When it came time to classify my music, because it favored listening over dancing, inevitably it became known as 'listening techno.'"
"I listened to Yellow Magic Orchestra when I was a child, and it had a tremendous impact," Arai explained. "I bought a synthesizer, expressly for the purpose of making such music. At that time, the term 'Techno Pop' had come into use, because in Japan there was Y.M.O., New Wave, and punk. They all became popular around the same time, largely among young people. Still, I think people using synthesizers to make music were few in number, though there were a lot of people interested in rock music buying guitars in Japan. It was the first half of the 1980's."
An introduction to Arai's music in the form of a handpicked selection of 17 tracks is streaming on Spotify. Upon the passing of Yellow Magic Orchestra co-founder Ryuichi Sakamoto back in March, Arai posted a four-hour playlist commemorating the work of the composer. The selections include the main theme from "Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence" (1983) and "Rain" from "The Last Emperor" (1987).
Intro to Riow Arai Playlist
Prior to Junya Nakano’s first solo game score for Square, the composer was assigned the role of music manipulator on Front Mission Alternative. Arai had just completed the mixing phase at his recording studio "Again Music," named after his debut album.
"I first met Riow Arai on December 9th of 1996 at the Square headquarters in Meguro, Tokyo. It was at 1:00 PM," Nakano recalls. "He provided me with a minidisc containing the demo sound source that he had created. It was then a matter of using this demo for the primary music tracks and supplementary audio content, and putting the finishing touches on the game soundtrack."
"My role was to meet with him at the Square headquarters on a regular basis in order to translate the music he created, using a Roland SC-88 and Ensoniq Sampler, for use with the PlayStation."
Front Mission Alternative promotional video (1997). Photosensitive warning: contains flashing images
Arai's keyboards employed in the creation of the prototype tracks included the Ensoniq ASR-10, Korg T3EX, Roland SC-88, E-mu Ultra Proteus, and Clavia Nord Rack.
As with Arai, character illustrator Ryuichiro Kutsuzawa had contributed to a Sega Saturn title just prior to joining the design team on Front Mission Alternative. The artist's detailed illustrations appear alongside the staff roll in the end sequence of the rail shooter Panzer Dragoon.
Kutsuzawa's portraits are integrated directly into the gameplay of Front Mission Alternative. During battles, a view of allies and antagonists, broadcast from inside their cockpits, pop up in a heads-up display. Snippets of written dialog serve both to flesh out the storyline and further character development.
Front Mission Alternative is set in 2038, two years prior to technological innovations that would give rise to the modular design of the Wandrung Panzer. To distinguish the prototypical mechs from the Wanzers of Front Mission 1st, the machines in the prequel are known as "wanderwagen" or (WAW). These newly mass-produced machines, developed as mine disposal units prior to their deployment on the battlefield, appear highly agile. The player's WAW is capable of leaping into the air and dodging incoming missiles.
The battlefield strategy of FMA predates the targeting of enemy Wanzers' arms and legs. Damage taken to WAWs is represented by a single health bar, as with helicopters, tanks, and the crablike mobile weapons encountered throughout the series' chronology.
Percussive techno track "Jungle" plays during Mission One: Kisangani
FMA depicts a military conflict taking place on the African continent. Separatists dubbed the "ZAINGO" launch an armed offensive against the supernational West African military alliance (WA). The resulting territorial skirmishes are described in the Front Mission Historica reference book as the "African Conflict."
An elite team of WAW pilots based in Australia are sent in to assist the Southern African Union (SAUS) in quelling the violence, collaborating under the banner of the International Mobile Assault Company (IMAC). Protagonist Earl McCoy serves as a WAW pilot for the Oceanic Community Union's Ground Defense Force. He is joined by Dal Furphy, an engineer for OCU weapons manufacturer Jade Metal, along with Bruce Blakewood—whose involvement serves as a direct link to the events of Front Mission 1st: Remake.
"Briefing" prototype, preceding translation into in-game PlayStation Sound Format
Between missions Ide Sangorh, the Commanding Officer of IMAC, delivers briefings set to Arai's atmospheric techno track. As with Yoshitaka Amano's illustrations for Front Mission, Kutsuzawa's renderings of the protagonists display common sympathetic attributes. McCoy's teammates strike heroic poses, stoically putting their lives on the line in pursuit of ending the bloodshed.
The antagonists, by contrast, display crooked grins, facial tattoos, and slumped shoulders. These signifiers presage the introduction of Driscoll's Hell's Wall, an infantry division destined to butt heads with Wanzer pilot Royd Clive on Huffman Island in Front Mission 1st. It is the destiny of Blakewood's granddaughter Natalie to serve in Royd's mercenary unit Canyon Crow.
In addition to the overhead view of the game, the player can switch at any time to a first-person perspective from McCoy's viewpoint. FMA's designers created branching paths based on how quickly each mission is cleared. Separate locations and endings are encountered based on the player's skill level, incentivizing multiple playthroughs.
Airport (prototype), inspired by stylistic elements of House music
"FA PSF SOUND COMPLETE LIVE" took place on April 12th of 2020 at Arai's home in Tokyo. Since the soundtrack CD omitted several tracks found in the game, the live performance allowed Arai a unique opportunity to exhibit the entirety of the score, from start to finish.
As outlined in the composer's liner notes on note.com, the setlist included "Bonus," which was not intended to serve as a bonus track on the compact disc, but was written for a bonus stage in the game. All the audio was imported from the Playstation Sound Format source, providing a more authentic feel than listening to the compact disc release.
The full performance can be viewed on the musician's YouTube channel, alongside hourlong loops of music from the FMA soundtrack.
FA PSF SOUND COMPLETE LIVE recorded in April of 2020
RIOW ARAI is a trackmaker and beatmaker - Twitter @riowarai | YouTube - youtube.com/@riowarai. Japanese language article on note.com.
#YouTube #YouTubePlaylist#ElectronicMusic
— RIOW ARAI ® リョウアライ (@riowarai) April 20, 2023
FRONT MISSION ALTERNATIVE Soundtrack (CD version + α)https://t.co/G1GRBLGGwT
Be sure to check out Part 1 and Part 2 of this deep dive.
By Jerry Jeriaska (The Ongaku) and Eric Bratcher.
Rain World's modding scene took off shortly after the launch of the base game, leading to the establishment of a user-generated content hub dubbed 'RainDB'.
One ambitious, unauthorized add-on was Side House, a mod undertaken by programmer AndrewFM and sound designer Connor Skidmore. Gathering up unused maps located in the Steam deliverables and integrating custom threat music, the demo served as a proof of concept for building out the in-game environment.
Designer Joar Jakobsson and music composer James Primate at Videocult gave a boost to the RainDB community by bundling an official map editor with the 1.5 update. However, behind the scenes, the intellectual property was entangled in legal red tape, tying the hands of the game studio and jeopardising prospects for further development.
As weeks of innovating on Rain World mods stretched into years of commitment, AndrewFM came to wonder if the collaborative journey of the More Slugcats mod was predestined to end in disappointment. Here, we are afforded a glimpse into the challenges entailed in this off-the-beaten-path endeavor.
More Slugcats depicted by James B Barrow.
On the heels of Connor's involvement in the Side House project, additional audio designers began volunteering to contribute background music to the More Slugcats expansion
Composer Andy Robison, known on RainDB as Progfox, recalls: "[AndrewFM] already had this huge, elaborate plan for expanding on the earlier modding project that he made into this full-blown fan-made campaign. At the time, I was so enamored by the game that I wanted to be involved in any way possible."
AndrewFM began by sharing a Google doc, detailing the plans for each of the custom regions planned for the expansion. "We also created a mood board," he relates, "where we grabbed a bunch of reference images with what we wanted to do and the aesthetics of these regions. A lot of the music tracks were produced based on these mood boards and written descriptions."
To satiate the appetite of the playtesters, Progfox uploaded a preliminary track titled "Bloom" to SoundCloud. "Every now and then we would drop little things to show that something's happening," he says, "because in these kinds of projects things get picked up and dropped all the time."
Progfox observed of the base game's score by James and Lydia of the band Bright Primate: "There are so many times where you enter a new area and there's a part of the soundtrack that was created to represent what's going on, to help push you forward a little, or give some color to the scene going on. I think that Rain World isn't afraid to use silence. It pushes these big, emphatic moments when they really matter. It was cool to be able to create something that acts as a moment, and not necessarily an ongoing vibe."
Meanwhile, AndrewFM and Connor began experimenting with modifying threat music when the player slugcat eats a mushroom. These consumable items introduced to the game by Joar induce subtle psychoactive effects that temporarily increase the slugcat's run speed and jump height. Most noticeably, the visuals undulate hypnotically. AndrewFM relates, "We wanted the threat music to change slightly or use different tracks when you are under the influence of the mushrooms."
Ultimately the developers dropped the mechanic because it would have required creating extra threat layers for every region of the game. As with the unused regions recycled in Side House, this was a thread the More Slugcats team left dangling.
"That implementation is programmed into the game," AndrewFM notes. "Modders, if they wanted to, could make use of that."
Gourmand character portrait by AnnoyingFlower.
As time passes in Rain World there is an overarching theme of survival strategies evolving from offensive to defensive. The slugcat breed known as Rivulet reflects this progression by exhibiting increased maneuverability. The amphibious critter demonstrates the agility of a coiled spring on land and can hold its breath for long durations while plunging underwater. To complement the aquatic theme of the campaign, the devs went back over familiar maps, introducing drizzling rain and overcast skies.
This damp era of Rain World's history adds a speedrunning element to the mix, as the cycles between game-ending torrential downpours are considerably shorter. Rivulet hibernates sooner due to these shorter cycles, and also occasionally wakes up early. These "pre-cyle" showers offer the player a glimpse of the environment before the rain has fully let up. Walls of water cascade, blurring the scenery and obscuring drenched predators, before intermittently subsiding.
Rivulet's campaign was the inspiration for the goal of creating one new region for each of the playable slugcats. The submerged iterator superstructure was the first custom region designed from scratch, making unique use of Rivulet's ability to remain underwater.
Upon reaching the decaying iterator complex, the aquatic slugcat gains access to a rarefaction cell capable of producing a spherical low-gravity field. This glowing orb's visual effects were contributed by co-composer Ongomato.
"He was very multi-faceted," AndrewFM relates. "He did music, but that was not the thing we brought him on for. He was primarily a technical artist. He created shaders and 3D models: all the cool, fancy effects that you find in the expansion, like the snow and the blizzards."
Several music tracks, such as "Daze" and the "Outer Expanse" threat music, involved collaboration between the composers. "I think that between the three of us, we all sort of filled gaps in each other's skill sets," observes Progfox. Ongomato went as far as to construct a rendering pipeline that allowed the developers to take 3D models and convert them into 2D, embedding them in the scene.
"He made detailed 3D models and then injected that into the 2D scene," says AndrewFM. "He did a lot of cool stuff for the expansion."
The Saint by AnnoyingFlower and region art illustrator Tom "Norgad" Starbuck.
The Saint's campaign brings certain elements of the story full circle, such as expanding upon the Void Sea location first introduced at the end of Survivor's campaign. "There's this giant ocean of corrosive liquid that exists deep down below the earth," AndrewFM explains. "Saint takes place so far in the future that much of the structure has dissolved away from the Void Sea. That opens up a new area that the other slugcats don't have access to."
Saint is frail and relies on a long tongue to latch on to platforms and flee from predators. To implement this gameplay feature, the developers reverse engineered the grapple worm mechanic. In place of having to seek out and hijack this seldom encountered creature, this slugcat breed has evolved to integrate tongue-slinging into its own anatomy.
While the Saint can maneuver vertically by latching onto ledges and whip across chasms, this campaign features dual hazards of running out of food and falling victim to the harsh environment. A cruel winter has beset the land, requiring the slugcat to seek out lanterns and steam vents to restore body heat. The Saint's head-up display adds a hypothermia bar that will signal the onset of frostbite.
The iterator superstructures' copious heat energy vents are collapsed during the Saint's epilogue, taking place long after the others. Navigating this Ice Age, the player encounters a terrestrial environment that has returned to its desolate appearance predating the terraforming efforts of the Ancients.
In February of 2021, AndrewFM received an email from Akupara Games. "What they had noticed was despite Rain World going this really long length of time without receiving any updates, the community was still more active than it had ever been," he recalls. "It still was escalating in popularity, despite the game not receiving any updates. They immediately saw that as something they wanted to continue fostering."
Videocult had finally regained access to the IP from the former owners. Akupara Games' CEO David Logan had spearheaded an official partnership in an effort to greenlight new content for Rain World. AndrewFM wound up submitting a synopsis video, clocking in at just under three hours in duration, introducing More Slugcats' new regions, spanning a thousand new maps. The video also outlined the Challenge and Safari modes, building upon the Arena contents.
Based on this synopsis, it was decided that the More Slugcats expansion would be included in an official downloadable contents release, dubbed Downpour.
Downpour soundtrack cover art by character portrait illustrator AnnoyingFlower.
While reviewing previously designed maps and remixing them with weather elements like rainfall and snowstorms, the team decided to build out the Chimney Canopy region. This smallest self-contained area in the game contains a partially flooded subregion called The Gutter, which was expanded upon and treated to its own alternate audio layers for threat music.
Artificer and Gourmand were the last slugcat campaigns to wrap up development. Taking place shortly after Spearmaster's timeline, the Artificer is capable of fashioning explosives from rocks and spears at the cost of food. The slugcat can even propel himself forward using a detonation as a makeshift double-jump, gaining access to out-of-the-way ledges.
A bitter feud between this particular slugcat and the tribes of scavengers makes the character's pyrotechnical acumen crucial for survival. As with other campaigns, the backstory behind this chapter's drama slowly unfolds as the player progresses. Uniquely, this story is elucidated over the course of several playable dream sequences.
"Gourmand's campaign is essentially a scavenger hunt for food," AndrewFM explains. The hefty slugcat can weaponize his girth by dropping on predators from above to incapacitate them. While running, Gourmand is winded easily and is required to take a breather to recover full speed.
After visiting Looks to the Moon's crumbling superstructure, Gourmand is allowed to explore the surrounding Outer Expanse region, now reclaimed by nature. "Our idea with the Outer Expanse is that the Ancients built these rail systems and didn't care about the abandoned ruins from past civilizations," says AndrewFM. "You have these train tracks that demolish or plow their way through these old ruins. There's an amalgamation of past civilizations in these barren outskirts."
The developers identified this sanctuary as an appropriate spot to implement a day/night cycle. "The original game does have a very few sections where you are safe from the rain threat, but there are very few," AndrewFM observed. "With the expansion we added more of those types of areas. For those, we wanted to have something special that happens. There is a cycle progression going on, despite the absence of the rain."
For the first time, a character under the player's control can travel back to the location where Survivor's animated intro is situated.
The Artificer character portrait illustration by James B Barrow.
Having leant her voice to the base game, Lydia offered to revise the dialog of Looks to the Moon and other speaking parts. These revisions helped to ensure greater thematic continuity across the old and new campaigns. When it came to the lore, AndrewFM was sensitive to the demands of the fanbase not to stray too far from the premise outlined by Videocult.
"There were a lot of people in the Rain World community who are picky about the lore," he relates. "If you go too wild, there are people who will get upset. Anything we include is stuff that is a very direct extension of what is already there."
In the run-up to the release of "Downpour," RainDB member Intikus stitched together several trailers, writing custom music that appears in the soundtrack album release published through Bandcamp. "There was a lot of polishing going on," AndrewFM recalls of the discovery that "More Slugcats" would soon be a commercial product. "Once we did find that out, we had to go back and be like, "Okay, is there anything here we should polish up or improve?"
Progfox, credited as the lead soundtrack producer for the official expansion, remarks, "Back then, it was a bit of a fanfiction, adding in your custom-colored characters and giving them fun abilities. You would not have imagined that being transformed into something official." Connor adds, "Even back then, I dreamed of it one day being taken on as an official expansion, but I never imagined that it could actually happen."
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
James Primate is a video game composer – brightprimate.bandcamp.com | Twitter @BRIGHTPRIMATE | Spotify artist page
AndrewFM is a video game developer - ko-fi.com/andrewfm | Twitter @AndrewFM
Connor Skidmore is a video game composer - soundcloud.com/12lbs
Progfox is a video game composer - progfox.io | Twitter @ProgfoxMusic | Spotify artist page
By Thomas Quillfeldt
As of 2023, the Alien(s) media universe is still going strong, with Tindalos Interactive’s squad-based action game Aliens: Dark Descent joining the ranks of movies, video games, comic books, and… facehugger ski masks?
We burst out of the shadows to ask the game’s composer Doyle Donehoo about what it’s like to be ingested into the xenomorph universe; how his approach differs when working on Warhammer titles such as Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II and the animated show Hammer and Bolter; and how his software-engineer background helps him master digital music tools.
Donehoo is one of a line of esteemed media composers to tackle the Alien franchise. Part of what landed him the Aliens: Dark Descent project is his deep love and understanding for the movies and scores, as well as having worked with developer Tindalos Interactive on the Battlefleet Gothic: Armada series.
Growing up around cinema in the 1970s and 1980s, Donehoo was one of the first people to catch Star Wars (1977) and Alien (1979) in the movie theatre (Level With Emily Reese podcast.) He recalls: “When Alien first hit the silver screen — on a monstrous Panorama curved screen — I was blown away. The opening scenes alone totally creeped me out, particularly the music.”
To call him an Alien ‘superfan’ is underselling it: “After that I got the scores on vinyl, cassette tape and every version of the CDs. I also collected books, graphic novels, posters, collectors’ magazines, movie programs, picture books, buttons, and everything else I could find. At first, it was the art of the movie that impressed me the most, because at the time I was into graphic novels and art. Later, the music was more important. But always I was a fan of both the art and music.”
“Foremost, [with the Dark Descent score] I wanted to stay true to the musical language set down by movie composers Jerry Goldsmith (Alien), James Horner (Aliens) and Elliot Goldenthal (Alien 3). I did not want to disappoint series fans by not immersing them into that musical environment. When they’re playing the game, I want them to feel like they are playing an Alien movie. I wanted the score to sound like an Alien score. Here and there we injected brief moments that would roughly hint at themes they heard in the movies, which was all part of our efforts to immerse players.”
The musical characteristics of Jerry Goldsmith’s original Alien score stick out a mile among contemporary films like Star Wars, Superman, Apocalypse Now, Moonraker and even Goldsmith’s own music for Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Peculiar, almost ambient sounds and long drones in the strings created a slow dread that was punctuated by the instantly recognisable col legno strings and flute patterns with that signature delay effect on them.
“There are no fewer than four versions of the “Main Title” for Alien. Don’t ask me why, when by far the best version is the very first entitled “Main Title (film version)”. It has everything that made that score Alien. It completely creeped me out, immersed me in that universe and made me an instant fan.”
For Donehoo, while many aspects contribute to the Alien sound, there is one sound in the first film that’s top of the heap for him. “Big fans of the score will say the sound came from a flutter-tongue Bassoon or Contra-Bassoon, but I swear it was likely made by a bass trombone player with a plastic Stadium Horn [aka vuvuzela]. The repeated sound was so menacing, so unique, and so thoroughly Alien, that it really defined that sound for me. I didn’t get to use a Stadium Horn in my Dark Descent score, but I did use a bassoon version of it. Next time, I am getting a Stadium Horn and recording it!”Darkness stalks Donehoo’s scoring career — mainly thanks to the video game/media franchises he’s worked on. Musically-speaking, he’s had to explore a multitude of ways to convey a grimdark tone and fantasy militarism, often with a pseudo-religious edge.
“Since I was one of the first to do a meaningful original soundtrack for Warhammer, I have long worked out my own personal musical language and rules for that universe. Those rules change somewhat depending on what race I am dealing with, and naturally, the environment. When I am writing for the Imperium or the Space Marines, it is different than when I am writing for Orcs, Chaos, Eldar, Tyranids and more. But in all cases, it is bombastic, larger-than-life and dramatic.
“For example, for Space Marines, I favour big low brass and male choir as a dominant feature of the music…”
“...while for Tyranids, I go more for a creepy Aliens approach.”
“For the Warhammer 40,000 animated mini-series Hammer and Bolter, in one particular episode, horror was a key element, while other episodes were less so.”
“So, while all of my Warhammer music is recognizably me, it is spread over a very large canvas where I paint my music to match the situation.”
As a fun aside, Donehoo recalls that around the time he was writing Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II’s main theme in the early 2000s, he was also reading Michael Shaara’s historical novel The Killer Angels, about soldiers fighting in the American Civil War. As a tribute, he named the cue “Angels of Death”, now widely used in the Warhammer universe when referring to the Space Marines.
Donehoo approaches the two franchises in fundamentally different ways: “There is no formula for creating the proper musical atmosphere. That is essentially the creative process where you start with an idea and keep building it up to the point where it is saying what you want it to say, and it does the job of supporting the environment and situation.
“For the main theme of Aliens: Dark Descent, the music sets up the main struggle, promising neither success nor failure. There was also more of an evolving storyline developing deep in the bowels of a hostile environment.
“For all in-game music for Warhammer, I try to invoke thematically the race we are primarily dealing with, friend or foe.
Percussion is a crucial element in Donehoo’s music — including thunderous timpani, gargantuan bass drums, stinging snares, and spicy cymbals. He comments: “[The right choice of percussion] depends on the situation. For Orcs, for sure you want huge, aggressive-sounding percussion, which I certainly did for Dawn of War II. You want it to sound low and mean, so big drums like Taiko, bass drum and low toms with some sticks thrown in for good measure is what I reach for.”
“For Space Marines I go more towards marching snares, bass drum and cymbals as the foundation. Other situations might require a more subtle approach.”
A seasoned industry operator, Donehoo has worked with several audio directors and creatives to deliver on projects. He comments: “These days, anybody that hires me already knows what to expect — which is probably why they hired me. And, when working on the specifics of a project, the directors, producers and/or audio directors have pretty solid ideas about what certain sections should sound like and provide plenty of examples of what they want. Then my challenge is to give them something better and more fitting than their examples.
“It’s not so much about what I am looking for from them, as it is giving them what they want or need. The most common thing I ask for for inspiration is artwork, videos, gameplay examples, and more. Working on the [Hammer and Bolter] series, the main thing I ask for is a time-locked version of the project, and once I have it, the video pretty much tells me what to do.”
“When working on a TV series, the main difficulty is time and deadlines. With Hammer and Bolter, I had plenty of time, so that wasn’t a problem. I also really enjoy writing to picture. It’s fixed media, so you can really hit your dramatic marks and emphasise particular events. With a video game you have to worry about 1-2 hours’ worth of music covering a 40-hour game that has key, variable events appearing asynchronously during an evolving story.
“With the Director/Lead [Dylan Shipley] of Hammer and Bolter, before any work started, we had spotting sessions where we went over the video scene by scene, and I took copious notes.
“For a video game, we go over situations and levels, and their requirements. What follows in both cases is a lot of back-and-forth as things progress.”
For his soundtrack albums, Donehoo doesn’t have to do too much extra post-project heavy lifting: “I think in most cases, by the end of a project I have already broken down all of the music into tracks, so it is just a matter of organising, documenting, and naming.
“For Hammer and Bolter, I think I would need to do more editing to parse out tracks, because it is basically all one continuous track of music for each video. I would like to get an OST for what we did for Hammer and Bolter, because there is a lot of dramatic music in there! I think the fans would love it.
“It’s fairly easy for me to compile an OST as compared to getting it actually released! But it is nice to get it out there.”
As touched upon, Donehoo takes a lot of inspiration from the music of cinema. “I’m always collecting movie soundtracks, something I’ve been casually doing since I was a kid. I have the original King of Kings and Ben-Hur soundtracks on vinyl for example.”
“I have a large collection of rock and classical, but I mostly listen to movie soundtracks, which I study intently. Recently, I’ve spent a lot of time listening to all of the available DUNE music, partially because it is nakedly hybrid. I like the approach of little ostinato or arpeggiated synth in the overall sound, favouring more spacious sweeping soundscapes that fit DUNE exactly. It really works. I look forward to what is next. I am sure other things will soon capture my imagination.”
“All those influences go into the blender that is my mind, which I draw from when a project comes along. That usually blends in with what references are presented to me in the next project. If the fictional universe has a history, I will be influenced by that, and if it does not, I will make up my own! That is always fun.”
With a background in software engineering, Donehoo enjoys a somewhat unique knowledge base for a composer. In the past, he’s written his own music recording software and literally built synthesizers. For certain kinds of projects, this gives him an edge: “Knowing how things work, having a deep understanding of the MIDI code and specification gives me a leg up on the technical aspects of music making.
“I have many MIDI controllers, which helps me have mastery and control over the instruments and devices I use. Other composers may have enough understanding of the MIDI world to play virtual instruments and get good results. But I have a way of working that can bring out the full potential of virtual instruments.
“I also have a synthesizer background based on actually building them from kits that translates well when using real or virtual synthesizers. It’s like having a fancy new fully-loaded car with all of the electronics and safety features. You may be able to get in it and drive around, but you may not be able to use the advanced features without reading a lot of manuals and learning how things work.”
The grimdark universe of Warhammer has embraced Donehoo, and he embraces it back: “I never get tired of composing for Warhammer and its many aspects. That’s my jam.
“I would love to score a sequel to Constantine [based on the horror-oriented comic books Hellblazer] one of my favourite movies. Another fun one would be to score a Terminator game or movie. I would love to replicate the retro sounds of the first Terminator [scored by Brad Fiedel] and also create new sonic landscapes that would still be identifiably Terminator. Lots of possibilities out there.”
We joke with Doyle about whether he yearns for a lighter soundtrack project — something with fluffy bunnies dancing in the sunshine… “If that fluffy bunny is the one from the movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail [i.e. a rampantly murderous flying rabbit], then I’m here for it! I have done lighter, classically-inspired things, but I am always a sucker for the dramatic. Bring on the intergalactic conflict: I am ready!”
Doyle Donehoo is a composer for media – www.doylewdonehoo.com/radarmusic | Spotify Artist Page
]]>
By Jerry Jeriaska (The Ongaku) and Eric Bratcher
TOEM: A Photo Adventure launched in September of 2021 following a year of global travel restrictions that presented unprecedented challenges to game developers. For many players, TOEM represented the opportunity for a vicarious sightseeing tour at a time when the possibility of a real-world equivalent was withheld.
The independently developed adventure title won the 2022 BAFTA Award for Debut Game.
When development began in the port town of Karlshamn in Southern Sweden, there was the kernel of an idea in the form of a walking simulator with a charming aesthetic. The protagonist travels a black-and-white landscape whimsically modeled after the devs' home.
A playable prototype emerging in 2019 piqued the interest of musician Joost Kraaijenbrink in the Netherlands. Joost publishes music as "Launchable Socks" and currently performs with a three-person band of the same name.
"Man, I love what I see and how this world feels," recalled Joost, seeing the early test footage online. "The black-and-white, top-down isometric deal that TOEM mostly has was already there. I connected with [Something We Made] on Twitter and told them that I loved it."
The design team was mapping out a locale dubbed "Oaklaville," inspired by the wooden town of Eksjö, where designer Lucas Gullbo was raised. This virtual camping spot, traversed by cartoon child scouts busily surveying local fauna, inspired Joost to send in a tune he called "Pine Needles."
When asked what prompted his interest in the TOEM prototype, the musician speculates that the demo's allocation of space may have played some role. His reaction to the ambiance of Oaklaville had inspired the first draft of a song, called "Squirrel Photography," that later made it into the soundtrack, following his submission of "Pine Needles."
"The Netherlands is tiny," says Joost. "You can drive from one end to the other in four and a half hours. There are 17 million of us in a small space. I grew up in a country where, wherever you go, there are always other people around... When the sun is out, every last seat on every terrace is taken..." Oaklaville's wooded surroundings, by contrast, represented something of an imaginary reprieve from that sense of claustrophobia.
Bird's-eye view of the forested camps of Oaklaville
Not long after, Joost's SoundCloud channel began reporting a conspicuously high number of plays clustered around Karlshamn. Something We Made apparently had Launchable Socks on heavy rotation. Around the same time, a monumental discovery altered the course of TOEM's growth forever.
Lucas, working with programmer Niklas Mikkelson, had implemented a hide-and-seek sequence for one area of the Oaklaville map. The player was prompted to look through the lens of a telescope to spot the scouts concealing themselves within trees and bushes, necessitating a shift in the player's perspective.
Tom Jerbo at Something We Made relates, "[L]ucas really liked that you could see the world from a different perspective than top-down, third person. That evolved into the photo mechanic." Beta testing this added viewpoint prompted the devs to ask the question, "Why not make a game about looking at things?"
played our first show in a while last month, and we're definitely ready for more 🤘
— Launchable Socks (@launchablesocks) October 4, 2022
thanks to Miksfiles for the photo's pic.twitter.com/sGVv7HaavS
TOEM's black-and-white landscapes proved a natural fit for this newfound focus on scouring the environment and capturing snapshots. The Photo Compendium feature invited the player to experiment with swapping between an overhead view of the map — reminiscent of games like Animal Crossing — and a first-person perspective from behind a lens that could pan and zoom to capture still images.
Also of use were the comic book-styled borders surrounding each object in the game environment. Previously implemented to be easy on the eyes, the outlines separated UI and non-player characters from their environments, ensuring photographed subjects were easy to spot. The "readable" and distinct visual design proved an asset in hunting down objects that might otherwise be overlooked.
The paired-down visual approach allowed the devs to experiment more quickly. "Adding colors not only takes more time but you have less time to iterate on it," Tom observes. Breaking the fourth wall, the developers hid a group photo in the majestic Oaklaville hotel.
"You Found Us" achievement unlocked
Musician Jamal Green is a professional game composer based in the United Kingdom, whose score for the Konami platformer Skelattack had received a vinyl release from a high-profile record label.
"TOEM was finding its legs, aesthetically and maybe gameplay-wise," he recollects from the preliminary footage he saw of Oaklaville, inspiring him to get in touch with the developers. "It looked similar to how it does now. I am driven by aesthetics—that's what gets me going. The black-and-white thing stood out to me, and everything shown on the Twitter feed. I just sort of went for it."
Integrating the camera gameplay breathed new life into the design of the prototype. When TOEM secured funding for its innovative implementation of the Photo Compendium, Joost and Jamal were invited to sign on as the game's soundtrack composers.
I can finally share that I have been chosen as a 2022/23 BAFTA Breakthrough. I am in incredible company - this years cohort is the most talented group of people I've ever met. Excited for what's to come! @BAFTA #BAFTABreakthrough @BAFTAGames
— Jamal Green (@JamalGreenMusic) November 10, 2022
Photo credit: BAFTA/Sophia Spring. pic.twitter.com/lrvA8tcLIh
The co-composers' first order of business was defining a suitable tone for the soundtrack. The musicians decided on attempting one collaborative track for each region in the game, while composing solo on the remainder of the score.
"It's rounded and soft and cute," Jamal says of the TOEM aesthetic. "I think I wrote [two tracks] before I heard anything from Launchable Socks. [W]hen I was introduced to him and his music that he had written for TOEM, then I started to understand what TOEM was. I started to shift my musical style to incorporate his sound a little bit, too."
Jamal's first piece was the ambient and ethereal "Life Through A Lens." "Listening to the soundtrack, it sticks out as something that doesn't sound like the rest of the tracks," he observes. The developers determined that the most suitable spot for the epiphanic tone was near the very end of the base game, as the player approaches the titular enigmatic vista.
Nana's introduction in Homelanda
The composer followed up with "Photo of Home," serving as a thematic pairing to bookend the music score. The song begins playing as the protagonist first encounters "Nana" in their hometown of Homelanda, encouraging the player to embark on a quest to capture a snaphot of "TOEM."
Joost and Jamal began their collaborative venture with "Big City," the theme for the Logcity region. The busy metropolitan urban center obsessed with work deadlines, curious art installations, and social media posts was inspired by Sweden's bustling capital of Stockholm, where Niklas was born. While some trepidation attended exchanging drafts of music online, a process necessitated by the musicians' geographical separation, those concerns were soon put to rest.
"I sent him an idea I had for the city track and he sent his part back," Jamal says of the origins of the Logcity theme. "It ended up being a complete layering of my voice and then his style. At that point, I never worried again."
View from the distance of the bustling metropolis of Logcity
The collaborative aspect that wove together the game's score extended to the design philosophy of the dev team. "Everyone, even the audio, the music team, and the marketing team pitched in ideas," Tom relates. "We did a bunch of playtesting, everyone playing each others' quests."
When a fashion show created for Logcity called for some snappy dialog from the wardrobe designer, Niklas' girlfriend Sara stepped in. Having binge watched a reality show on Swedish television centering on fashion models, Sara had picked up the pretentious jargon, which was magnified into satirical excesses for the runway vignette.
For the audio effects, Something We Made brought on designers Viktor Eidhagen and Marcus Nilsson, fellow alumni of the Blekinge Institute of Technology. Their studio Rumsklang designed the sound effects for the woodlands rave in Oaklaville, while BIT alum Anes Sabanovic furnished the record-scratching "Ratskullz" gang theme for Logcity.
The beachside locale of "Stanhamn" was inspired by the developers' home base. A stand-in for Joost is sunbathing on the beach, patterned after the Launchable Socks logo of a stick figure wizard, dating back to Joost's high school doodling sessions. Of the seaside locale, Tom says, "My favorite detail is that you can bring the dog with you down underwater and he gets a little diving helmet."
Players provide Joost's wizard character with the idea for a song, prompting him to furnish a guitar and play "Fisherman's Tune," which became a staple of his band's live shows in the Netherlands. "It's such a wholesome thing, with the slow melody and the whistling," Joost says of the TOEM track.
Tom of Something We Made makes a cameo, featuring his voice acting
Whenever music is encountered in the game for the first time, both the song title and the artist's name appear on-screen. Any track becomes playable alongside standard gameplay by selecting the song title from the cassette tape icon in the menu screen. "We had to make the tracks universal," Jamal says of writing music for the Hike Lady feature. "They had to work anywhere."
Tom observes of the soundtrack's utility as a collectible, "You get to make your own soundtrack that fits your adventure. When you travel in real life you make a soundtrack that fits your mood or environment. That's the perfect thing for this game, because you're having your own chill adventure... I've watched quite a few streams where people are super excited to hear the next track."
In June of 2021, Something We Made joined the Day of the Devs livestream hosted by Double Fine. Niklas introduced the game by stating: "You play as an amateur photographer on a journey to see the magical phenomenon known as 'TOEM.'"
In the next chapter of this feature we hear about the launch of the base game and the design team's decision to embark on development of the Basto region downloadable contents.
Almost the whole TOEM gang has gathered in Berlin to attend #AMaze2023!
— TOEM 📸 (@SWMGames) May 10, 2023
Feels great to met up again and if you see us at the event, come say hi! 😊 pic.twitter.com/EpabjBXpeK
TO BE CONTINUED...
Something We Made is a video game developer - https://www.somethingwemade.se/toem/ | Twitter @SWMGames
Launchable Socks is a video game composer - https://soundcloud.com/launchablesocks | Twitter @launchablesocks | Spotify artist page: https://open.spotify.com/artist/33em1jtdQbEvQNxOpq64l0
Jamal Green is a UK-based composer for films, games and television - Spotify artist page: https://open.spotify.com/artist/50jTMgIPZrjKFgHbCvoeRt | https://www.jamalgreenmusic.com | Twitter @JamalGreenMusic
]]>
By Thomas Quillfeldt
Planet of Lana is the debut game by Swedish indie studio Wishfully, co-directed by Adam Stjarnljus and Klas Martin Eriksson (both sharing a background in film and animation.)
The “cinematic puzzle adventure” is framed by a grand sci-fi story. Gameplay-wise, it may remind some of titles like LIMBO and INSIDE; whereas aesthetically it owes more to Studio Ghibli films, Star Wars, and the games of Fumito Ueda (ICO, Shadow of the Colossus and The Last Guardian.)
Scoring Planet of Lana is the BAFTA-nominated (for The Last Guardian) Japanese American composer Takeshi Furukawa. His soaring but delicate score was recorded by the Hungarian Studio Orchestra, with Furukawa himself leading much of the music from the piano.
In the weeks following the game’s launch in May 2023, we spoke over email to Takeshi about his love of classic Hollywood scores, the colours of the orchestra, and bold melodies.
You can check out the Planet of Lana soundtrack via all major music services, including Apple Music, Spotify and more.
Furukawa was the one to initiate contact with Wishfully Studios after being inspired by an early piece of game art on Twitter: “I was immediately taken by the game’s concept art, and I feel that the final game embodies co-director Adam Stärnljus’ vision very faithfully. The game feels like that initial image in moving form, which is a rare thing since visuals have the potential to change so much during development. I think this is a testament to the extraordinary initial vision of the game makers.”
The game’s overall visual design — including logotype and marketing materials — is remarkably clean and clear. Furukawa remarks: “I love that clean and minimalistic aesthetic of the game. Perhaps it’s [co-directors] Adam and Klas’ Scandinavian sensibilities, but more likely because both have a mature and refined aesthetic sense thanks to their backgrounds in commercial production.
“They weren’t too verbose with their directions, and we mostly employed the ‘show not tell’ method [during production]. They would send me captures of gameplay, we would spot the segments which could use music, and then I would go off and write.
“I feel that I was able to inject a lot of my musical inclinations into this score. I like simplicity and clarity in both melodic and harmonic structure. I feel that resonates deeper than complex technical material. I also believe softer dynamics are more sublime and beautiful, and can trigger a multi-dimensional emotional response, although the loud bombastic passages are effective for the climactic moments.”
Planet of Lana’s music is foregrounded in an especially cinematic way — no surprises there given the film background of its co-directors. Video games that have orchestrally recorded scores often also have recorded dialogue, comprehensive foley and ambient sound effects — all elements that soundtrack music has to compete with in an audio mix.
With an orchestral score but no recorded dialogue Planet of Lana is a notable exception, somewhat following in the footsteps of the atmospheric, minimalistic puzzle-platformer INSIDE. Unlike INSIDE, where the music and sound design is hard to aurally separate, Furukawa’s music is boldly melodic and distinctly… well, musical.
He explains: “Projects like Planet of Lana, where the music has so much space to live, is a rare privilege. The studio absolutely made the right decision to spend money on recording an orchestra, and furthermore embracing the bold direction of going big and symphonic with the sound.
“[Co-director] Klas Eriksson and I ‘spotted’ the game [a term for discussing the placement and direction of music cues] as would be done in the case of films and television episodes. We were very cognisant that the world of Novo would be very quiet, and we would need to strike the right balance of enough — but not too much — music to help pace the story.
“We would often confer with Francesco Ameglio the sound designer as well, to make sure the music would be working in concert with the sound effects. One scene I really love is when Lana runs through the beach with the giant robot collector legs, and you get to hear these huge machines up-close. That was a particular instance I strongly urged to not have music so that the sound design could take centre-stage.”
Any movie-watcher of a certain age — and keen listeners of John Williams, James Horner and Jerry Goldsmith — would recognise the influences of Star Wars, Star Trek and other 1970s-90s science fiction films on the Planet of Lana score. This is partly because of the bold, clearly defined melodies present; melodies that can be played intimately by a piano, or thundered out by a 90-piece orchestra.
Furukawa is evidently a fan: “I am always for bold melodies, and believe they will always have a place in soundtracks now and forever. It’s always the beautiful lyrical melodies that resonate deeply, rather than some en vogue textures which may become bygone in a couple of years.
“My daughter recently started music lessons, and she is always singing do-re-mi melodies, but not a rhythm groove or sound earworm. It’s indicative of the power of melodies. That said, I don’t want to discount textural or sound-design scores as they are tremendously effective when used in the right context.
“Melodies are idiomatic to the orchestra. The strings, woodwinds, and brass — and even some percussion instruments — are all in their element with lyrical passages. I recently had this mock epiphany when I said to my orchestrator Saki Furuya, “you know, the strings really do love it when you give them melodies!” Of course, she rolled her eyes at me, and the point of the story is that many of us have gotten so used to using strings as a spiccato/ostinato motor for modern soundtracks, that we forget — at least I did — that these instruments are meant to play cantabile melodies.”
“Jurassic Park [one of the many classic Steven Spielberg-John Williams collaborations] made me want to pursue composition. That theme plus John Williams’ symphonic sound — alongside the dinosaurs, of course — was a thrilling mix for a 12-year-old boy.”
“There are many other sci-fi scores that I love: Star Wars, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Silvestri’s Back to the Future, Goldsmith’s Star Trek, etc. I guess it’s no surprise that all of these have iconic melodies that leave an imprint.
“I had the privilege to work on the animated Star Wars: The Clone Wars series when I was assisting Kevin Kiner earlier in my career. That was a thrill to be able to set Williams’ themes into context, as well as adding my humble touches here and there.”
“I also love the music of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky as I feel that his music is closest to modern film scores. Take one of his ballets, which has all the markings of what would work perfectly for films and games: bold melodies, texture, clear and concise orchestration, and epic vertical scale.”
For Planet of Lana, Furukawa exploited many different colours of the orchestra — something he admits on the podcast Music Respawn was partly to do with staying within budget rather than, for instance, hiring specialty instrument players for certain biomes in the game.
He says: “I think of the strings as the foundation of the orchestra and base the textures and colours around them. They comprise the largest section in the orchestra and for me, if the strings are balanced, then the orchestra is balanced. The brass and winds can be built on top of the string foundation.
“On the other hand, you can completely do away with the strings which creates a clear texture of just brass or winds or the two in tandem. I’ve obviously over-simplified this, and there are infinite possibilities and subtleties to orchestration, but the point is that there is a method to my madness that seems to be working for me!”
Of the thunderous “Desert Chase”, the composer comments: “This is one of the more bombastic tracks which accompanies one of the highlight scenes. Lana mounts a robot camel and gallops across the desert in pursuit of her sister Elo. The main theme is traded off between the orchestral sections and culminates in a climactic tutti."
Furukawa is cognisant of the different approaches to orchestration around the world: “I was recently studying and working using Gagaku elements in one of my upcoming projects. It’s ancient Japanese court music ,and the musical intent and construct is very different from Western orchestral music. There is no concept of metre nor triadic harmony. But the most interesting thing I was taught was that in traditional Japanese music combining colours (i.e. having two or more different instruments blending their timbers playing the same passage) is considered crude and inefficient. That’s the complete opposite of Western orchestration, as we are all about ‘mixing the paint’ to create subtle shades and variety in colours."
Planet of Lana centres around a heartfelt relationship between a young girl (Lana) and an adorable creature (Mui.) Given this dynamic, and the moments of emotional drama in the game, it was no surprise to hear vocalist Siobhan Wilson’s ethereal voice bless the score at certain points. Furuwaka says: “Siobhan has this wonderful folk-inspired voice which is translucent and airy. I’m sure she can belt and be powerful, but I feel she is in her element with the delicato/dolce tonalities. Her vocal quality encapsulates Lana perfectly: the fragile but determined heroine standing against the world.”
Furukawa finds it difficult to pick a favourite cue or moment, as “it’s like having to pick a favourite child. But if I had to point to one scene, it would be the interlude where the song “Horizons” plays. I love how the camera zooms out and you become this tiny pixel far off in the distance. Not to get too philosophical but it made me think of our place in the vast universe and contextualise our small and humble existence.”
We hear minimalistic, repeated patterns in several Planet of Lana cues, often helping to create a sense of tension and creeping dread. Furukawa explains: “I believe we process minimalistic music differently from melody-driven writing. Since minimalism by design develops slowly and layers are introduced much more slowly, we can perceive finer details and subtle differences.”
“This works well for video game scenes where the energy level needs to stay consistent, but you want to ensure things don’t get too monotonous. Cues like “Scout Bot” and “Planetarium” have this undulating pattern that sets a certain mood and allows for short segments of melodic gestures to add variation and interest to the piece.”
The game for which Furukawa is probably best known, Fumito Ueda’s The Last Guardian, had a troubled production over many years before finally releasing on PlayStation 4. In terms of what has changed in the industry between a 2016 AAA game and 2023 indie game from the composer’s perspective, Furuwaka doesn’t see much of a difference: “It's been almost seven years between the releases of The Last Guardian and Planet of Lana, and not much has changed with regards to producing orchestral scores. In fact, I’d venture to say not much has changed in over a hundred years!
“There have been some technical advancements. We record and mix in higher digital resolution now, and often deliver for Dolby Atmos instead of surround, but the craft of composition and orchestration has remained timeless.
“I feel that the process for large AAA games and indie titles isn’t so different. In game development, there is a small group that comprises the core team: the game director, programmer, art director, narrative designer, game/level designer, audio director, composer, etc. The difference being that, on AAA titles, they would be heads of department with several, if not many, individuals working as a team under them. As such, composers would usually be interfacing with these core members and hence the workflow is not so different.”
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Takeshi Furukawa is a composer for media - www.takeshifurukawa.com | Spotify Artist Page | SoundCloud | Twitter @TFuruwakaMusic | Instagram @snowingmusic
By Jerry Jeriaska (The Ongaku)
Rain World Release Promo by Del Northern
While the origins of Rain World can be attributed to a single individual toiling away at a desk in Sweden, the moment graphic designer Jakobsson took to TIGSource, a daisy-chain of collaborators began unfolding, magnifying the scope of the his vision.
James began searching the internet for an illustration style that could complement Jakobsson's crumbling vistas and properly capture the personality of the enigmatic protagonist. He happened upon the DeviantArt page of an illustrator named Allegra "Del" Northern posting Pokémon fan art.
"She had a bunch of these cat creatures with weird, big open eyes," James recalls. "This was so obviously related to the character that we were making — perfect."
Described as a tech demo for manifesting a custom region, the "Side House" mod was the first to stitch together unused maps included in the base game's deliverables. It also broke new ground by introducing a custom iteration of threat music, composed in layers just as Joar and James had pioneered in the source material.
To achieve these ends, Side House needed its own audio engineer. Volunteering for the task was Connor Skidmore, a modder with a background in producing dance music, techno, and other drum-focused styles. Contributing under the handle "12LBS," Connor set about reverse engineering the percussive threat music feature. It helped that AndrewFM appreciated the role of music in game design, as evidenced by the programmer's piano covers of Super Mario World and EarthBound themes, uploaded to his YouTube account.
"Rain World's threat music was always interesting to me, because the way it's structured is like variations on a theme," Connor explains. "They're all unique, but they share a lot of similarities as well, in a way. It tickled my logic brain to try to break them down and understand how they worked."
When the Rain World modders migrated from Discord to a community-driven portal dubbed "RainDB," more volunteers began hacking and playtesting each others' uploads.
"Side House" served as a proof of concept for modding a custom region and proved popular among the RainDB community. The next logical step was to pad out the roster of player characters. AndrewFM proposed the idea of "More Slugcats," a mod seeking to add five new breeds, each with their own save slots and custom campaigns.
The first slugcat attempted levied the color scheme and unique abilities of a RainDB mod called "Grapecat," a purple-furred combatant capable of wielding three spears.
The Grapecat mod could be loaded into the original campaign, but at the cost of losing access to the Survivor player character. Receiving permission to port Grapecat's design, Andrew's task was to code for a discrete save slot and leverage the critter's spear-wielding capabilities. Thus, "Spearmaster" was born.
Spearmaster art by character portrait illustrator AnnoyingFlower.
The initial "More Slugcats" mod allowed for alternate avatars. "Other than that," AndrewFM says, "it was exactly the same game."
Connor adds, "We didn't have any level editor, so most content additions were out of the question. This led to my [first full] project with Andrew, where he and I worked together to try to reverse engineer the game's level format, with the end goal of making our own unofficial level editor."
Connor already had ideas in mind for a mod called "Eastward Expansion" that would incorporate custom-built areas. RainDB was making gradual inroads, but not without frustrating setbacks in turn. When Videocult caught wind of it, the developers realized the modders were in need of assistance. They intervened by packaging the Rain World 1.5 update, released in late 2017, with an official level editor.
The introduction of this tool represented a critical step forward in bootstrapping the proliferation of user-generated content housed on RainDB. According to Conner, "Suddenly a lot of the ideas we had that seemed super far-fetched became much more feasible."
Inspired by Videocult's Hunter and Monk characters, the modded slugcats would also explore the world at different points in the timeline. In the earliest time period, the structures built by the Ancients have yet to collapse into disrepair, revealing painted frescoes on the brick walls approaching the Shoreline.
Andrew says of the expansion, "The original plan was for this to be a little mod that we released on RainDB and probably no one would see it outside of the people who frequented the Rain World Discord. It was almost like the further we got into development, the more it started to bother me."
"It was like the project increased in scope so much and the number of people getting involved in it was getting so big, it started feeling disappointing that we spent five years of our lives with forty different people working on this project and barely anyone was going to see it. It would be this obscure little mod that gets released on this website that no one really knows about."
The publisher sitting on Rain World's intellectual property eventually severed ties with Videocult, as the former was acquired by a separate corporate entity. The murky legal status of the IP suggested that the acquisition signaled the terminus of the franchise.
"Our [original publisher] basically got eaten by another company and we were in legal limbo for years," says James. "We thought Rain World was over."
James Primate is a video game composer – brightprimate.bandcamp.com | Twitter @BRIGHTPRIMATE | Spotify artist page
AndrewFM is a video game developer - Ko-fi | Twitter @AndrewFM
Connor Skidmore is a video game composer - SoundCloud
By Jerry Jeriaska (The Ongaku)
]]>
By Jerry Jeriaska (The Ongaku)
The independently developed survival-platformer Rain World has captured the imagination of a far-flung online community. The concept arose from humble origins, as the solo project of Swedish developer Joar Jakobsson.
More recently, the post-apocalyptic landscape traversed by the game's nomadic hero, the slugcat, has expanded in size, as volunteer modders and sound designers were welcomed on board the "Downpour" expansion's team.
In 2012, screenshots of Joar's imagined ecosystem — a ruined industrial landscape populated by carnivorous fauna — made the rounds on the TIGSource forums. Among the readership perusing these early renderings of the sprite-based game, tentatively dubbed "Maze Runner," was a chiptune-influenced performer known as James Primate, part of a music act doing tours and live shows in the Cambridge, Massachusetts area.
Intrigued by the unique aesthetic, James found himself roused from sleep at night by the unsettling notion that something was about to go terribly wrong.
Prior to discovering early glimpses of the "Maze Runner" prototype, James' ambitions as a touring musician met with a stroke of bad luck.
Just as the collaboration with his bandmates was beginning to gel, his drummer had a sudden epiphany, realizing that his true calling was to perform magic tricks. Soon after, his bass player quit, moving to Los Angeles to become a bartender.
"Before that we had been in a rock band, doing shows and touring," James recalls. "We put in a bunch of money and got a big name producer. We recorded albums. It was on college radio and doing well. Then the band broke up for literally no reason... That was it."
The only holdout was vocalist Lydia Esrig. Whittled down to half their former headcount, James and Lydia were left with the choice of either calling it quits, or coming up with some out-of-the-box solution to their sudden predicament.
"We had put in so much effort, so much money, blood, sweat and tears," he says of the crisis that summoned the band Bright Primate into existence. "It was just going to be me and Lydia. We trusted each other, so we set out as a duo."
James had been experimenting with notating tunes on a Nintendo Game Boy console, utilizing Nanoloop software, LSDJ, and other more obscure sequencing apps. There was a certain quality to the archaic brick-like hardware, out of place and repurposed, that fit the desperate tenor of the occasion.
"To give you a sense of it, our first show was at this little club that would have a Talk-Like-A-Pirate Day open mic night," he recalls. "That performer's set would end and someone from the audience would jump out of the pit, on stage, and they would be the next act. And the person on stage would get right back down into the audience. I think that informed how I view the artist and audience relationship."
Bright Primate at CNB Summer Tour 2010 (photo by Marjorie Becker - Chiptography)Bright Primate's disarming combination of live vocals and chiptune music gradually drew a crowd. It was an anarchic environment feeding on unpredictability.
The key factor that distinguished James and Lydia's act was their experience. They had toured and performed live shows, having hosted concert series in Boston with top artists. Bright Primate had both the appeal of an underdog, and the resilience of battle-tested pros.
"For me, I grew up with that form factor of a Game Boy in my hands," James says. "It was nice to be able to have that combination of playing video games and making music at the same time. It was a very comfortable feeling for me."
In an environment where game-inspired music was becoming increasingly recognized as an established genre, communities were forming between game developers and live performers. On TIGSource, James read threads posted by Derek Yu in the leadup to Spelunky's release and progress updates by Notch on the making of Minecraft. Jay Tholen posted an EP of conceptual pieces for a point-and-click adventure game he called "Dropsy."
The back-and-forth online was bleeding over into meatspace as well. "You're doing chiptune? We're doing a game. Let's talk about it," was the gist of many conversations, struck up at concert venues. Between them, James and Lydia were scoring dozens of indie game soundtracks. "We were like, 'We can do this on the side.'"
James Primate in 2017 (photo by Marjorie Becker - Chiptography)Game development is protean thing. A good concept can be sabotaged through a series of ill-advised iterative add-ons, resulting in an end product that is a grotesque caricature of the foundational concept. Having previously found himself blindsided by a torrent of bad luck, James became preoccupied with the fear that outside of his control this game prototype would meet a similar fate.
The notion that "Maze Runner" was doomed troubled James' sleep, as if among the forums' members there lurked an evil doppelgänger, determined to sneak into Joar's private messages and infiltrate the project, wrecking the audio at every devious opportunity.
In his mind's eye, James saw slugcat leaping into the air, accompanied by the sound of a cartoonish "SPROING," flinging a spear into a hill of debris with a thunderous "BOINK."
"On the forum, I had been talking with Joar off and on," James says, "and I thought 'I have to do this myself!' I whipped up a ton of music. I think it was twelve tracks. I had the whole vision in my head immediately."
"I sent it to him, and he said, 'This is a lot of work. Why are you doing all this for free?'"
By the time Rain World secured funding through a successful Kickstarter campaign, Bright Primate's role had expanded beyond music composition. In contributing to the sound design, Lydia recorded snarls and squeaks for the carnivorous lizards and subterranean lantern mice. For the voice of Looks to the Moon, James designed an audio patch that he applied to her recordings, then sliced them up to give the audio recordings an uncanny robotic quality.
James also pitched in with level design with Joar's blessings—a decision that presaged a broader collaboration involving volunteer modders that would transpire further down the road. The game's punishing difficulty tended to divide prospective players into two camps. Those prone to complaints opted out, rage-quitting in frustration. However, those who were willing to soldier on, won over by the mystique of the world, began populating the fanbase.
"The things that wound up being the most contentious were people wanting plushies in a certain color," James says. "Those were the kind of criticisms on the Kickstarter forums."
One product of the close collaboration between the Swedish programmer and American audio designer was the integration of what came to be known as "threat music." "You were in the character's head," James says of the concept, "and as threats increased you would build that tension with audio somehow." What Joar came up with was a responsive audio system that correlated directly with the complex enemy AI.
For each region of the world, there were layers of sounds forming an alarming music composition that would be triggered selectively based on the imminence of danger. "It has its own system of weights and desires," James says of the enemy AI. "You can encounter a creature and it might just not be into you. It might be into doing something else, in which case the threat music would not build up to the degree that it otherwise would."
For a game where players could be expected to traverse the same maps dozens of times, the responsiveness of the AI and corresponding threat music made each cycle wholly unpredictable. The placement of creatures, for instance, was determined by a random seed, generated as slugcat awakened from a hibernating chamber at the start of each new cycle.
Blue fruit that was previously plucked would vanish, a region formerly empty was now populated with creatures. In the spot where the slugcat was captured by a lizard, a karma flower had sprouted. Upon entering any given map, the player was confronted with any number of shifting variables. Players could trade rare items with scavengers to get rare equipment and build rapport. Worms were inedible, but if fed to deadly predators they could be distracted or even befriended.
When Rain World was at last ready for launch on Steam, Joar deleted all the files that were not required to run the base game, and slugcat was now officially in the wild. "Steam has this funny thing where if you delete a folder but you don't do it in a certain way the files that aren't replaced stay there," notes James. "We cleared out the files we were using for testing, so we thought, and we pushed the game out."
As fate would have it, Joar soon found his inbox showered with praise for having included the entirety of the source code with the Steam release. "People were like, 'It's so awesome that you included the source code,'" James says. "'We can figure it out and make our own stuff.'"
________________________________________________________
James Primate is a video game composer – brightprimate.bandcamp.com | Twitter @BRIGHTPRIMATE | Spotify artist page: open.spotify.com/artist/3hnNFBVerLqoj6p252UniW
]]>
By Jerry Jeriaska of The Ongaku
Stray takes place in a future era, within a dilapidated urban setting where humans are no longer present. Humanoid robots have inherited the cramped apartments and corner stores built by their progenitors, and now instinctually pay homage to a departed civilization by carrying on human customs.
Into this makeshift robot society wanders an unnamed feline who serves as the protagonist of Stray. Aided by a friendly aerial drone named B-12, the cat can communicate with the local inhabitants. One robot B-12 encounters insists on burning incense to waft a pleasant smell through their living quarters, admitting wistfully that they lack the censors to detect the odor. Early on the cat runs into a street musician carrying an electronic facsimile of a simple acoustic guitar fashioned out of an oil canister.
The robot's name "Morusque" will sound familiar to those who have played Blocks That Matter (2011), Tetrobot and Co. (2013) and Seasons After Fall (2016) — a trilogy of puzzle games and platformers by independent developer Swing Swing Submarine, based in Montpellier, France. The mechanical street performer serves as something of an in-game avatar for Stray's music composer Yann van der Cruyssen, who wrote music under the artist name Morusque for Swing Swing Submarine.
Van der Cruyssen fashioned two distinctive styles of audio tracks for Stray, illustrating the robot cast's yearning to salvage the remains of human culture. He mentions one scene that was indicative of these androids' limitations: "Here sometimes an in-game radio would switch from a jazzy tune to a weird noisy loop, as if they were perceived as similar, and the nearby robots would listen anyway without reacting."
These noisy bits the composer constructed partially using a heavily algorithmic process, while songs like Morusque's "Petite Valse," "Ballad of the Lonely Robot," and "The Way You Compute Tonight" were constructed more conventionally on synths. "I tried to imitate music that humans used to do," he says of his in-game counterpart's compositions, "but I wanted it to be somehow distant... Everything is supposed to be a bit rusty."
"That was one of the first things that sold me on this project," the composer recalls. "When Swann (Martin-Raget), the producer, first told me about it he said it would be a world where robots take actions but it doesn't make sense anymore to them. They are just imitating humans."
Morusque is searching the Slums for some misplaced sheet music. Observing the feline's seemingly limitless curiosity, he asks the player character for help in scouring the nearby debris for his lost notes. Retrieving the scattered papers, the feline can lie down on a carpet and nap next to the street musician as he strums out a tune on his peculiar musical instrument.
"I know that I rewrote some of the sentences that he says," recalls Van der Cruyssen, aka Morusque. "Now that I see people playing, I see that people are bringing him various items because they think it has something to do with him. Most of the time he is answering, 'I don't know what this is.' I kind of regret not writing text for every situation, since it turns out to be my character.
The appearance of Morusque in the story of Stray was one late-stage addition, appearing years after Van der Cruyssen began work on prototyping with BlueTwelve in 2017. The composer was responsible for establishing the overall sound for the game, taking on music composition, sound design, integration, and even the troublesome task of debugging. During the final six-month firestorm of development, Raphaël Monnin was hired to contribute to sound design on effects and cinematic cutscenes. It was around this same time that a generic robot stand-in was repurposed to become Morusque.
"I think it was Viv's idea," the composer says, referring to BlueTwelve co-founder Vivien Mermet-Guyenet. "Every developer has their own character in the game. When the trailer was released last year, it seemed obvious that I was going to be that guy."
Guided by the player, the cat protagonist can sidle up to the leg of a robot and snuggle against the machine's metallic limb, eliciting a "smile" on the face of the motorized stranger. The robots of Stray have cathode-ray tube monitors for faces, which alight with a heart-shaped animated sprite as a show of affection. The cat presents these robots with a tangible connection to the emotional bonds that humans once formed with their pets.
Morusque and the other denizens of the Slums are restricted from venturing outside their neighborhood enclave. Just outside the perimeter, a lair of carnivorous mega-bacteria known as Zurks awaits. Much of the action gameplay in Stray, situated outside of the inhabitable zones, revolves around outrunning these pint-sized, ravenous pests.
For the chase scenes, a different approach to sound design was required. Because the accompanying music cues were scored for tight, hair-raising setpieces, the musician and the designers had to deliver the expected thrills of a perilous encounter without falling back on cliché.
"I usually tend to think that it's not because you have monsters around that the music has to be stressful all the time," Van der Cruyssen says of the Zurk encounters. "I think music is allowed to speak about the environment. Usually when there were these chase sequences, I would start with a tune that is not necessarily fast-paced. But then I put it in the game and I usually got some requests from the team that it's not action-oriented enough. There were a lot of places in the game where I had to revise and put a lot more rhythm until they were happy with it."
Stray was built using Unreal Engine 4 without the use of middleware for audio, such as Wise or FMOD. "Everything that was dynamic or required synchronizations, or any advanced audio logic, would require us to program an additional layer of logic for Unreal," the composer explains. "That was done for action sequences where several pieces of music were synchronized over a tempo, and that is the kind of thing that required a lot of debugging. The tunes would go out of sync, and sometimes we didn't understand why. There were problems like that."
As with the music cues paired with action sequences, some music tracks serve isolated puzzle segments. The synthetic sounding composition "Rikonium" features fixed arpeggios that evoke the feeling of reasoning through a problem.
By contrast, the way music operates during exploration segments is surprisingly dynamic. Most players might not recognize it until starting up a second playthrough, but the way in which the music score for Stray reveals itself, outside of the puzzle and action sequences, can be very unpredictable.
"There are two zones in the game that are a bit more open: the Slums and Midtown. For these zones, the way the music is handled is a bit strange," says Van der Cruyssen. "Two different players will not necessarily hear the same music at the same time. It's not random, but when the player does a specific action, if the action is important—the game may play a tune or not. And what tune it plays depends on what the action is, and whether there has been music playing recently or not. Sometimes the game will choose to let it be silent."
During the course of development, BlueTwelve explored various possibilities for the robot inhabitants to connect with ancient cultural artifacts. Some of these ideas proved difficult to implement, such as a religious practices observed at an Asian temple that no longer appears in the game. While the developers drew inspiration from the Kowloon Walled City in Hong Kong, which represented an ideal urban environment for the cat to scale and explore, they ultimately decided against specifying the location of the robot city geographically.
One vestige that remains of the temple location is a music track called "Outlaws," influenced by Indonesian gamelan music. "Using typical gamelan scales with synths, instead of an actual gamelan, was one of the directions I took, at first, for some of the pieces," the composer says of the genre of "Outlaws", "but I was requested to make them sound less dissonant. In fact, the microtonality is mostly gone in the final versions, but I kept the overall mood of these pieces with an occasional wobbly pitch and it was enough to evoke that culture, in my opinion."
The lost human civilization of Stray resembles the crowded apartments of Kowloon, the disco halls of Europe, and so many other disparate trappings of far-flung urban settings. Similarly, the music score spans multiple genres, making it impossible for the listener to pin down one specific region of the world. As a result, the city can best be described as 'unknown': post-human, existing at some unknowable point in the future.
Contrasted against the mechanistic structure of "Rikonium," "Raft" presents a strong, emotionally evocative melody. "This was initially one of the generic tunes that I put in the playlist for the Slums," says Van der Cruyssen, "and I observed people playing the Slums and getting this 'Raft' tune at various points. Sometimes they would get that when there was dialog, or when they discovered something. And the player didn't know that the song was not made on purpose for that particular moment."
"It's funny that sometimes they said, 'Oh, this tune is very good for this particular moment,' even though it was not supposed to happen there."
The capricious behavior of the soundtrack made playtesting a laboratory for new discoveries. The composer explains that he initially did not have plans for a pivotal scene that allows the player to progress beyond the Sewers to be attached to an emotional piece of music. "I thought I would make a dark, strange tune," he recalls.
"But having a soft tune playing actually made a lot of sense because there was this character who discovers there was this lab in his father's home... It was a choice that I made because it randomly appeared here during the playtest."
In a Midtown setting beyond the dwelling of the Zurks, the cat is tasked with infiltrating a nightclub. For the plot to progress, B-12 must insert a dubstep tape into a cassette player at a nearby clothing store in an attempt to distract the shop owner. This sequence presented the composer with a difficult challenge: namely, finding a way to smoothly transition from the non-diegetic background track belonging to the score, to the diegetic track triggered by B-12 turning on the radio, and back again upon exiting the location.
"At some point, I knew that the player would have to enter a room where there would be a radio," the composer explains. "I adjusted the length of the music and set specific triggers to switch from the music to the outro of the music at the right time, so that the intradiegetic music would replace extra-diegetic. But sometimes, for many reasons, the developer would decide to take the radio and put it somewhere else. I had to find another way of arranging the score around these elements."
Midtown scene from Maxim Dorokhov portfolio on Artstation
Since Stray's release in mid-2022, dozens of players have uploaded music covers to YouTube, along with harder-to-find themes not included in the soundtrack album. "I've seen a few covers and tutorials on sheet music for the tunes and they are almost always slightly wrong," the composer observes, "but it's probably also due to the fact that the instruments are sometimes slightly out of tune or have some kind of resonance that makes them hard to actually pick out the notes.
"It had to be a bit organic, not in the biological sense, but in the way that there are a lot of glitches and imperfections... One thing that I tried to do, in general, in the game was to not have anything that reminds the player of humans too much. Even when there are actual instruments, like a violin, they are very processed so that you cannot always recognise the instrument."
One music track that exemplifies this approach to the score is the theme for the Guardian character, encountered in the Slums. The track was created using a drum machine and analog synths, recorded in several layers.
"If I recall correctly, it is one case where I put a lot of effects in parallel that would have an impact on the pitch so the instrument would be very dissonant — a lot more than what you hear in the final track — and then my job was just to cut the parts that were too dissonant so that it was okay to be heard. But I like this effect. You can hear that it's almost going to crumble, but never completely. Very unstable."
As with the appearance of BlueTwelve's in-game avatars, the assortment of resting spots littered throughout the game was another last-minute addition. This optional feature treats the player to a respite between trotting across rooftops, wooden plank walkways, and city streets. Upon curling up for a catnap, the camera zooms out and a musical theme begins playing.
Upon first encountering this mechanic, the composer recalls, "I initially put some music in this spot as an easter egg. I had one piece of music that was not used in the game and I thought 'why not put it here?' I think it was a very hidden easter egg: you had to lie down for about one hour before the music started."
In the final build of the game, the player is rewarded for a one-hour nap not with a hidden piece of music but with a "Productive Day" Trophy. As the napping set-pieces were added, the composer was afforded new spots for unique compositions.
"I took a lot of tunes that were initially made for previous versions of the levels but were currently unused and I found a new place for most of them by making them triggered by these spots. I like that there is a lot of hidden music triggered by random actions like this. If you go out of your way, you can explore a wide variety of music from the game."
Stray contains an enormous volume of audio for a game scored by a single composer. When it came time to publish the soundtrack, Van der Cruyssen's initial submission was over three hours in length.
The digital release on Steam narrowed the selection to just over two hours of extradiegetic score and intradiegetic street musician tunes and radio songs. The current record for speedrunning Stray clocks in at just under an hour; a feat that falls short of revealing the entirety of the music score.
"If you put every piece of music together, the full soundtrack is about five hours — it's not possible to hear it all in an hour, that's for sure!"
Yann van der Cruyssen is a composer and multidisciplinary creator – www.nurykabe.com | Spotify Artist Page | Twitter.com/morusque
]]>Thanks to everyone for supporting the label throughout 2022! Listed below is everything we announced in the calendar year (although some will ship in 2023.)
Special thanks again to mastering wizard Joe Caithness, who expertly prepares all our soundtracks for release, whether on vinyl, streaming platforms or... MiniDisc?!
Except for the Devolver Digital titles, all Limited Edition colour variants listed below are exclusive to the Laced store and won't be repressed. There is always a chance of new variants in future, or Standard Edition black disc represses.
We also introduced new 'Laced Exclusive' variants for a few products this year (Street Fighter III and Yakuza 0 box sets) — these variants might be repressed in future.
Yoann Laulan has been associated with developer Motion Twin since the game jams from which Dead Cells was born. As the game has grown, so the soundtrack has deepened with Laulan creating longer and more progressive tracks featuring more electric guitars, piano and choral elements.
This triple vinyl features several tracks from DLC expansions Rise of the Giant, The Bad Seed, Fatal Falls and The Queen and the Sea. On top of that, there are score tracks from the brilliant Dead Cells animated trailers, an 8-bit ‘demake’ version of “ClockTower”, several remixes and other tracks from post-launch game updates (“Distillery” and “Corrupted Prison”.)
For DEATHLOOP’s original score, lead composer Tom Salta immersed himself in the music of Jimi Hendrix, Pink Floyd, Nelson Riddle and a host of other late-’60s influences. Layers of period-appropriate organs, synths and other instruments (including Rhodes, Wurlitzer and Hammond B3) help maintain the tension as Colt picks off Eternalists from the shadows. As things get dicey, or Julianna intervenes with extreme prejudice, tracks explode into furious guitar and drum grooves that propel the zany, supernaturally enhanced gunplay.
Ross Tregenza’s multi-genre diegetic cues perfectly complement the psycho-sophisticate stylings of Blackreef’s artistically aspirational inhabitants, while songwriter Erich Talaba and singer Jeff Cummings brought to life the vicious visionary Frank Spicer with catchy in-universe songs. Music agency Sencit teamed up with powerful yet soulful vocalists for trailer and credits songs, including Bond-ish banger “Déjà Vu” (featuring FJØRA).
In-house Gearbox composer Joshua Carro brought his globe-trotting, experimental creative background to bear on the chaotic realms of the Wonderlands. The score briefly threatens more traditional fantasy fare, coaxing the listener in with big, bright celebrational themes; before twisting and turning, stealing listeners away to unexpected places. Unusual, unsettling rhythms and textures are woven together to create a dense and sophisticated sound world, where one can hear strands of Minimalism, Folk, Rock, Generative, IDM, Drone, World, Romanticism, Aleatoric, Modern, and Noise Music.
The Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands soundtrack is also now available to stream and download on all major digital music platforms: lnk.to/JoshuaCarro-TTW
Having grown up studying the beautiful and soulful music of the Caribbean and Latin America, lead composer Pedro Bromfman brought his particular experience with stringed Latin instruments to bear on Far Cry 6’s score. He carefully layers Spanish guitar, Cuban tres, Bolivian ronroco and more atop oppressive dark ambient and percussive elements, creating music that evokes a nuanced blend of sadness, anger and hope — contrasting the menace of El Presidente with the spirit of the guerrillas.
The vinyl set includes a selection of diegetic and in-game radio tracks that serve to immerse the player in the vibrant setting of Yara. This in-world body of music is lead by two exceptional composers: Cuban-Canadian jazz master Hilario Duran created faithful Afro-Caribbean street ensemble pieces; while composer-producer Ariel Contreras-Esquivel recorded a real military band for his fictional national anthem “Himno Nacional Yarano” and other militaristic marches.
It was a priority for the Far Cry 6 music team to truthfully represent the latino spirit, and highlight authentic Latin American and Afro-Latin artists from off the beaten path.
All rise out of respect for a venerated series…
To celebrate 20 years since courtroom adventure Ace Attorney began life, the Ace Attorney 20th Anniversary vinyl box set presents a selection of 121 specially remastered tracks from six mainline games in the series: Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, Justice for All, Trials and Tribulations, Apollo Justice, Dual Destinies, and Spirit of Justice.
The record sleeve features gorgeous new illustrations by ultimatemaverickx (DeviantArt profile), the Capcom superfan artist behind Laced Records’ celebrated Mega Man vinyl sleeves.
Resident Evil Village saw the series return to a European rural setting, indulging in all the gothic and grisly trappings associated with classic horror literature, mythical creatures, Grimms' Fairy Tales, and the like. Much of the music leans heavily on an orchestra palette, especially the various spooky, scraping, scratching textures available to string instrumentalists. There are also plenty of thumping, clanking, driving and droning synth and sampled elements present, as well as some extra-creepy uses of voices throughout.
The Village music team was led by veteran Capcom and Resident Evil composer Shusaku Uchiyama and relative newcomer Nao Sato. They were backed up by meaty contributions from Marcin Przybyłowicz for the “Village of Shadows” story book sequence, and Brian D'Oliveira with folk artist Aga Ujma on the woozily wonderful credits song “Yearning for Dark Shadows”.
Tango Gameworks set out to reflect the juxtaposition of modernity and history in Tokyo, where neon high rises and historic temples stand side by side. Composer Masatoshi Yanagi’s goal was to express this unique game world by utilising the three wind instruments of Gagaku (ancient Japanese court music): shō, hichiriki, and ryuteki (dragon flute). He also explored traditional instruments including the shakuhachi (bamboo flute) and the chappa (cymbals), as well as traditional musical scales. These elements intermingle with modern, tenebrous synthesised sounds and distorted waveforms.
Singer EvE performs the disquieting nursery songs that punctuate several of the disc sides, injecting the overall score with a child-like eeriness.
Composer James Duhamel teamed up with the One Take Tigers (the snappy nickname for the audio wizards at Ubisoft Montréal) to create an uneasy and mysterious generative real-time underscore for Extraction. The cue fragments queued up in the game comprise electronic sounds created by rabid synth-collector Duhamel and an array of acoustic instruments recorded by he and the ’Tigers — all synced to the same bpm and key to help the building blocks fit together.
The ‘power trio’ of the score is the octobass, the ondes martenot and the pipe organ, complemented by instruments like the banjo and clarinet, and percussion including angklung and waterphones. And never put it past an audio team to sneak other oddities into a soundscape — with rakes, sword clashes and kitchen utensils serving as percussive sounds.
To mix the soundtrack album from musical fragments for an otherwise randomised game score, the team created a structured musical narrative. The result was an original, immersive album that communicates the mood of the game.
Cody Matthew Johnson and Yoko Honda were deadly serious about the authenticity of the soundtrack, aiming to sonically and spiritually transport players to feudal Japan during the Edo period and beyond, into the depths of Yomi, the land of the dead. They limited themselves in several ways: to the use of period-appropriate instruments such as the shakuhachi, shamisen, biwa, and taiko drums; to certain scales and the musicality of the Edo period; and they especially leaned on the palette of Gagaku, the Japanese classical style, to capture the abstract and transcendent sound of Yomi.
While Johnson used his sound design skills to twist and layer exquisitely hi-fi live recordings of traditional Japanese musicians to create a thicker atmosphere where appropriate, no synthesized elements snuck into the score. The result is an intense, soulful and vibrant album that is, as Honda puts it, “deeply connected to Japanese culture and its magical and anomalous roots.”
The Trek to Yomi soundtrack by Cody Matthew Johnson & Yoko Honda is available to stream and download on Spotify, Apple Music and other major music services: lnk.to/TrekToYomi-Soundtrack
The unique roguelike’s soundtrack pulsates with anxiety, each Gothic-Chiptune track pervaded by a melancholy born of the brave hero’s plight to shatter the endless cycle of despair. Composer, sound and game designer Aleksandr "blinch" Goreslavets uses a simple electronic palette to paint in a hundred shades of grey — with barely a major chord to be found. Amid the gloom, there’s still room for plenty of catchy melodies and a sense of Halloween jocularity, inspired by blinch’s love of the original Castlevania NES trilogy. Loop Hero’s score is beautiful in its forlornness and energising in its more combative moments.
The soundtrack was crafted by two pseudonymous entities: grungy trip-rock howlers Weird Wolves and dark soundscapist Choose Hellth.
Weird Wolves — comprising Weird West’s creative director Raf Colantonio and musical collaborator Ava Gore — fill Side A with scuzzy, sweaty songs that hark back to the late ‘90s, when guitarists set phaser pedals to ‘angst’ and heavy beats nursed heavy hangovers.
Side B belongs to Choose Hellth, the music producer nom de plume of the game’s audio director, industry veteran Matt Piersall. Piersall’s moody songs and score cues bristle with black electronic energy, ebbing and flowing as they help to build the blood-on-the-sandbox atmosphere of the game.
Assassin’s Creed - Leap Into History is a special 5-disc vinyl box set spanning 12 games from the historied series. Listeners will be taken on a truly epic chronological journey through the series’ historical timeline — starting in antiquity with Assassin’s Creed Odyssey and ending in the modern era with Assassin’s Creed Syndicate.
All the composers and musicians that have touched Assassin’s Creed have faced the challenge of enrapturing action-adventure gamers while encapsulating momentous periods of human history. Jesper Kyd — the architect of the series’ musical moodscape — created an iconic sonic signature with “Ezio's Family” from Assassin’s Creed II, an emotive piece about loss and struggle in Renaissance Florence.
Diegetic music increasingly played a role as the game worlds grew richer and more detailed — players fell in love with the sea shanties of Assassin's Creed IV Black Flag. Austin Wintory swerved towards cheeky 19th Century waltzes for Assassin’s Creed Syndicate. Sarah Schachner juxtaposed stunning scenes of ancient Egypt with haunting electronic music elements in the Assassin’s Creed Origins score. And there were few people more qualified to add their voice to Assassin’s Creed Valhalla than verified Viking and scholar of old Norse song, Einar Selvik.
With Hard West, Marcin Przybyłowicz (Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, Cyberpunk 2077) set the mood for the series, employing twanging guitar, pounding drum beats, lonely trumpets and various atmospheric elements. On several of his more anxious cues, snatches of piano, guitar and violin emerge from the echoey fog to keep players on edge, while maintaining the heightened mix of fantasy-horror and Wild West aesthetics.
For Hard West 2, Jason Graves (Dead Space 1&2, Tomb Raider [2013], Dark Pictures Anthology) gets grittier and grungier, while honouring the sound world of the original. Through his spartan use of bass guitar, percussion, and spooky synths, Graves summons a more primal, earthy sound, while still layering in the acoustic and electric guitars we associate with the dark side of the West.
The soundtracks to Hard West and Hard West 2 are available to stream and download from Spotify, Apple Music and other music platforms.
Bloodhunt boasts a sonically rich score sired by acclaimed Polish-Bulgarian composer Atanas Valkov, and featuring the Sofia Session Orchestra & Choir. The city of Prague provided much of the aesthetic inspiration for Bloodhunt’s soundscape: classical and romantic, yet with many a shadowy corner in which a vampire might secrete themselves. Valkov enjoyed creating contrast between modern electronic musical elements and old world ones, as well as layering guitars and using irregular rhythmic structures. The overall soundtrack is both cinematic and brutal.
The soundtrack for Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodhunt by Atanas Valkov is now streaming and downloadable on all major music platforms including Spotify, Apple Music/iTunes, Amazon, and many more: lnk.to/VampireTheMasqueradeBloodhunt
The album is also available to listen to in Dolby Atmos HD Surround where available (including Apple Music, Tidal, and Amazon Music Unlimited.)
Also available to stream are three EPs:
Deon Van Heerden held nothing back in writing for the tongue-in-cheek, run-and-gun action game. His gameplay score is all thumping percussion, melodramatic brass, and lashing of ‘80s hair metal, urging players to bro their hardest and raise those stars and stripes over each level. But it’s through the pastiche songs “Broforce Theme Song” and the “The Ballad of Rambro” that Van Heerden has the most fun satirising the absurdly entertaining yet clearly unhinged jingoism of ’80s & ’90s American action cinema.
Cult of the Lamb’s composer and audio director River Boy (Narayana Johnson) faced the challenge of reflecting the two sides of the game: the safety of the cult’s home base, where marimbas, mallets and other sonically ‘little’ instruments are woven into laid-back lo-fi electronica tracks; and the dungeons, where heavily processed voices and gritty synth elements sit atop dense beats and distorted bass for a darker occult energy.
One of video games’ greatest composers, Inon Zur first worked on a Fallout title over 20 years ago; and, as lead composer since Fallout 3, he has been able to shape the wasteland’s soundworld. For Fallout 76, he complemented the post-apocalyptic visuals of Appalachia with a score full of beauty, nature and space to breathe — tinged with danger and darkness, naturally. Through mysteriously interwoven instrumentation — leaning on strings and woodwinds in particular — Zur captures a sense of camaraderie, hope and rebuilding that is unique to this multiplayer open-world entry in the series.
The Laced team conducted extensive research into track sources; multiple, often conflicting official and fan titles; and track lengths, factoring in things like music loops and gameplay events. Meanwhile, sleeve artist Boris Moncel of Blackmane Design beavered away on terrifying original pieces for this historic release, studying reference points for creatures and locations from a nearly 30-year-old game.
Disc 1 includes the iconic original 1996 soundtrack by Koichi Hiroki, Makoto Tomozawa and Masami Ueda — with a little help from a certain Ludwig van Beethoven. 45 tracks have been painstakingly edited for length, titles confirmed (and in some cases officially newly designated, e.g. “Murder of Crows”) and mastered specially for vinyl.
Discs 2 & 3 are a special treat, constituting a new format release for Resident Evil Soundtrack Remix (originally released in Japan in 1996 as Bio Hazard Sound Track Remix.) Makoto Tomozawa’s 34-track album features rearranged versions of music from the game intermingled with dialogue snippets and sound effects to help fans relive the survival horror experience.
10 years on, neon-soaked indie hit Hotline Miami has become a cultural touchstone in a way that few video games ever achieve — and the electronic soundtracks for both series titles are held up as modern classics that have transcended gaming. At turns brutal and laid-back, pulsating and aimless, coked-up and checked-out, these two ultracool compilations were at the heart of the retro-’80s synthwave scene that swept the Internet over the 2010s.
Music is by the current and former members of the Jagex Audio Team: Grace Docksey, Julian Surma & Stephen Lord. The album is by turns thunderous and haunting, featuring angelic and demonic choral sections, thumping percussion, sweeping orchestral passages, and heavy rock riffage. Lending their voices to multiple tracks are Julie Elven (Horizon Zero Dawn/Forbidden West) up high; and oktavist Eric Holloway (Doom Eternal) down low.
The albums RuneScape: Elder God Wars Dungeon and RuneScape: Echoes of Orthen are now available to stream and download via Spotify, Apple Music and other major music services: lacedrecords.com/collections/
Darktide succeeds Fatshark’s much beloved Vermintide series with brutal co-op action set in the dystopian future of Warhammer 40,000. Composer Jesper Kyd’s many challenges included capturing the pomp and propaganda of the Imperium’s Inquisition; finding a way to represent ‘living machines’ the size of city blocks and thousands of years old in the lore of the game, but still tens of thousands of years more advanced than our own; and finding the sound of the dangerous lower levels of the Underhive.
He spectacularly achieves this with characterful choral and folk instrumental performances layered among all manner of vintage analog synths, giving the whole soundtrack a rusty, mechanical but not robotic feel — all dusty data and grinding grooves. It’s a unique score that sheds the orchestral and electric guitar palettes of other Warhammer titles.
The Warhammer 40,000: Darktide OST is now available to stream and download via Spotify, Apple Music and other major music services: lnk.to/Warhammer40000Darktide
]]>
By Thomas Quillfeldt
With 2015’s Warhammer: End Times - Vermintide and 2018’s Vermintide 2, developer-publisher Fatshark delighted fans with co-op multiplayer gameplay in the lineage of Valve’s Left 4 Dead.
To capture the clash and crunch of the Heroes of Ubersreik’s struggle against the Skaven hordes, Fatshark twice turned to Jesper Kyd. The seasoned video game composer is known for his mastery of acoustic and electronic palettes, and has worked on numerous combat-heavy series including Borderlands and State of Decay.
Photo credit: Ben Bentley
Fatshark and Kyd once more collaborated on the spiritual successor to Vermintide, Warhammer 40,000: Darktide, launched in late 2022.
We caught up with the Danish composer to find out more about his approach to the 40,000 side of the Warhammer universe; how he harnessed his array of analog synths; and explore his sonic contributions to the Assassin’s Creed franchise.
The Warhammer 40,000: Darktide soundtrack album is available to stream and download via music platforms including Spotify and Apple Music: lnk.to/Warhammer40000Darktide
Check availability for the Warhammer 40,000: Darktide triple vinyl, featuring galaxy-effect discs and spot gloss outer sleeve.
Kyd’s Darktide score is a fusion of elements: operatic, pseudo-religious choirs; anthemic pipe organs; mechanical, grinding sounds evoking rusting metal and machines; and more digital-sounding pads and patterns that speak to the far-flung, technology-driven future depicted.
He explains: “The game takes place in the 42nd millennium AD, or 39,000 years into the future of mankind. We wanted to create a score that was very specific to the world, so all the instruments needed to sound like they could be part of this distant future world.
“There are no outside references in the score. We wanted it to sound as unique as possible. The focus on realism meant we avoided popular ingredients used in other Warhammer scores, such as orchestra and electric guitars. This is the philosophy we adopted when creating the Vermintide scores and DLC as well — to create something completely original to the world.
“One of the first things Fatshark mentioned was that they wanted the score to support the setting of Tertium: a giant hive city with billions of inhabitants living inside. The city is full of ancient machines built thousands of years prior to the events of Darktide. At this time, people only know how to maintain these machines the size of city blocks, but not how they actually work. The inhabitants view these machines as something ancient and almost magical — something closer to living machines. Therefore, ‘living machines’ was the first key idea we talked about.
“This is reflected in the score and especially comes into focus on the track "Atoma Prime”, which has a sense of an electronic machine breathing or talking. The performance was created with the most alive and organic synth ever made, the Yamaha CS-80.”
We put it to Kyd that this overall sound could be labelled ‘rustpunk’ — a mixture of rusting metal and far-futurism. He responds: “The score is inspired by cyberpunk culture and sci-fi manga, which are often rooted in mixing unusual music styles to create a unique take on the distant future and the issues of importance in that time period. I mix a lot of acoustic performances, such as unusual live instruments and vocals, with driving electronic basslines and synth performances.
“There’s an underground vibe to much of the score, especially when players go down to the lowest levels — the Underhive — where things get really dangerous. This also fits with the journey of our character, since he/she starts as a ‘reject’ and must work himself/herself up.
“I collaborated with experimental acoustic instrument builder Diego Stocco and we did a lot of unusual live folk performances together such as ‘duelling violins’ and ‘zither vs folk piano’. I believe this is what you are referring to as ‘rustpunk’, which is a great observation. I look at this as a ‘rust-band’ because of the live nature of the performances.”
As a musical instrument, the human voice has long been of significance to Kyd’s career.
Most gamers only need to hear 1-4 notes of “Ezio’s Family” from Assassin’s Creed II (you can hear it in your head already, I bet) to immediately conjure an association between Assassin’s Creed, Jesper Kyd and that ethereal female voice (Melissa Kaplan on the original versions.)
Warhammer 40,000: Darktide is a far cry from the beautiful, bright streets of Florence and Venice, however. To summon the sense of grandiosity required for political organisations like the Imperium and unthinkably giant settings like Atoma Prime, Kyd utilised voices as a powerful recurring musical force in the score.
He says: “The game is full of live recorded voices: both small folk group-inspired voices; and also the Budapest Scoring Choir, which was a joy to work with. The idea to use a choir stems from the journey you go on as an outcast before then being recruited to work for the Imperium. There's an almost religious side to the fanaticism that exists within the people devoted to the Imperium, and the game world is full of Imperium propaganda. Effectively, parts of the score serve as a propaganda tool for the Imperium.”
Photo credit: Ben Bentley
The Darktide score was written using a lot of analog gear, drum machines and modular synths, with Kyd using the popular DAW (digital audio workstation) Cubase to assemble everything. Within Cubase, he added software synths to get the best of both analog and digital instruments.
“I have a huge vintage synth collection, and they were a perfect fit to help create the ancient ‘living machines’ vibe. These 40-year-old electronic instruments are full of aged components that make each one sound unique — they certainly don't sound fresh out of the box!
“It was important to use mostly hardware [as opposed to software-based versions of famous synths] since the organic nature of the score needed to be maintained in all the musical elements. This score has a distinguishable sound of being performed on synths and electronics, instead of everything being perfectly sequenced in a very tight, digital-sounding computer environment.
“One of the leitmotifs, the driving bassline in the main theme, is made with five vintage synths layered up to a 1975 analog sequencer. I love how you can push the ‘vibe’ and get it to a place where the sequence sounds like it's barely holding together; especially when carefully pushing the ‘swing’ to the max. It is its own world, and I love the hi-fi aesthetic of electronic equipment from the 1970s.
“All these elements come together to create a unique take on a dark and distant future. I love working on historically-inspired games and very much look at this score with a familiar point of view — except Darktide takes place in the future!”
Kyd’s background lies in computer music and the 1980s demoscene, coaxing the sound chips of the Commodore 64 (C64) and Amiga to make music.
As video game music changed and became ‘liberated’ (purists may argue ‘diluted’) by the possibilities of Red Book CD audio in the 1990s, so Kyd experimented with different live musical palettes. But he was always building on a solid foundation of electronic music making ability.
“When writing chiptunes on the C64, all we had was three channels to work with. Things sounded so bad that the only way to hook a listener was to write great melodies. Therefore rich melodic writing is part of my DNA — and continues to be so. On the Amiga, all we had was four sample channels — which birthed the tracker music style — so I learned everything about creating music with samplers.
“Then the rave scene [of the early 1990s] happened and many of my first game soundtracks were rave music-inspired, including The Adventures of Batman and Robin (which I wrote when I was 21 years old) and, later, Scorcher, MDK2 and Messiah.”
Although gamers might not immediately identify him as being a ‘groovy’ composer, Kyd has injected plenty of his cues with an identifiable swinging syncopation built around an insistent four-to-the-floor pulse.
“I went through most of the dance music styles and wrote entire albums’ worth of music in each style. Techno, Trance, House, Breakbeat, etc. I've always had a soft spot for writing detailed beats and percussion. Whenever there's an opportunity to bring that out, for instance in Darktide or recently Borderlands 3, I go full steam ahead!”
His favourite electronic music artists of the last few decades include many of the pioneers of synth-based music such as Vangelis (Blade Runner), Jean-Michel Jarre and Mike Oldfield; as well as Ryuichi Sakamoto, Haruomi Hosono and their hugely influential Japanese group Yellow Magic Orchestra.
“Of course, growing up in the 1980s in Europe, I was also influenced by Trevor Horn, who produced Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Grace Jones and Art of Noise, among others. Just great stuff that brought the world of sampling to the masses.” Kyd’s later electronic favourites include Röyksopp, Avicii and Daft Punk.
An awful lot of video game music is electronically produced. Understandably, that’s as much because of time, cost and practical efficiencies as musical taste. But even within the realm of purely electronic music, there’s infinite scope for creativity. Arguably, players — and perhaps even some developers — might not fully appreciate the possibilities available across analog and digital palettes.
The tide may have turned though, Kyd muses: “I do feel great electronic scores get noticed and respected. I think after DOOM (2016) [scored by Mick Gordon] came out and became mainstream, it helped carve a way for really good electronic soundtracks to get more respect. Perhaps DOOM reminded people that the most important thing is how well the music fits the game, not what music style it is.”
“There’s a lot of attention paid towards orchestral music. However, I feel a lot of orchestral music sounds almost the same — a lot of melodies and writing methods reused over and over. It makes complete sense, especially when films and TV shows are often temped [directors and editors editing scenes to pre-existing ‘temp’ music] with the same popular soundtracks that end up sending composers down similar, well-trodden paths. I don't receive temp music scores when writing for games, which leaves a lot of room for creativity.
“Electronic music is really hard to do well, and super easy to do in a mediocre way. Any composer can load up a software synth and have great electronic sounds at their fingertips, but this doesn’t mean they understand how to write great electronic music. If you've never enjoyed dance music, you can't just load up some beats and make an award-winning electronic music album.”
“Of course, these things can all be learned and the most important thing is to have passion. I have passion for the orchestra and electronic music equally, and that works for me. I tend to go back and forth between electronic-driven and orchestra-driven scores — although my next two scores are both orchestral scores. I especially like to blend those styles together, since that's the hardest thing to do, for me. It's two different writing methods battling each other, but once you figure out the blending that works the music tends to become unique, and I'm often surprised at the end result.
I don't respect one music style more than the other. To me, a great score is a great score, regardless of music style.”
Somewhat provocatively, we ponder whether some gamers and parts of the industry ought to move on from their nostalgia for the electronic sounds of the 8-bit and 16-bit console era in order for electronic-led video game music to progress.
Kyd pushes back: “Retro-styled games such as FEZ are pieces of art. The games and soundtracks are inspired by the design and music of the C64, the Game Boy, and so on; but they mix this with modern creative approaches to produce a fusion that celebrates a more minimal game style.
“Not everything needs to be as complex and cutting-edge as possible. A lot of fresh ideas are injected into the industry with these types of games, usually made by very small teams. There’s a reason why games like FEZ are so popular.”
“Also, I feel the music in retro and indie games is sometimes more memorable than some of the big video game franchises. When listening to music, for me, it's all about melody and atmosphere. Both are equals and both need to be great. Not a lot of music does both. Usually there's either a focus on impressing the listener or creating memorable melodic depth. Game soundtracks from the 1980s and ’90s had much more melody than soundtracks typically do today. The foundation of my music style is to try to work that balance between writing modern music and interjecting it with a lot of rich melodies.”
Kyd points out that Darktide is more of an action game than the exploration-focused Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, for example. “The Darktide music therefore needed to be more immediate and full of pulses and heavy atmospheres. From the Horde music when you are attacked by huge crowds; to the Imperium missions that incorporate epic choir performances, the music sets the tone for a dystopian world.”
“The world of Warhammer is extreme, with slogans such as ‘There is only War’. Things are usually dialled up to 11, and that’s reflected here too, especially in an action game score.”
While certainly ‘grimdark’, Darktide isn't a horror game. And the world of Warhammer 40,000 is not so self-serious that players can't have a bunch of co-op fun with friends, even in the face of oppressive empires, hulking megastructures and freakish enemy hordes.
Kyd explains: “I was never meant to come in and write a score that scared players or even followed a strict storyline. It's about taking everything that's in this world and bringing it to life with music.
“There needs to be a musical accompaniment for all the different emotions and gameplay moments, so it's a broader view musically — a view that warrants a lot of research and balance. This is one of those things that makes video games unique and so fun to score. It's a totally different approach. In some ways, there's more room to go super deep into the lore than with other entertainment media.
“Once I get knee-deep in a score, everything I write sounds like it fits inside that world. Even if a cue doesn’t fit perfectly with the moment it's originally written for, it always ends up getting used somewhere, because I have entered Tertium [for the duration of the project] and everything I write is for the Emperor!”
At the time of publishing, Ubisoft has been celebrating 15 years of Assassin’s Creed, with the franchise having grown into a gaming mainstay whose brand recognition puts it in the company of Grand Theft Auto and Call of Duty.
Kyd was the sole composer for the first three mainline Assassin’s Creed games (Assassin’s Creed, II, and Brotherhood) and co-composer for the fourth (Revelations), his music helping to lay the aesthetic foundations of the series. After a break of nearly a decade, he returned as co-composer for 2020’s Assassin’s Creed Valhalla.
The soundtrack to 2007’s Assassin’s Creed and 2009’s Assassin’s Creed II in particular captured the juxtapositions at the heart of the franchise: between advanced technology (as conceived of in the early C21st) and chronicled history; between the political intrigues of historical figures and untouchable deific aliens; between grisly back-alley assassinations and spectacular architectural sights.
Kyd recalls: “When this idea was first presented to me by the team [futuristic technology and abridged historical settings] I immediately resonated with it. Not only was it a great concept, but it also opened up the idea that history could be the playground of Assassin’s Creed. It was very important to the team that the Animus reminded us we were playing through a simulation, and this needed to be clearly communicated in the atmosphere of the game, including the score.
“I came up with the idea of not just mixing electronic sounds into the score because it was a sci-fi game but actually having a treatment for the music rooted in the story of the world. That idea became what I refer to as the ‘Animus filter’, a technique where historical instruments that fit the time period would be filtered in a modern way. For example, female vocals sounded unusual and ‘treated’ with the Animus effect.”
“It's an effect that I have used on all my Assassin’s Creed scores, especially in Assassin’s Creed Valhalla where the entire score is devoid of electronic instruments. The soundtrack is grounded in live performances played on ancient historical instruments, which I mostly performed myself this time. The performances were then heavily treated and filtered in order to add a lot of atmosphere, and to give a more spiritual feeling in honour of all the Viking gods that were so close to the heart of their culture.”
Just as voices are an important textural element for Kyd, so too is the bold, artistic use of reverb effects during the mixing process is of crucial importance to achieving the right sound.
Instrument to instrument, Darktide contains extremes of ‘dry’ and ‘wet’ elements (more or less reverb in the mix), and bigger or shorter reverb ‘tails’ (evoking larger or smaller spaces in which sound might echo). In general, Kyd’s Assassin’s Creed cues tend to feel like they have more ‘air’ in them, achieved through ‘wetter’ reverb mixing with longer ‘tails’, suggesting large spaces such as cathedrals, catacombs, and so on.
Kyd responds: “I’ve always been interested in atmospheric music. The ‘air’ approach came from the game itself. The early Assassin’s Creed II tests I was shown featured a highly atmospheric world with a focus on romantic settings and lighting. It was an unusual approach for a game where you play an assassin; but, then again, Ezio is not your typical [violent killer] character either. I knew right away the score would have to be very emotional to be able to not only match but actually enhance the deeply atmospheric nature of the game world. Ezio is such a free spirit that I just ran with this idea, fully supported with total creative freedom by the development team.”
“After the huge success of the original Assassin’s Creed, the team really set me free from the more restrained approach on that first game, where a lot of focus was placed on inventing all these core musical concepts, and also supporting the many new gameplay types through music.
“With Assassin’s Creed 2 I was free to completely focus on the setting and the story of Ezio. That creative freedom resulted in a unique score, as well as “Ezio's Family”. It's one of the best experiences I've had writing a score. It's amazing to think back on this period — going back to write Assassin’s Creed Valhalla felt like coming home, in a sense.”
The Assassin’s Creed Symphonic Adventure concert tour, part of the 15th anniversary celebrations, features music from across the series. Kyd created the “From The Depths of History” Overture specially for the programme, saying: “It was delightful to write. I’ve been involved with a lot of the orchestral suites of my music that are currently being played worldwide, from the ‘Ezio's Family Suite’ to the ‘Hitman Suite’.”
“I take great pride in putting these together with my team. When writing music for the orchestra, it's very different in the sense that what you are hearing is not going to be the final sound of the score. It's going to be performed by a group of musicians and each and every note needs to be in perfect harmony with each other. Or perfect disharmony. But everything you do needs to be done with purpose and total conviction. Whereas my more sonically unique scores can come from a place of total experimentation, where the orchestra or live instruments play a more supporting role.
“It's always exciting to hear my music performed live by a group of musicians interpreting the ideas written down on paper. It's a beautiful thing.”
Jesper Kyd is a video game composer - www.jesperkyd.com | Spotify Artist Profile | Twitter.com/JesperKyd | Facebook.com/JesperKydOfficial | Instagram.com/kyd.jesper | Youtube.com/@jesperkyd
The Warhammer 40,000: Darktide soundtrack album is available to stream and download via all major music platforms: lnk.to/Warhammer40000Darktide
Check availability for the Warhammer 40,000: Darktide triple vinyl, featuring galaxy-effect discs and spot gloss outer sleeve.
Check availability for the Assassin’s Creed - Leap Into History 5LP box set, featuring a selection of 70 favourites from 12 mainline titles.
Find out more about the Assassin’s Creed Symphonic Adventure - assassinscreedsymphonicadventure.com
]]>It may be belated (by a whole year!) but we finally got round to properly lighting the candles on our 5th birthday cake, getting some repress orders in stock, and checking the warehouse shelves for fantastic titles to put back on sale — including a bunch of long sold-out Limited Edition sets!
Find the full list below...
We have repressed black vinyl/Standard Editions of some of our most beloved and long sold-out titles, including both Mega Man box sets with their eye-popping artwork; three mainline Resident Evil standard editions; and three musically diverse soundtracks from across our varied catalogue.
• BloodborneAs the Summer draws to a close for the Laced crew here in the UK, we have quite literally taken stock and found some amazing titles to put back on the stores including long sold-out limited editions.
(PLEASE NOTE: There may be 🚨extremely low numbers of some items🚨 and these are likely to have sold out very quickly after the on-sale date and time)
Need a heavy-duty bag, perfect for totin' around your fresh box set? Or something to keep your wax snugly in place?
These will also go on sale this Thursday.
For more info about shipping, checkout and other issues, head to our FAQ page.
Please email us at hello@lacedmusic.com if you have any questions.
]]>The frontier can be a lonely place.
For years, Olivier Derivière has been a pioneering advocate for a tighter connection between gameplay and music in video games.
With his words — shared at conference sessions, on social media, and beyond — he’s encouraged and educated others about the possibilities of interactive music. He’s even coined a term: Hybrid Interactive Music (HIM) to refer to an approach that combines interactive live recording and real-time generated music.
With his work he’s always been at the forefront of music design, while being no slouch when it comes to composition and production. Classically trained but with a deep love of electronic music, he has enjoyed confounding expectations, even if it’s led to a certain amount of angoisse for the French musician from time to time.
We spoke to Derivière in late February 2022, with Dying Light 2 players having had the game at their fingertips for a few weeks. After a three-year development process, he was keen that the radically responsive music design of his first AAA project would inspire and resonate with industry peers, critics and, most importantly, players.
Fortunately, the evidence is in that millions have enjoyed the thrill of the impeccably interactive parkour music as they traverse the rooftops of Villedor.
Even before that, ours and many others’ imaginations had been fired by things like his fascinating Wwise presentations about Remember Me fight music; and been enraptured by the beautiful, daring, and above all responsive scores for Get Even, A Plague Tale: Innocence and more.
Derivière speaks about being possibly the most proactive composer a fanbase has ever interacted with; what makes continental European games feel the way they do; feeling syndrome de l'imposteur in the rage-filled streets; and why a track might be too ‘easy’ for inclusion on a vinyl soundtrack.
Open world parkour-action game Dying Light 2 is set in a post-apocalyptic world hit by a viral outbreak. A vision of the ‘Modern Dark Ages’, the story revolves around themes of devastation, loss and isolation as the remnants of humanity fight for survival and search for hope through unity.
For the score, Derivière collaborated with the London Contemporary Orchestra for more traditional recorded elements. He also turned to instrument-maker Nicolas Bras to construct an intentionally “broken-sounding” stringed instrument (the ‘Electric Psaltery’) out of junk materials, with which Derivière could steer layers of rhythmic electronic synth elements. Ultimately, he blended and manipulated everything as necessary to enhance player immersion and emotional response.
Multiple factors in the game affect how the soundtrack is expressed for each player: location, in-game factions, player choices, main quest activation, combat status, effectiveness at parkour traversal, and more.
As with Hello Games and No Man’s Sky, Techland built itself a rock solid reputation with 2015’s Dying Light as a generous-of-spirit developer that effectively listens to player feedback and services its (predominantly single-player) game accordingly.
In that vein, Derivière could regularly be found on Twitter around Dying Light 2’s release fervently engaging with the player base, enquiring about people’s experiences of the music and trying to unearth any feedback, positive or negative.
He remarks: “Working on a game like this is a totally different experience for me because it lives on after release. The game is so massive that, as a creator, you can't go through everything and know exactly how it's all working. I've been playing for more than 2,000 hours, but in such a way that it's not the same hours experienced by players right now [around launch.] I wanted to know where it was great and why, and what's less effective [music-wise] because I can fix that, I can improve, I can learn where I've missed a spot.
“It’s an amazing opportunity [for creators] to be able to extend and enhance — and only video games can do that. A director’s cut for a movie can do it, but that’s more about themselves. [This is] more about the gamers: if there is a frustration or something they really want to have, we can provide them that, so let’s do it!”
He’s clearly lapped up the response: “There are many things that I can improve right away and I will do. The first thing players were asking for was for me to add more tracks to the soundtrack album. Other things included: ‘I wish this piece of parkour music played more often’ or that ‘this combat music was a bit more varied’. I’m not taking everything being said as something to act on, but [there’s plenty of feedback] that I understand, that’s valid, where I think they’re right.”
There are a range of development roles — including creative director, audio director and audio programmers — that need to collaborate with a composer to get the best music results in a video game.
Since Derivière is a cutting-edge music designer that makes challenging, experimental music, he’s always on the hunt for — and being hunted by — developers willing to trust and embrace his approach. He says of collaborating on interactive music: “There’s no one way of doing it, which is what I like about it.
“When [Dying Light 2 developer] Techland approached me to do the music, I asked who was doing the music system. They replied: ‘Umm, we could do it?’ I offered to help — and they let me do it! The level of trust they gave me was so high that I couldn't [afford to] fail. I couldn't not take the opportunity to do something crazy and try something that nobody has done in an open world.
“When I'm working with directors and they make the music system, I'm there to help because I understand their problems and the limitations. For instance, with Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag - Freedom Cry, one day the music supervisor called me with the game director: ‘Something's weird! We know the music system is not supposed to follow the action, but the music does!’ I replied: ‘because I know the music system and I know what [section the music supervisor is playing] and I know when it's playing. So I've made the music do stuff — such as fighting — [to make it] feel on cue.”“That's the sort of collaboration that is great, when the composer better understands the way games are being made.”
From the club-inspired electronic dance music of Streets of Rage 4 to the pulse-pounding, four-to-the-floor parkour music of Dying Light 2, part of Derivière’s job on recent projects has been to propel the player forward.
But there are important differences between the encouragement of motion found within his scores. He explains: “The role of the music in Streets of Rage 4 is to push you.”
“In Dying Light 2, if you stop running, the music stops. Therefore the music is about you, not about pushing you.
“The biggest challenge for me is that in Dying Light 2, I wanted to give players the freedom of their actions without pushing for each specific one, but as long as they were doing one, I would help them. ‘I'm here for you, but if you stop, I'll stop, don't worry.’”
He jokes that he’s a “sneaky boy”, however. “If you're going to just run, I'm not going to do much — the music will stay in this atmospheric soundscape. But if you start jumping and doing special parkour moves, then the music will rise and rise. At some point, if you're doing it for long enough or well enough, then the music will really kick in and you will feel the adrenaline.
“I can tell — because players are sending me tons of emails — that this makes them not stop running, parkouring. Like ‘I don't want to stop! This is so good!’”
A core part of the Dying Light 2 design is that the ‘street level means death’ and, by extension, parkouring over the rooftops means escape, life, and freedom. “That's exactly what we want players to feel,” says Derivière. “Whether it’s in Dying Light 2 or Assassin’s Creed or all of these games with parkour, some players might travel at street level and never engage with the parkour, so rewarding parkour is [having such a huge effect] that players are going up to the rooftops.”
Player movement was far from the only variable influencing the music state. He admits: “The part that took me most of my time and really made me crazy… Everything changes musically if you are in the main quest, but the main quest is still part of the open world. Therefore, we had to know what you're doing, where you're doing it in the map, when you're doing that, and have the music respond.
“For example, we might kill the parkour music of the open world to make something more about the main quest moment-to-moment, because now we're back into a very scripted section of the game. Since Dying Light 2 is open world though, the player might choose to leave the quest… then later go back in the middle of the quest — and the music will follow everything!
“This is something I did and I'm not sure it was worth it — but I had to do it! Truly. The GameSpot review really made me think that I was right in doing it. That was my win. People don't realise but, in an open world, this is amazing.”
Mark Delaney, GameSpot: “No matter what you're doing… the soundtrack masterfully reacts to every step in a way I've not seen done in games before. The dynamic music… shifts from story to side mission to open-world exploration without missing a beat, even going so far as to let the air out of the soundtrack whenever you take a jump, helping to give you that rollercoaster-like sense of weightlessness. Strangely enough, the music ends up creating a much stronger sense of atmosphere and consequences within Dying Light 2 than its story.” - https://www.gamespot.com/reviews/dying-light-2-review-look-before-you-leap/1900-6417819/
Picture credit: blog.audiokinetic.com/fr/music-for-games-should-be-more-than-just-music-part-2
There are certain composer talks and tutorials gamers and especially game music fans should take the time to check out so that they might better understand some of the tools, techniques and possibilities of the field.
For years, Derivière has been educating and expounding about the intricacies and virtues of interactive music at professional conferences or simply on social media. His dedication to the cause is so complete, he struggled through (what was at the time unbeknownst to him) appendicitis to share his wisdom about Remember Me’s score at GDC 2014, although he probably prefers people check out his own uploaded tutorial.
He says: “I've been advocating for interactive music for decades, and I’m happy to push in this direction… I've made as much substantial music for games [as I can] which is interactive music. I think it's very difficult for people to understand how important it is… and the audience don’t realise what a game-changer it is. As an advocate [of interactive music in game] it has felt very lonely for the last 20 years.”
One trouble for innovators is a lack of peers to compare notes with and see whether one is treading the right path. Derivière cites Mick Gordon as a fellow composer striving to make players feel at one with a game aided by reactive music (Laced With Wax recommends Gordon’s GDC talk “DOOM: Behind the Music” as especially inspiring.)
As well as seeking feedback around the release of Dying Light 2, Derivière could also be found posting examples exploring the possibilities of interactive music:
He’s adamant that people should remain focused on improving how music works within the game for players, preferring that people ask him about this than music-specific tools and inspiration. “The important thing is not about the music. It's about how [composers and developers] collaborate. It's about how you create systems.DL2 music secret #28
— Olivier Deriviere (@oderiviere) February 1, 2022
In stealth (they haven't spotted you, or are suspicious),
- The closer you get to an enemy, an additional sound
- The closer they get to your position, the bigger the tension
So you can close your eyes and just by listening you will know what is going on. pic.twitter.com/WIXE90xDIH
“It was a three year process on Dying Light 2. I wasn’t on the beach thinking about zombies and writing music on my laptop. I was playing 2,000 hours of the game.
“In games we have improved on everything: AI, lighting, physics, polygon counts, etc. And with music, we're still [stuck simply] adding or removing layers depending on what's going on, and if something happens, we switch to the next music. I’m like ‘man, it's been X years, come on!’”
“I want to encourage the notion that interactive game music is the ultimate language we need to create and learn — that we need to go on this road together. We need to tune and craft around that, because it's for the gamers.
“It’s no longer about writing the perfect theme, because theme writing is already amazing. Now it's about how it acts on the game and what you will do with that. This is more important to me than anything else.”
One might forgive composers of all experience levels for feeling intimidated by the sheer amount of disciplines and technical tools to learn: music theory & orchestration, digital audio workstations (Logic, Pro Tools, etc.), production and mixing techniques, plug-ins and virtual instrument patches, MIDI controllers, and so on.
Interactive audio middleware programs (including Audiokinetic’s Wwise or Firelight Technologies’ FMOD) and how they practically fit into game development, make up an additional layer of things to learn. With them come additional opportunities and challenges.
Derivière is sanguine though: “People fear Wwise. They look at it and go ‘oh my gosh, it looks terrifying,’ which I understand. But, once you get it, it's very easy and now that's the next level.
“It's not because you know about harmony, counterpoint or technology that you can create great stuff. To me, technology has never been the limitation. The limitation for me is much more one’s own ‘creative mind.’ How do you use the technology?”
“Wwise is so easy to master, I don't understand why younger composers aren’t laughing at me, like ‘oh, you're doing this? This is so limited!’ and creating something that is completely out of the box.”
As you may have gathered, Derivière is experimental by nature and he explicitly rejects nostalgia as something that creatively motivates him.
He posits: “While it’s not easy to produce great music, it is relatively easy to reference a style that people like from a game they enjoyed [in the past]: like arcade music, old Japanese game music, or fantasy themes,” alluding to the nostalgia that seems to drive a lot of aesthetic choices across the industry. “This is fair, this is good. I've been through the same sort of pattern [of taste forming] with games and movies and everything.
“But now I'm an older guy, and with the games I'm scoring I’m trying to make the music singular or weird in some way — music that’s difficult most of the time. Even for Streets of Rage 4 [as a game harking back to the ’90s] if you listen to my tracks, they’re crazy in a way that you wouldn’t expect.
“I don't speak much about the [musical content] because music speaks for itself. Everybody will feel the music differently. The music is here to serve the game, and the best way to do that is not by talking about the composition but the music implementation. That's why I advocate [for better interactive music.]”
While he’s worked on all sizes of video game, Derivière has generally plied his trade in the so-called ‘double-A’ or mid-budget space, where that experimentalism has been nurtured by trusting developers. But Dying Light 2 is a bona fide AAA title despite not having a ‘major’ publisher behind it, representing perhaps the best opportunity he’s yet had to reach a large audience. The game sold 5 million copies during its launch month alone, on top of the first Dying Light selling 20 million copies as of April 2022 (Game Developer).
“I'm the type of composer who likes to say ‘can we go and experiment?’ and when you can do that on a AAA game it says a lot about how this industry can somehow be on the verge of creating new worlds, universes, inventions.
“I've been using words [through talks and advocacy] forever, and I've been doing [interactive audio] on all the games I've been working on. [At the moment] the best way for me to advocate is to show, and this is what I did for the parkour music, the fight music, and for the narrative music in Dying Light 2. Everything is there. There are so many moments that players are talking about… and the music is always following their actions. That's the best argument I can make. So I’m looking forward to seeing if this will make any difference for the industry to realise that ‘oh my God — players were receptive to those things.’
“I was watching theRadBrad play through the whole game, and he kept saying ‘the soundtrack is making this, the soundtrack is making this game’. I was very happy not because of my music. It's more about the feeling that players are having when they're playing [enabled by] the fact that the music is connected to what they're doing. And they know it.”
While the Paris-based Derivière has worked with a few US- and Canada-based teams, perhaps his best known work to date has been with developers based in mainland Europe: in France, Asobo Studio (A Plague Tale), Don’t Nod (formerly Dontnod, responsible for Vampyr) and Spiders (GreedFall); and in Poland, Techland (Dying Light 2) and The Farm 51 (Get Even.)
Those recent credits also share a seriousness of tone and topic. Polish cultural works, including video games of course, are known for their shades of grey (literal and figurative), exploring moral complexities and tackling the most weighty of subject matter; Get Even and Dying Light 2 are no exceptions. French-developed titles A Plague Tale: Innocence & sequel Requiem, GreedFall and Vampyr aren’t exactly about rainbows and fluffy bunnies either (although an earlier Derivière credit, 2006’s My Little Flufties aka AniMates, is on the fluffier side of things 🐰)
The composer is happiest when collaborating with developers that think deeply about the aesthetic and emotional content of a game, but he feels that the industry as a whole has a way to go when it comes to the maturity of the medium: “We're not there yet. We may have touched some masterpieces here and there, but we're not at the level of what the movies or literature went through, for instance. A masterpiece is something that will last through the ages, so history will tell.”
That’s not to say that gritty, dour theming or choosing grim historical periods as backdrops automatically confer artistic maturity. It’s just that, in the course of the interview, we touched on the sophistication and breadth of expression of the medium, and also the maturity of the themes tackled in the work itself.
In terms of what his aim is with his own work, he says: “My music tends to be about more complex stuff within the games. There’s a lot going on in my music that people don't really realise, but I don't care. This is the maturity that I think the medium will achieve as we're getting older, because I'm not here to just entertain.
“Also the maturity of the discourse [is lacking] at least on the surface in the game industry, in the way that we pre-suppose that games are for kids, for instance, or just about Call of Duty and FIFA. The mass audience outside of the [games bubble] don't think that video games can be as profound as they are already capable of being. There are many, many games about… aspects of our own lives as human beings, because games are increasingly a way of expressing yourself.”
Speaking about how continental European games may differ, Derivière says: “Europeans have a certain sensitivity, and European culture is [distinct in many aspects.] I’m [currently] working with an American publisher, and the game they're making is unique in some ways. They approached me because of that. [Having said that] video games development is very international. It’s a blend of so many inspirations.
“If you look at A Plague Tale, the developer [Asobo] and the publisher [Focus Entertainment] are French and the game takes place in 14th Century France. These are the types of games that I was waiting for when I was doing, for instance, Alone in the Dark [a 2008 reboot developed by Eden Studios in Lyon, France]. At the time I was like, ‘why are we setting the game in New York? It's gonna feel off for a lot of people.’ It's the same when Americans used to set video game scenes in Paris — it doesn't feel right. So, yes, the sensitivity is good.
“A lot of games are set in fantasy worlds and this invites us to get away from reality, but there’s also more of a blend and a mix now among developers. You see Ghost of Tsushima set in Japan but made by Sucker Punch Productions [based in the US]; or Sifu [set in modern-day China, developed by French studio Sloclap.] It’s more multicultural — I know that there could be some controversies — but I like the fact that we’re artists, and being influenced by everything in the world right now. It’s very global. I don't see any harm in being influenced — and being true to these influences.”
Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag - Freedom Cry features a story interwoven with the Caribbean Sea slave trade. Derivière recalls: “I went and recorded Haitian musicians performing their own music. I was influenced by this, respectfully, and everything was tailored around this respect. I didn’t know anything about that music beforehand. That’s video games to me.”
“For some games, like A Plague Tale, if it takes place in France then you may want the developers to be [based in France] to do it right, but even with Ghost of Tsushima — some of the developers were appointed ambassadors of the actual island of Tsushima. The people there cheered on the game, which is amazing.”
With notable exceptions, Derivière’s soundtracks have generally been oriented around orchestral instruments and the choir, with significant electronic elements introduced as necessary and the bold manipulation of sound using production techniques and effects.
He recalls that, at the start of his career, he was known as the “vocal guy” because of his use of choirs. “Then, as my career progressed, I could hire real orchestras.” He bristles at the idea of ‘electro-orchestral’ being a useful descriptor of his approach. “You can label me if you want to as somebody that likes to use computers with live musicians, but not in a hybrid sense where there’s ‘electro’ on one side and ‘orchestral’ on the other side.“Everything is an instrument for me. It's the blend of the two. If you listen carefully to “Father” from A Plague Tale: Innocence, at the end of the cue [from ~1:55] there is melody going on with the nyckelharpa, which is a Swedish medieval instrument. People don't realise there is a synth playing the same notes at the same pitch. They don't hear it, but if you pay attention…”
“That's what I'm doing all the time. I'm using synth and electronics to blend with the live musicians. Sometimes not to be heard, but to give a sense of texture and colour. Sometimes, of course, just to screw up everything!
“I've never felt limited by any creative directors or audio directors in terms of the choice of colours and instruments. And I've been trying things out that, when we were initially talking about them, I had no idea how to do them!
“Video games are exactly what the creative like me would dream of, which is freedom of experimentation…with budget backing it up. For example, ‘we need to go and record the London Contemporary Orchestra at Abbey Road Studios to get this weird orchestral sound that will be completely different from other orchestras.’ ‘Ok, let's do it!’”
Derivière also gives the example of Remember Me, where he was able to record a world-class orchestra only to then “screw up everything” by introducing filtering and glitching effects over the final mixes to add a layer of futurism to an otherwise old-world sound.
“Only in games [could I be allowed to try this.] And the people I'm working with are always world-class people. For A Plague Tale it’s the Ensemble intercontemporain — the orchestra of leading avant garde composer Pierre Boulez. The techniques they can perform…
“If you look at any games using cello, it's going to be 99.9% [playing something] lush and melodic. But listen to A Plague Tale: Innocence and it’s like ‘what the f***??’”
In particular, the last part of “The Killing” is remarkable for what Derivière fondly terms “screaming cello”:
The games Derivière tends to work on afford plenty of dramatic musical opportunities to deploy soloists and pure solos in the score, drawing the listener close.
“For me it's all about colours, scale and purpose. Take Vampyr, for instance. The creative director was talking about the world of post-World War 1 London, and wanted something very industrial — and I was thinking of something echoing into the streets. The main character is this doctor who turns into a vampire, and it was just this one guy. So you already hear it [using a solo instrument to represent the main character.] I thought it would be good to use the cello because it’s very close to the human voice, in terms of tenors and baritones.”
Cellist Eric Maria Couturier performed on A Plague Tale: Innocence, Vampyr and Dying Light 2 soundtracks for Derivière, summoning a ferocity or forlornness appropriate to the respective tones of the games. “The way he is doing sound is very interesting for me,” says Derivière. “It’s unbelievable what I’m [able to do] with the quality of the people performing, recording, and mixing — to have that nowadays.”
“Also, what type of performer [is important]. You always want to look at any group of instruments or soloist as a voice — as the sound that you want to translate into the experience. With the big orchestra, you can have a very big emotional impact on the player, as much as one soloist can. It just depends on how you want to translate this. That's why the substance of the game is key for me in deciding why to use a soloist or an orchestra or synth, or whatever else.”
Various of the Dying Light 2 cues feature solo instruments. He explains: “For “Aiden”, the character is lonely and he’s broken.”
“For “Mia” it’s actually the same music but it’s performed by fragmented shadows…”
“Any music I'm writing has a meaningful purpose. It's not like ‘oh, we need background music or we need to accompany…’ no, I've never done that. Never. So soloists are important, but as much as they are key for one purpose, anything in music is key for the purpose you're serving.
“The idea of having an orchestra was not there at the beginning of Dying Light 2 development. But the more we were going through, the more I thought that it's about humans, and we want to have this emotional journey. You can take as many synths as you want — and I know people like Vangelis could do magical stuff with melodies on synths — but man, when strings are playing those things… This is our culture, this is the Western culture. It speaks to the heart. It's like voices. Voices speak to the soul. It's very important to identify what colours you want for your game.”
It might have come as a surprise to some to see Olivier Derivière’s name attached to Streets of Rage 4 as a primary composer alongside original trilogy heroes Yuzo Koshiro and Motohiro Kawashima, and others including Harumi Fujita (Final Fight, Mega Man 3.) As Cyrille Imbert, Executive Producer on the game puts it though, Derivière was hired because he understands “the perfect fusion between music and gameplay.”
On the original soundtrack album, he delivers a meaty 17 of the 33 tracks, completely departing from his recent work to that point genre-wise. Indeed, he jokes that he wishes he could have worked on the game under a pseudonym.
He got the gig via a games conference long before the game had been announced as ‘in development’. “It was late at night and [I was having a theoretical discussion] with a friend about what a fourth Streets of Rage game might look like. 15 minutes later, this guy that I don't know comes to me and he's like ‘I want you to work on my next game.’ I replied: ‘Riiiight… Who are you?’ He shows me an unreleased trailer that was coming out in two days’ time — and it’s Streets of Rage 4! I'm like ‘is this a prank?’”
As it turned out, the composer-botherer was Cyrille Imbert. “He got back to me with the full details and confirmed they wanted me to do the music. I really didn't get it — it didn’t make sense after Get Even. For the first time in years I pitched, but this time I asked to pitch to see if it fitted for them. I told myself: ‘Do something crazy-ass!’ “They listened at my studio and said ‘that's amazing’, and then I felt ‘oh, they're crazy… So we may find a good collaboration!’
“The condition was that I would only do it if Yuzo Koshiro was going to collaborate and provide, for instance, the main title. For me, it would have been a career mistake to take over without that. I have to respect — he is a legend. For a long time I was wondering: should I change my name on the credits? It was a long conversation with them.
“That’s how we ended up with this idea of having me doing all the levels and having guests for each boss. Also, of having Koshiro’s music starting the game, and then when a car crashes during the first level, BOOM! — this is me.”
When Derivière talks about getting ‘crazy’, he means to follow one’s gut: “Not thinking. I was sort of frozen at some point before I really started [on Streets of Rage 4.] I was like, ‘I don't know what to do.’ And the fans were asking and pushing for Yuzo, and Dotemu had made a video announcing Yuzo was there.
“Yuzo was talking about even he didn’t really know what Streets of Rage music was, and about taking inspiration from club music — and then it clicked. I drew on my huge love of electronic music over the last 25 years. I’ve listened to everything by Aphex Twin. Everything is part of my background, and this is why I think I can merge electronic music with orchestral so easily. So I went through all of these club genres — and I just did it.”
Derivière pays tribute to the mighty Richard David James with the track “Aphex Train”.
Black Screen Records put together the double LP for Dying Light 2.
For composers, creating the final track mixes for soundtrack albums is just another stage of the work of video games music (although not all are involved with every part of the process, e.g. sequencing, mastering, etc.) Around the time of the interview, Derivière was still furiously busy working on the game: “It was very difficult for me to find time to make the soundtrack. Also, the music was not [neatly arranged into] cue 1, cue 2, etc. — it was fragments all over the place. It's hours and hours of separate [pieces] of everything because, in the game, everything is separated and you can randomly trigger so many things.
“I'm always happy to build a soundtrack, though. To me, the first vinyl release is the one, the substance. That's the soundtrack. Then it's like, ‘yeah... there’s more material that could be part of the soundtrack.’Everything is there without any [redundant] atmospheric music,
“When I did the first level in Dying Light 2, there is this synth-based atmospheric music called “New Beginnings”. It's not on the vinyl, because I didn't think it was worth it at the time.”
“Later, I was playing the game and thought ‘oh my god, 100% of the people who bought the game will hear this.’ It’s melancholic, and I know people will like this music because it's easy to make music like this. I felt bad putting this onto the vinyl even more because I felt I was cheating — like it's too easy! What I did was put it at the end of the Spotify album as the last cue because I added it at the very last moment, like ‘ah, okay, let's do it.’
“Doing soundtracks for me is interesting because I can sort of create the story arc, but most of the music I don't think people listen to that. I don't think they're interested.
“Dying Light 2 is the longest soundtrack album that I've put out there [1 hour, 28 mins] out of four or five hours of music in the game. It’s difficult because I think a soundtrack album should be consistent on its own outside of the game, but fans were asking ‘where’s this track or that track’ so I started to add some to the album in various places.”
The album’s healthy streaming numbers on Spotify and YouTube alone belie the fact that there are plenty of listeners outside of the game happy to put on what Derivière is putting out. That’s despite, or possibly because the composer has been so consistent in challenging audiences and veering away from what’s “easy.”
“With 11-11 Memories Retold, everything is in the soundtrack. All the themes and the way they evolve — it's a real story. If you listen until the end of the soundtrack, everything makes sense.”
Derivière is classically trained in the “very particular” French school of music. “11-11 Memories Retold was a once in a lifetime opportunity to do something using my very classical French background. I was like ‘OK, let's put everything in there!’ I was very happy with the quality of the recording and the orchestra and everything.
“That’s the incredible thing about video games — can you imagine the same guy doing that as Streets of Rage 4?”
________________________________________________________
Olivier Derivière is a composer for video games — www.olivierderiviere.com | Twitter: @oderiviere | Bandcamp | Spotify artist page | YouTube channel
For more information about the how music of Dying Light 2 was constructed, check out this featurette:
]]>By Jerry Jeriaska (The Ongaku), Eric Bratcher
Since 2012, Montreal-based composer Brian D’Oliveira has been writing music for high-profile video games. These include the independently developed Papo & Yo, a collaboration with Kenneth C M Young on Media Molecue’s Tearaway, and a song featured on the LittleBigPlanet 3 soundtrack.
Executing a hairpin turn from family-friendly to grotesque, D’Oliveira contributed to 2017's Resident Evil 7: Biohazard. In a first for the mainline series, Capcom’s survival horror game switched to a first-person perspective, and arguably retains top spot among the franchise in terms of relentless terror. Music for the game, overseen by Montreal Music Productions, was recorded and mixed at D’Oliveira’s headquarters at La Hacienda Creative in Quebec.
Photo credit: La Hacienda Creative courtesy of Top Dollar PR.
Most recently he scored Netflix's anime film The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf, composed and produced the theme title song for Resident Evil Village and contributed music for the BAFTA-nominated soundtrack to Sackboy: A Big Adventure.
2018’s Shadow of the Tomb Raider was developed by Eidos-Montréal and published by Square Enix — the third game in the rebooted series that began with 2013’s Tomb Raider and continued with Rise of the Tomb Raider in 2015.
The full soundtrack for Shadow of the Tomb Raider was recorded by D’Oliveira following in-depth research in Mexico. We caught up with the composer to hear his thoughts on collaborating with local musicians, his work with former Eidos audio director Rob Bridgett, and the utilisation of traditional South American instruments on the Shadow... score.
The Shadow of the Tomb Raider double vinyl is sold out via the Laced Records store at the time of publishing (although other retailers may still carry it.) You can check availability and find digital soundtrack links: www.lacedrecords.com/collections/tomb-raider
During the first playable sequence of Shadow of the Tomb Raider, protagonist Lara Croft is trapped in the crevice of a cave with her leg pinned beneath a rock. In stark contrast to the character's reputation as an action hero, this early scene, set to D’Oliveira’s track "Ruins at Cozumel", presents an image of the iconic protagonist caught in uncharacteristically vulnerable circumstances.
Throughout the Tomb Raider Survivor Trilogy, Lara is tasked with thwarting the efforts of an international paramilitary organisation seeking to unearth powerful ancient artifacts.
Following the events depicted in Rise of the Tomb Raider, a faction of the Order of the Trinity led by archaeologist Dr. Pedro Dominguez locates an artifact on the Mexican island of Cozumel. Lara infiltrates the Trinity excavation site within the pre-colonial Mayan ruins, outpacing the mercenaries in recovering the Key of Chak Chel.
“That first line that you hear — that cello line — I actually spent a good couple years working that out before putting it in that beginning scene,” D’Oliveira explains regarding the genesis of "Ruins at Cozumel." “It's interesting because I did a lot of the game linearly, as it was being built. That was the first piece that I did, and it ended up being the first thing that you hear.”
“I was trying to find that main theme, that sound for Lara's inner spirit,” he explains, “I actually happened to get at the same time a 1780s cello–that ended up being the cello for her. It's that cello that you hear on that specific beginning sequence.”
“It's a very simple motif, but the feeling is there,” adds the composer. “Sometimes, less is more.”
Lara’s run-in with a jaguar in Shadow of the Tomb Raider.
The prologue of Shadow of the Tomb Raider, set on the island of Cozumel, illustrates the magnitude of the dangers that Lara faces in her climactic showdown against the Order of the Trinity.
Lara retrieves the Dagger of Chak Chel before it can fall into the hands of mercenaries, however, she’s soon intercepted and forced to give it up. As depicted on the murals surrounding the ceremonial dagger, disturbing it triggers a massive tsunami to hit the island, with further catastrophes including a storm and an earthquake predicted to follow.
The story cuts to Lara pursuing a second artifact in the jungles of Peru. While en route, their plane is rocked by the aforementioned storm. She crash lands in the jungle, surviving the wreck only to be stalked by jaguars. This heart-pounding sequence is set to the percussive music theme “One with the Jungle”.
“There's a huge backstory to the point where I was doing that,” D’Oliveira says. “I spent four years working on the soundtrack. I ended up going to Mexico and spending a few weeks there doing a lot of research and development… meeting one of the foremost pre-Hispanic music creators there.”
In Mexico, D’Oliveira collaborated with Ramiro Ramirez, a performer of native Mexican wind and percussion instruments. The duo collaborated on an interactive dome experience where they could receive direct feedback from the audience. The experiment became a pivotal step toward crafting the authentic sound of Shadow of the Tomb Raider.
“People didn't realise that I was actually prototyping how music would work in the game as a live performance,” says D’Oliveira. “I was performing it everyday for people to see how it was working.”
The live performances yielded results that required only minor tweaks to work within the context of the game. After two months in Montreal workshopping what would become the jaguar battle sequence and other themes, the duo launched into recording the game score as they reviewed preliminary gameplay footage. The composer remarks: “It got to the point where the language of the music was so fluid that we would work on a scene and I would just perform it on the spot.”
“When I did the soundtrack, a lot of it happened on the fly,” he adds. “A lot of the music, even the instrumentals I recorded, are actually done in one take.”
“We were sitting there with the audio director Rob Bridgett and we're looking at the scene and we did it on the spot,” he explains. “All the time signature changes — dynamically, it just happened.”
Lara discovers a lost city founded by Mayans living in isolation within the remote rainforests of Peru. Their civilisation is also influenced by the Incan culture of the region, and in Shadow of the Tomb Raider’s Immersion mode, the villagers speak in Yucatec Maya.
D’Oliveira utilised his experiences in Mexico and in the Amazon jungle in Peru to inform the direction of the background music for the sprawling Paititi location. The composer sought out a variety of instruments that would serve to complement the emotional palette of Shadow of the Tomb Raider, while also keeping in mind the ceremonial practices informing their use.
“To add to that, it wasn't just a matter of journeying and collecting,” the composer says of his travels. “More importantly, it was going there and spending time with the people that are doing this music, and being in the place where this happened, as much as possible. Eating the food, even — that's still there. This was just as important as the actual instruments themselves.”
“When I came back, I was able to take all of this knowledge and energy and put it into musical sound,” he explains. “But I wanted to do this in a very respectful way. It's not a matter of grabbing something and saying, ‘Now I have this.’ I really needed to integrate it into myself as a musician, as a composer, and feel it in my blood and in my soul.”
“I wouldn't say that you absorb the cultural identity,” explains D’Oliveira. “I think it's more like it becomes part of you.”
The composer meditated on the mindset of pre-Columbian society while searching for a sound for the cue "Paititi (City of the Serpent)". He explains: “A big thing that I learned was they actually didn't look at music as ‘music.’”
“We look at music as entertainment,” says the composer. “For them, music was an integral part of ceremonial life. They looked at it as if this is what you do in life. They make sound when they offer things to the gods. It's a completely different way of thinking about music. It's almost like a sound design to life.”
The Lost City of Paititi represented for the game’s designers a thought experiment in blending aesthetic traditions; as an amalgamation of Mayan and Aztec cultural influences. This premise was central to D’Oliveira’s compositional process. “First of all, I imagined what would have happened if these cultures had not been separate,” he says. “ What would have happened to the music?”
“They were like the original sound designers,” he elaborates, regarding the philosophy of pre-Hispanic people. “They would even build structures that would sound a certain way. If you made a sound, it would bounce back like the sound of a bird. They were very conscious of this.”
“It's actually a dream I'll fill you in on,” D’Oliveira relates. “When I was a kid I used to dream of these things. What would have happened if America had not been colonised and these cultures had kept on going on their own? What would have happened? This was my chance to live out my childhood dream.”
Crystal Dynamics and Eidos-Montréal’s Tomb Raider Survivor Trilogy showcases three variations on the same pivotal musical theme by Jason Graves. Those pieces are entitled "A Survivor is Born" by Graves, "Rise of the Tomb Raider" by Bobby Tahouri, and D’Oliveira’s "Innocent Death”. D’Oliveira describes his approach to the menu music for Shadow of the Tomb Raider, in terms of how “Innocent Death” complements its precursors.
“I think the previous soundtracks are amazing,” says the composer. “I was very honoured that I was going to add to this trilogy and bring it all together. I wanted to pay homage to these other themes that already had such great material.”
“I worked in such a way that all of these would work together,” he adds. “I imagined it in such a way, and composed it ahead of time, so that it would all work in interlocking melodic lines and harmony. That's what you hear there. It was very precisely planned. But when I did it, it actually came out much better than I even imagined it would.”
D’Oliveira’s approach to this and other themes on the Tomb Raider series score were informed by communication with the audio director. “Rob Bridgett was a great,” D’Oliveira explains. “He is seriously one of my favourite audio directors I've worked ever with. He has the sensitivity and the insight to go, ‘Hey, Brian. Check this out. Try this.’”
“It was the best way of working collaboratively,” he adds.
In aiming for authenticity with his choice of instruments, video footage from recording sessions shows the composer shaking bundles of shells, performing a variety of long horns, and playing all manner of handmade drums. The objective was to arrive upon an authentic sound that would fit the locale of Paititi and the surrounding jungle region while also aligning with the emotional intensity of the in-game battle sequences and dramatic cutscenes.
“I had the whole gamut,” says the composer. “Mayan, Aztec, Incas--all the different variations. And it took weeks, months, and years listening to all the different cultures, and I was able to piece it together in a way that would make sense as a cohesive unit, where you could still feel the distinct flavours of each region and culture.
“I'm playing the main theme using a large Mama quena, a traditional flute from Peru, but I'm also playing it in such a way that it could be more within the Aztec/Mexican vibe. Some of the instruments I made myself, because I wanted to figure out how it works. How do you create the sound? That was a thing — they made their own instruments. That was part of the life that these people lived.”
Lara's dream sequences transport the player from the jungle locales of Latin America to the protagonist’s home in the sprawling Croft manor of Surrey, England. D’Oliveira had to shift gears to depict a musical setting for Lara's bittersweet childhood memories and unresolved feelings toward her departed parents, for instance with the track “Lara's Dream Part One: Home”.
“That was a very refreshing change, because it was a complete 360 from what I was doing, deep in the jungle,” the composer recalls. “We then had to go back to England. Luckily, Rob is from England, so he had some really good references. He played me a few things — not even classical music. He played me some British music from the Isles, just to give me that feeling.
“I'm pretty lucky because I can play cellos, I can play flutes,” says the composer. “I grew up playing baroque music and classical music. Again, it was a matter of spending a couple weeks getting into the zone on that whole childhood sequence.”
Lara Croft pursues Trinity operatives to a burning oil refinery, where she is pitted against mercenaries, both on land and circling above in a helicopter. The destruction of the natural environment unfolds as part of the same series of calamities that began with the tsunami on Cozumel and the storm that downed Lara’s plane.
The tumultuous music track “Baptism of Fire” and the sombre “Hope” are paired together on either side of this violent action sequence, revealing Lara at her least merciful. They are followed by the compilation of interwoven stems “Death of the Sun,” and ending vocal theme “Goodbye, Paititi”.
“With the first piece, I wanted to see how far I could push it,” D’Oliveira recalls, regarding the oil refinery scene. “I think there were a couple hundred tracks in there. I wanted to see how far with all my instruments acoustically, combining them all as one wall of sound, how big we could get.”
“My computer, my workstation, was pretty much exploding from laying down too many tracks.”
“Going into “Hope”, a big part of that had to do with the encouragement of Rob pushing me in that direction,” the composer recalls. “He was like, ‘Let's take this somewhere else completely,’ and have the juxtaposition.”
For the ending theme “Goodbye Paititi”, D’Oliveira hired a child singer to perform his lyrics in Spanish. “I think it worked out pretty good,” the composer remarks. “Everybody, usually, cries when they get to the end.”
“It's actually very challenging to work with young singers, but she was amazing,” he says. “I had put a very basic track with a guitar and sang with it. The rest of the instruments I added in, just going with the feeling. It was all built around her vocals, making sure that nothing was getting in the way.”
“With Shadow it wasn't just another project for me. It was a huge coming together stage of my life, where I got to put together everything that I had been working so hard on all my life into a cohesive musical piece of work.” He adds: “It's thanks to the few years that I spent on that soundtrack that I'm able to do what I'm doing now.”
_____________________________________
Brian D’Oliveira is a composer and music producer – www.briandoliveira.com | Twitter @briandoliveira | Facebook.com/brian.doliveira1 | Instagram.com/briandoliveira | Spotify artist page]]>By Jerry Jeriaska (The Ongaku), Eric Bratcher
In this sweeping overview of the music of the Psychonauts franchise we are afforded a glimpse into the series' origins and its unpredictable return as a first-person VR title. Most recently, the highly ambitious soundtrack for Psychonauts 2 culminated in Double Fine Productions reuniting with voice actor Jack Black for a memorable musical number.
Behind each of these music scores is composer Peter McConnell, whose varied experience and battle-tested resolve played an instrumental role in resurrecting the franchise upon its acquisition by Double Fine. McConnell set out on his first collaboration with series developer Tim Schafer while the two were working on the sequel to Ron Gilbert's Maniac Mansion at LucasArts.
After Schafer went independent in the year 2000 with the formation of Double Fine in San Francisco, McConnell scored the in-game music and cinematic cutscenes found in Psychonauts for publisher Majesco. We heard from the composer on his experience composing and recording for the game series.
Our first pitstop on this voyage through the music of Psychonauts lands us in the humble, gasoline-scented origins of the franchise. "In those days, Double Fine was literally working out of a garage," McConnell recalls. "You had to actually drive into the garage and climb up a scaffold into where the cubicles were, inhaling your own exhaust."
At that time, the composer was working out of his cottage studio apartment in Berkeley, where he had composed the score for Grim Fandango. "I came to LucasArts maybe six months or a year after he did," McConnell says of his prolific collaborations with Schafer. "Our first working together was on Day of the Tentacle. That was something Michael Land, Clint Bajakian and I scored together, and Tim was one of the writers on that. The first ALL-TIM game that I worked on was Full Throttle."
The collaboration spanning two separate workspaces allowed the composer both creative leeway and insulation from gasoline fumes. He describes Schafer's approach as leading "more by example and inspiration than by direction." They had developed a routine, exchanging musical sketches on small-sized MP3 files.
On the ease of the collaboration, he remarks, "Boy, it's kind of like a telepathic relationship, really."
"As I did on Grim Fandango, I would hum the themes I was working on into my handheld cassette recorder. (laughs) Hey, it's twenty years ago! And I would play a piano accompaniment, so you would get this very crude recording of the theme.... And that would go to Tim. If it got past that point, it would go to mockup stage, doing it with sampled instruments."
Psychonauts introduces the player to a young psychic named Razputin. Reared in the circus, Raz was gifted with a mental ability, allowing him to hurtle into the troubled minds of beleaguered and deranged individuals. Deployed by an international network of secret psychic agents, Raz has a run-in with a paranoid mental apparition known as The Milkman.
The imaginary realm of the Milkman's Conspiracy in Psychonauts is populated by masked G-men and spiralling, warped pathways. McConnell recalls how the paranoid atmosphere of this mindscape had a certain thematic resemblance to the TV show "The Twilight Zone," narrated by Rod Serling. The show's gripping score, and metaphorical associations with a smattering of popular genres, helped inspire the sound for the Milkman's otherworldly environment.
"I grew up watching a lot of '60s spy movies," McConnell says. "And, for that particular level, another thing that comes to mind is The Day the Earth Stood Still, which is an early use of the theremin. It's not the earliest in movies, but it may be one of the earliest in a Hollywood movie. That was a huge influence, as well"
To capture what McConnell described as an "invaders-from-Mars kind of vibe," there was no simple remedy, as scooping up a second-hand theremin at a local Berkeley music store was not an option. The composer was familiar with the history of the enigmatic instrument, from its breakout role in the score to the Russian movie Aelita, filmed in the '20s. For his purposes, he would need to imitate that tenor using his Kurzweil K2000 digital synthesizer.
"For those who don't know what a theremin is, it's an electronic instrument invented in the early 20th century by a Russian composer named [Leon] Theremin," he says. "The way it works is there are oscillators in it that make a tone, and the pitch of the tone is controlled by moving your hand through an electromagnetic field that is generated above the instruments. You literally move your hand up and down in space to play this instrument. And it's really great to watch."
Within the mental landscape of Psychonauts' Black Velvetopia, Raz must brave the threat of a rampaging bull and search an imaginary Spanish village for a lovelorn matador. For this location, McConnell tapped into his memories of black velvet paintings he encountered at gas stations on road trips throughout his youth.
"Elvis and bullfighters really are the two most common subjects you saw on the road when I was a kid," he recalls. "I don't know why."
The fluorescent colours and inky skies of Black Velvetopia are the byproduct of Edgar Teglee's obsessive thinking process. "He is painting the scene of a bullfight, so I went for the Spanish vibe by doing flamenco music," McConnell explains. "That was me on guitar, and also that bongo sound is a Moroccan clay pot drum that a friend gave me."
The popularity of Psychonauts took time to fully take root, and the series remained dormant until Double Fine acquired the rights in 2011. When it came time to revisit the franchise, McConnell dove back in without missing a beat. The experience recording for the original game back in 2005 had left an indelible impression.
"It was like this friend that was always there," he explains. "It exists as part of my mental score. There's Psychonauts! Nice to see you. How are you doing? Oh, my goodness, you were recorded in an apartment!"
For the series' leap into VR, Raz returns to the paranormal world and regroups with his clique of international secret agents. Rhombus of Ruin, an interstitial first-person puzzler, is set in an oceanic region so perilous that the Bermuda Triangle looks tame by comparison. Raz must again employ his psychic powers, this time coming to the aid of his imperilled companions.
Double Fine's commercial successes meant the company could return to the franchise with greater resources to bear. "It allowed for a longer score, more live musicians and bigger production values," McConnell says. "It's very satisfying because I felt limited, as I think we all did with Psychonauts 1, in terms of what we were able to do with the time and budget at hand. It was nice to come back to that, now not needing to worry about the fact that I have to do an instrument with a sample because I'm out of money to pay musicians."
One instance where the composer introduced thematic overlap between the two mainline Psychonauts instalments can be found in the melodies of the circus themes. The Meat Circus is a late-game location that provides a distorted glimpse into Raz's upbringing as a water acrobat performer, while the Flea Circus shows up deep into the sequel.
"The previous version used these raw, rough organ sounds," McConnell recalls. "I kept those in, but turned them down a little bit — you have this larger ensemble playing. To the degree that it's not as edgy as the original, it's kind of an irony because what is really going on in the Flea Circus in Psychonauts 2 is maybe more worrisome.
"It's very much in the Western tradition to use these little melodic fragments to represent characters or feelings," he says of recurring musical phrases in the Psychonauts games. "It's a big thing in Star Wars, too. You always know when the Force is happening because John Williams brings in ‘the Force theme’ with the French horn. You know who your characters are, because they have themes, too. It's all part of the trade, you might say."
In June of 2019, Microsoft acquired Double Fine, ensuring the developer could flex some budgetary muscle in the graphics and sound department of the sequel. The additional resources became increasingly necessary as development on Psychonauts 2 overlapped with the sudden introduction of COVID-19 distancing guidelines. The design team were confined to their homes and largely communicated through Slack chat rooms.
"It took a long time," McConnell recalls. "It really does take longer when you can't have meetings other than Zoom, which are kind of limited in their effectiveness. There were some unexpected blessings, like the fact that we recorded the orchestra in sections. That gave us greater flexibility in the mix stage."
By mid-2020, McConnell ran out of options for a professional studio where it was possible to record with more than several people in a room. "It was touch-and-go," he recalls. "You would book a session in August, and 'Boy, I hope we're able to do this. Hoping things don't get worse.'"
The composer had previously worked with the Melbourne Symphony in Australia, and this time would be embarking on particularly ambitious recordings amidst unprecedented restrictions. "Their assistant music director [Andrew Pogson] is a huge jazz fan and was a long-time Grim Fandango and Tim Schafer fan," McConnell says of Melbourne Symphony.
"I first started working with him around 2016 on a live performance of Grim Fandango that was done in Queensland. When Broken Age was under development, he was a backer of the project. We got to talking and decided to record the orchestral music from Broken Age with the Melbourne Symphony. We did that, and we did Grim Fandango Remastered, so it only made sense to continue the relationship with Psychonauts 2."
Another in-game location with musical genre staples tied to the environment was the mindscape of Psychonauts agent Hollis Forsythe. Her inner world is reconfigured into the shape of a luxurious casino a short time after the character develops a gambling addiction. As with the Cold War paranoia that informed the Milkman's Conspiracy in the previous game, McConnell had a mood in mind for the Lady Luctopus arena.
"I wanted to draw from the cinematic tradition of the casino," McConnell says, "particularly the Rat Pack, the original Ocean's 11, and Frank Sinatra in general. That kind of a vibe was what I really wanted to tap into. The entire level is all jazz, and it gets more big band-y the closer you get to the boss."
By recording pieces of the score in separate locations, the music of Psychonauts 2 could retain the lofty ambitions outlined during pre-production. The Lady Luctopus boss in particular required a sound that matched the over-the-top visuals presented on the screen. McConnell listened in on sessions recorded across the country in what became "very much a worldwide effort."
For Luctopus, the battle track wove together a pass of strings and wind instruments, a pass of brass, the rhythm section recorded in Nashville, and the keyboard solo played in a studio in Hoboken. Getting the rhythm section, a full orchestra, and the Hammond organ solo "to all just gel" was a compositional and engineering feat that he could reflect upon with a feeling of satisfaction.
"It's the Melbourne Symphony doing the orchestral part," McConnell recounts, "and there's a Nashville rhythm section, and there's my buddy Andy Burton, who is a big-time keyboard player in New Jersey. He plays with Little Steven these days. He plays the amazing Hammond [organ] solo. It was recorded in pieces, all over the world."
The Compton's Cookoff sequence from the game culminates in the Gluttonous Goats boss fight, which the composer seasoned with metal. "The mixing engineer, Will Storkson, did pretty much all the mixing for the music in the game," McConnell says. "He also played the shredding solos on that heavy metal piece.... He was grateful to have the orchestra in sections because it gave him so much more control over how to balance the strings and the brass, for example."Reports had circulated as early as the Xbox Games Showcase of 2020 that Jack Black, founder of the comedy rock band Tenacious D, would be involved in the music score in some capacity. Double Fine offered a first glimpse of the comedian in his role as Helmut Fullbear in the Psychonauts 2 Brain in a Jar Trailer. The vocal track "Cosmic I (Smell The Universe)" not only reunited McConnell and Schafer with the Brütal Legend voice actor, but it also allowed for a call-back to the central role of musical numbers in Double Fine's story of fantasy world-travelling roadie Eddie Riggs.
"The song was written essentially with Tim's lyrics off the email and with Jack Black in mind," McConnell says. "I really lucked out because Jack Black's even more amazing than you think he is. That session was just really amazing. He brought that song to life. That's certainly a big favorite of mine."
Restrictions gradually subsided, allowing them to record thirty performers on a large stage at the Australian Broadcasting Company. The composer recalls, "March of 2021 was when we recorded the psychedelic music at Skywalker Sound, which is just over the hill from here. Their rules at the time were 'No more than five people in the room.' (It's a huge room in a beautiful studio.) And we had our five people spread out all over the stage. It was great. You couldn't ask for a better situation to record rock-and-roll in. We had our amps in the isolation booths that surround the main scoring stage."
Scoring games for Double Fine allowed McConnell the freedom to experiment with countless genres. To match the unpredictability of the storylines, he needed to be prepared for anything. It helped that McConnell's tastes and talents are so varied.
"Let me tell you, I really like all kinds of music," he says, "from field recordings of Roma bands in Moldavia, to Stravinsky. Honestly, there's pretty much something in every genre that I find to appreciate."
During the development of Psychonauts, Schafer had suggested a genre of music performed by the Eastern European Roma, suggesting it might help situate Raz's backstory in a memorable musical context: "[T]hey have this really interesting music that you can hear from places like Transylvania and Moldavia," the composer explains. "I got a CD from Tim that had this music on it, played by these traditional bands that apparently was on Johnny Depp's listening list in Rolling Stone back in 2000. It's really cool music, and it definitely had an influence on the Meat Circus theme and some of Raz's music."
McConnell attributes his fascination with disparate musical styles to having spent his formative years living in different regions of the United States. The composer grew up in Basel, Switzerland, spent time in Kentucky, then in Kansas, New Jersey, Boston and California. Becoming acquainted with an assortment of territories served as a primer for exploring varied genres as a musician. Whether the context was a string quartet or heavy metal, he found artistic satisfaction in bringing complementary instruments into alignment.
"Like in Psychonauts 2 with the Questionable Area music, there's acoustic guitar playing a John Denver-y kind of riff," he says. "You're out in the woods and you hear this clarinet playing, but that clarinet starts out with a fragment of the main Psychonauts theme. And then it goes into a minor version of the Aquato theme with the tuba, violin, clarinet and mandolin. It's really through themes — what they call in Wagnerian opera, 'leitmotifs' — that I try to maintain some sense of cohesion."
McConnell is currently working on the score for Return to Monkey Island with Land and Bajakian. The sequel to Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge, overseen by Ron Gilbert's Terrible Toybox studio and Lucasfilm Games, is due out later this year.
________________________________
Peter McConnell is a video game composer – www.petermc.com | Twitter @peternmcconnell | Spotify artist page]]>By Thomas Quillfeldt
The conversation around cinema’s sway over video game creators has grown pretty long in the tooth by the 2020s. Arguably, video games is a more self-assured medium these days, and, in turn, game creators seem to feel more at ease paying direct homage to filmmakers.
Trek to Yomi was born from the mind of writer-director and experimental gamemaker Leonard Menchiari, who felt inspired to create a black and white samurai game based on classic 1950s and ’60s Japanese cinema. He sold the folks at Devolver Digital on the idea before teaming up with Polish developer Flying Wild Hog and LA-based Emperia Sound and Music to deliver the final product, with the game being released in May 2022 across consoles and PC.
Menchiari met some of the Emperia crew, including composers Cody Matthew Johnson and Yoko Honda, at Tokyo Game Show 2019. The musical pair set about creating as authentic a soundtrack as possible, sonically and spiritually transporting players to feudal Japan during the Edo period, and further into the depths of Yomi, the land of the dead. While they studied the film music of Fumio Hayasaka — Akira Kurosawa’s regular collaborator — they chose not to emulate Hayasaka’s orchestral approach. Instead they limited themselves in several ways: to the use of period-appropriate instruments such as the shakuhachi, shamisen, biwa, and taiko drums; to certain scales and the musicality of the Edo period; and they especially leaned on the palette of Gagaku, the Japanese classical style, to capture the abstract and transcendent sound of Yomi.
We asked the duo to pick some key tracks from the Trek to Yomi soundtrack album, shedding light on their musical decisions and describing the process they followed to make the score feel authentic.
__________________________________________________________
The Trek to Yomi soundtrack is available to stream and download on all major music platforms including Spotify, Apple Music and Amazon: lnk.to/TrekToYomi-SoundtrackCheck availability for the double LP vinyl via the Devolver Digital merch store - merch.devolverdigital.com/products/trek-to-yomi-deluxe-double-vinyl
__________________________________________________________
Honda says: “I would like players and listeners to feel the subtlety of the Japanese aesthetic ‘less is more’ that has beautifully blended into this village sequence score.
“This was one of the first tracks and one of the first motifs I drafted, picturing a peaceful, rural area of a Japanese village. I wanted to portray the scene of a dōjō with small numbers of villagers where everyone knows each other like one big family, and with an epic nature that is uncultivated and undeveloped in a good way.
“We had lots of input from creative director Leonard Menchiari across all the tracks. He shared some of his wonderful insights and knowledge of Japanese history and culture, and a lot of tracks, including this piece, evolved organically [as part of that back and forth process].
“People should especially listen out for the Shinobue flute (which I often nickname the ‘commoner’s flute’) that plays the main riff; and the elegant Koto, which glues all the instruments together on this track through its playing of a counterpoint melody.
“Every day working on the score brought a series of challenges during the production period. There was the pressure to create something sonically wonderful to enhance the story, gameplay and visuals of Trek to Yomi, which was tough though fulfilling as I had to tap into, and constantly expand my imagination and knowledge. But there was also the pressure as a music director and composer to produce something historically and culturally accurate to represent where I'm from.
“Particularly for this track, I think balancing the notes and the pauses was the toughest part, since I purposely designed it to be minimal so the players can audibly become familiarised with the uncommon sound of Japanese instruments — even if just on a subconscious level.”
My special thanks and kudos to these amazing performers on this track (in no particular order): Yuki Yasuda (Koto), MB Gordy (Taiko), and Jamie Low (Shamisen).
__________________________________________________________
“During Chapter 4,” says Johnson, “players are questioning whether Hiroki is in the world of the living or the dead — and during that chapter, they’re in the metaphorical bridge between the two.
“I wanted to slowly introduce the sounds of stretched and affected instruments and sounds to the listener to clue them into the changes that might have occurred. As players progress, the music becomes increasingly eerie and haunting.
“This cue specifically features koto and shamisen phrases from earlier in the game. I slowed them down and lowered their pitch to make an unrecognisable sound that creates an air of tension and mystery.
“Between recording takes, I secretly kept our engineer recording while my collaborator Yoko Honda discussed performance adjustments with the musicians. I took those recordings of Japanese spoken language and applied the same techniques of time-stretching and pitch manipulation but took it to extremes. The dark, spine-tingling bed of this piece is actually Yoko and our shamisen player, Jamie Low, talking about Tsugaru Shamisen technique!”
It’s worth noting that, while Johnson used his sound design skills to twist and layer exquisitely hi-fi live recordings to create a thicker atmosphere where appropriate, no synthesized elements snuck into the score.
__________________________________________________________
“I feel like this track is its own sonic rendition of the beginning part of Trek to Yomi,” explains Honda. “The beginning part clearly indicates that something is going to go wrong, through its tense, ominous atmosphere. I want players and listeners to feel the dramatic transition of the music throughout this track and discover the change of pace, intensity, and the dynamics.
“The track title means ‘He who inherits the will’, and I think it will help to fully comprehend what is going on story-wise in the game if you keep that somewhere in your head, especially when it’s playing over the title card.”
Everyone should listen out for the Shakuhachi — the bamboo flute — especially from around 02:07 as it breaks into a solo. Honda comments: “The technique is remarkable, and perfectly illustrates what is going on in the game (Please play the game to figure it out!) It had to be a solo instrument for this section to create something solemn yet powerful that represents the determination of villagers that also accompanies the whole Japanese cultural spirit — dignity, honour, and respect. It was a lot to take into consideration, but I knew from the get-go that it had to be Shakuhachi — I just knew it was the right instrument.
She also mentions to listen out for the ‘Horagai’ shell horns. Here’s a example of the instrument being played on its own:
Honda says: “It’s a very interesting and important instrument in Japanese history, oftentimes used on the battlefield to notify the enemy of the beginning of the battle, and to encourage one’s own army to fight bravely as well — that’s a hint as to where you can hear it during the track ;)
In no particular order, shout-outs to Zac Zinger (Shakuhachi), Scott Wilkinson (Horagai), Yuki Yasuda (Koto), MB Gordy (Taiko), and Ryoji Inatsugi (Shinobue).
__________________________________________________________
Johnson comments: “This track is unique among others from Trek to Yomi. This boss is a mirror image of the protagonist, Hiroki – the Ara-Mitama. During his journey, Hiroki attempts to balance the choices he is continually presented with between love, duty, and fury. Each of these is tied up with a different character: respectively, Aiko, Sanjuro, and the antagonist Kagerou.
“The Ara-Mitama version of Hiroki, the boss of Chapter 6, is his antithesis — a representation of imbalance. This piece was therefore designed to feel chaotic. To achieve this, I processed elements of Hiroki’s theme (aka the Balance theme), for instance reversing performances, reverbs, and effects, as well as blending in distorted elements of the other characters’ themes. Hiroki must act with agility when fighting enemies and his Ara-Mitama behaves the same way, using Hiroki’s own techniques against him. The music matches this high-tension battle with very sporadic and maniacal rhythms played on heavily processed, sonically manipulated Japanese instruments.”
__________________________________________________________
“If you pay careful attention,” points out Honda, “you will notice that this is a variation of the track “Sakura Fubuki”, using the same motif. I won’t disclose too much, but because the story had a darker flow change, I had to compose something that would use the same instrumentation but in a much heavier and more aggressive way. The title came from a concept: ‘I feel like it’s foreign yet familiar’. If the players compare and feel the drastic change using the same motif, it may be helpful for them to better understand the whole concept of Trek To Yomi and its story.
“I knew from the get-go that I had to eventually create something that was going to be the darker version of “Sakura Fubuki”, so I tried to use instruments that would be versatile for both tracks and choose the right Japanese scales that could sound polar opposite; one especially darker, and one brighter.
“[Listeners should pay attention to] the intense amount of Taiko that plays rather complex patterns. I spent a lot of time on the taiko section alone… Not just hours, but days!”
Performers on the track include Nobuko Fukatsu (Biwa), Yuki Yasuda (Koto), Jamie Low (Shamisen), Zac Zinger (Shakuhachi), and MB Gordy (Taiko).
__________________________________________________________
Johnson and Honda kindly put together a playlist of significant tracks from the Trek to Yomi score, as well as influences and research/reference music that helped them shape the project.
You can also catch Cody and Yoko chatting with SoundWorks Collections:
__________________________________________________________
Cody Matthew Johnson is a multi-media composer, music producer, sound designer, and multi-instrumentalist - www.codymatthewjohnson.com | Spotify | Instagram @codymatthewjohnson | Twitter @codymatthewj | Facebook @codymatthewjohnsonmusicYoko Honda a composer, arranger, music director, multi-instrumentalist, music producer and recording artist - Spotify | Instagram @yokohondaofficial | Twitter @yokohondamusic
Both are part of Emperia Sound and Music - www.emperiasound.com ]]>By Jerry Jeriaska (The Ongaku), translated by Hidenori Arikawa and edited by Thomas Quillfeldt
Following five commercially successful mainline entries in the Ryu ga Gotoku franchise — known as Yakuza in the West — the developers at Tokyo-based RGG decided to create a prequel title. Flashing back to the streets of the fictional red light district of Kamurocho in the winter of 1988, the sprawling crime drama Yakuza 0 presents players with the origin stories of protagonists Kazuma Kiryu and Goro Majima as they face off against high-ranking yakuza bosses.
The game’s music director and co-composer Hidenori Shoji chatted to us about creating the high-energy battle tracks, the challenges the team encountered in utilising motion capture for music-oriented cut scenes, and the musician’s aims in collaborating with fellow composers at Sega.
Soundtrack album: Apple Music Pt. 1, Pt. 2 | Spotify Pt. 1, Pt. 2
Laced Records first pressed the Yakuza 0 6LP vinyl box set and double LP in 2021 - check for availability: www.lacedrecords.com/collections/yakuza and via other retailers.
Since the mid-1990s, Hidenori Shoji has been recording music for Sega games for arcade cabinets and home consoles. It first hit home for the composer that his work was making an impact on the world stage when the famous singer Christina Aguilera posted to her website that her favourite video game was Super Monkey Ball — the arcade platformer prominently features Shoji’s music.
Since then, Shoji has contributed to every entry in the Yakuza series, both front-and-centre as a composer and behind-the-scenes as music director.
The direct translation of ‘Ryu ga Gotoku’ is ‘Like A Dragon’, which became the moniker for the Western-localized title of the seventh and, at the time of writing, most recent entry in the series. The rich history of the Yakuza franchise not only extends into the past with its prequel entry, but has even attempted historical fiction.
Ryu ga Gotoku Kenzan! witnesses the series protagonist assuming the identity of the Sengoku era’s legendary swordsman Miyamoto Musashi, while Ishin! finds him taking on the role of Edo period samurai Sakamoto Ryōma. In every era in which his devastating fighting prowess is manifested, Kazuma Kiryu asserts his dominance against all odds as the Dragon of ‘Ryu ga Gotoku’.
However, in Yakuza 0 we are introduced to Kiryu in circumstances that characterize his personality as far from sympathetic.
*** Yakuza 0 early and mid game story elements are discussed below ***
The opening scenes of Yakuza 0 introduces an ominous chapter in the Kiryu saga. Over the years we have grown to respect the Dragon of Dojima, the protector of young Haruka (introduced in Yakuza Kiwami) and rescuer of puppies bullied by meanspriited delinquents.
In Chapter One, ‘Bound By Oath’, a loan shark has hired Kiryu to corner a delinquent client in a vacant lot and beat him into submission. The scene reveals that Kiryu’s rise through the ranks of the Tojo Clan has left blood on his hands.
Shoji explains that the light and dark sides of Yakuza 0 are represented by playable characters Kiryu and Majima, respectively. And those themes are reflected in the choice of music genres associated with each character’s battle techniques.
“First off, there is Kiryu's fighting style known as ‘Chinpira’ (Brawler) Style,” Shoji explains. “It was not so much a matter of choosing a style of music that would fit. Rather, it is fixed in place that this is the background music you hear when encountering a battle for the first time. I made a conscious effort not to start off with too aggressive a melody. The aim, rather, was to dive in with something a little lighter, as in a comparatively upbeat track."
Battle track “Force Addiction” is associated with Kiryu’s Brawler”Style. In Japanese, the fighting technique is called “Chinpira” Style, referring to Kiryu’s standing as a low-ranking member of the Tojo Clan. Alternatively, this label would translate to “thug” or “hoodlum,” illustrating Kiryu’s relative insignificance at the outset of the prequel.
As it turns out, Kiryu’s low rank brands him as easy prey for the yakuza, who utilize his deed for the loan shark as a means to frame him as a patsy. When the body of Kiryu’s mark is discovered the following morning with a fatal gunshot wound, Kiryu must find a way to cut ties with the Tojo Clan’s Dojima family, hunt down the killer, and clear his name.
The setting of the Cabaret Grand in the fictional district of Sotenburi presented Shoji with one of the most difficult challenges of Yakuza 0’s development.
In Chapter 3, ‘A Gilded Cage’, we are introduced to Goro Majima, the manager of a popular music hall in the Kansai region of Japan. Before long, Majima has a run-in with a drunken, unruly patron who challenges him to a fistfight on the floor of the lavish club. However, Majima has sworn never to strike a paying customer, and must deftly dodge the lout’s awkward punches and kicks.
At the start of this peculiar duel, undoubtedly not the first of its kind, the band members performing on stage at the Grand recognize that this is their cue. They launch into a heart-pounding rendition of “Customer Creed,” selected for such an occasion. The musical performance takes place as the Mad Dog of Shimano and his would-be assailant face off.
This scene from “A Gilded Cage” is a fun example of diegetic music, meaning the on-screen characters can hear the music of “Customer Creed”, unlike the battle tracks associated with brawls on the streets outside. What made this scene a chore for the composer, akin to the travails of the hand-tied Goro Majima, was the fact that the music needed to be synched to the movements of the virtual band members.
“Composer (Yuri) Fukuda from the sound team participated in motion capture for the pianist,” Shoji relates. “When you watch the pianist during that big band sequence, all those movements were performed by Fukuda during her motion capture session. In the same way, mo-cap for the guitarist was done by ZENTA. He is a composer from outside of Sega who has contributed music for the Ryu ga Gotoku series, including karaoke songs, and here threw in some motion-capture acting.”
Shoji was asked to compose the music track prior to the cutscene being mapped out by the graphics animators. However, additional adjustments had to be made as the scene came together in order to link the music’s timing to the motions of the computer generated band members. This was one instance where extensive discussion was required between the music director and visual design staff on the development team.
Majima’s introduction again subverts the player’s expectations, as it inverts the dark versus light motif that defines the game’s dual protagonists. While the curtain rises on Kiyru cornering a cowering victim in the dark corners of a vacant lot, by contrast, our first impression of Majima is of a by-the-book professional. Majima exercises such surfeits of self-restraint that he meekly allows a bottle of champagne to be poured upon his head by a drunken buffoon.
To clear his name, Kiryu must evade detection by Kamurocho’s deadliest lieutenants and their unlimited reserves of disposable underlings. The antagonists of Yakuza 0 are the stuff of legend, led by a hot-headed psychopath named Daisuke Kuzu, a bloodthirsty mafioso-styled sadist called Hiroki Awano, and the cold and calculating strategist Keiji Shibusawa.
At regular intervals, Kiryu is spotted on the streets of Kamurocho and must defend himself against low-ranking yakuza and suited goons. As he progresses in his training, Kiryu unleashes a new fighting technique, called Rush Style. The associated music track, dubbed “Parry Addiction,” was influenced by Western boxing matches, particularly their portrayal on the big screen. A character played by actor Brad Pitt became a focal point for defining the Rush technique.
“At that time, I saw the film Snatch," Shoji recalls. "The film score accompanying the brawls and boxing matches made a strong impression. I decided to write a music track with that kind of flavour, but in the breakbeat genre.”
Kiryu’s determination to extricate himself from the Dojima Family, which has marked him as a renegade in the eyes of the three lieutenants, sets in motion the character’s path to redemption. By the time he meets Haruka in the events of Yakuza Kiwami, he is already well on his way toward fulfilling his destiny as a legend of Kamurocho.
“Kazuma Kiryu gains access to the ’Dragon of Dojima’ battle style," Shoji relates. "Acquiring the Dragon of Dojima Style within the game sets the stage for the events of Ryu ga Gotoku 1.” This is accompanied by the track “Receive You ~Tech Trance Arrange~”.
He continues: “I went about arranging “Receive You”, which has returned in new variations in every instalment since Ryu ga Gotoku 1.”
Majima, however, has set out on an opposite trajectory, seeking to deepen his involvement in organised crime. However sympathetic he may appear at the outset, the darker nature of Majima’s ambitions gradually surfaces, as he acquires ever more devastating fighting prowess. The course correction comes with the introduction of Majima’s initial battle track, titled “One Eyed Assassin,” associated with his Thug Style fighting technique.
“In the contest between these themes of light and dark, Kiryu's side is decidedly brighter,” says Shoji. “That prompted me to compose a music track with an overall quality of brilliance, accentuated by light moments. On the other hand, Majima represents the flipside. When encountering an enemy, the mood darkens ー and so his Thug Style technique is represented by a sinister drum'n'bass track."
In a parallel storyline unfolding in Sotenburi, the Shimano crime family is putting the screws on Majima. As with the Dragon of Dojima, the Mad Dog has been backed into a corner.
Explained in a flashback sequence laid out in still images like fading photographs, Majima once was foiled in his attempts to assassinate the chairman of the Ueno Seiwa Clan. As a consequence of his failure, he was punished by the Shimano family, suffering soul-crushing beatings and losing his eye in the process.
Now Majima must make amends by filling the Shimano organisation’s coffers with the profits earned through his painstaking labour as manager of the Grand. Overseeing this operation is Tsukasa Sagawa, a sardonic father figure who exacts ever higher levies on Majima’s salary in order to satisfy the yakuza’s demands. One day, Sagawa allows him a means of escaping his predicament.
Majima is given the offer to enrol as an assassin, targeting a delinquent client known as Makoto Makimura. Where Kiryu seeks to escape a false accusation, Majima now grapples with the choice of whether to embrace such a fate in reality. The only means of putting his past behind him is to pick up where he left off, taking on the role of a professional assassin.
As he accrues greater experience as a fighter, Majima gains access to his signature baseball bat, learning the Slugger fighting technique. What perhaps most clearly distinguishes Majima from his Kamurocho counterpart are the flickers of glee that cross his face when knocking the wind out of his opponent to the tune of “One Eyed Slugger.”
“Majima's Slugger fighting style employs the use of a baseball bat,” Shoji explains. "To help bring out the darker quality of this technique, divorced from any association with baseball, I selected dubstep as the choice of genre. The idea was to emphasise the impression of violence in this implement being used as a weapon."
For Majima’s break dancing Breaker Style, alternatively called Dancer Style in the Japanese release, Shoji found a genre that would complement the character’s amusement when tripping up his foes.
"The Breaker technique is a humorous fighting style whereby Majima elatedly gets the drop on his enemies, so cheerful connotations are unavoidable,” Shoji explains. “The trick was to somehow suggest a darker aspect to it. That led me to combine upbeat dance music with a style of underground dance music."
Over the course of the Yakuza series, Majima has gained a reputation for mixing comical flourishes with flashes of viciousness, catching his enemies off guard. His ultimate battle technique, the Mad Dog of Shimano style, represents a subtler callback to Yakuza Kiwami.
The track that plays for Majima’s final style is “Receive You The Subtype”:
“Listen closely and you will recognize that it's another arrangement of Kiryu's “Receive You” theme,” Shoji explains. "Whereas [“Receive You ~Tech Trance Arrange~”] is characterised by a dazzling tech trance style, [the Mad Dog of Shimano Style track] is arranged in a gritty metalstep style."
Shoji’s role as music director involved collaborating with over a dozen co-composers on Yakuza 0. When combined with the workload required for crafting hooks and performing instruments on his own compositions, micro-managing others’ output simply was not an option. Nor did such an approach strike him as a meaningful exercise in eliciting creative inspiration from his team members.
“As a music director, I start out by communicating some sense of the overall intention of the music score,” states Shoji. “At the same time, I have no desire to suffocate that special something that each musician brings with them. Oftentimes, the best approach is to offer some direction and then leave the rest to them.”
This hands-off approach has allowed numerous musicians to communicate their personal interpretation of harrowing and exhilarating scenes unfolding in Kamurocho. Each artist is encouraged to innovate when it comes to crafting the sounds of Ryu ga Gotoku’s nightlife – from the drunken street brawls to the intimate karaoke parlours.
“Allowing room for an individual's personal discretion is important,” Shoji states. "It would be too restrictive for me to stipulate, ‘write this kind of song, using this method, employing these instruments.'
“For instance, with the battle tracks," Shoji explains. "Let's say that I was assigning someone the Thug Style track. I would suggest they take a look at Kiryu's Brawler Style theme as a reference. ‘Here is a thematically light track that I wrote. Why don't you make a dark one to go alongside it?' I might ask in an abstract sense, ‘How would you go about representing this thematic contrast between light and dark?'
“From there, it's left up to their personal interpretation. The important thing is to allow that individual's special something to shine through.”
_________________________________________
Hidenori Shoji is a composer and music director.
]]>We turned 5 years old! Thanks so much for everyone's support over half a decade. 2021 was a tricky year to navigate for obvious reasons, but we worked hard to bring fans high quality releases with pristine audio and gorgeous packaging.
Listed below is everything we announced in the calendar year, although of course many titles are scheduled to ship in 2022.
Special thanks to Joe Caithness, our wizard of an audio engineer, who mastered more or less every second of every Laced release in 2021. Also, every soundtrack was pressed onto audiophile-quality heavyweight vinyl LPs.
Except for the Devolver Digital titles, all Limited Edition colour variants listed below are exclusive to the Laced store and won't be repressed — but there is always a chance of new variants in future or Standard Edition black disc represses.
________________________________________
Yakuza 0’s vibrant soundtrack includes a modern — yet often ‘80s-inflected — blend of pop, rock and electronic dance styles. The vast array of composition and production talent was led by long-time SEGA composer Hidenori Shoji.
– 90 tracks
– (Limited Edition) Six colour-in-colour transparent discs in yellow, blue, green, hot pink, maroon and apricot
– Deluxe 3mm spined disc sleeves in a rigid board slip case
– 27 tracks selected by the Ryu Ga Gotoku team
– Two heavyweight vinyl (light blue and green)
– Printed inner sleeves in a wide-spined outer sleeve
________________________________________
These two breakout Mega Man sets feature several brand new, eye-popping pieces by Mega Man maven ultimatemaverickx. UMX’s status among the community as a Blue Bomber superfan is undisputed, and he drew on his bottomless knowledge of series lore to create beautifully composed, story-significant pieces.
This 2LP set features two of the all-time great chiptune scores in full: Takashi Tateishi’s renowned music for Mega Man 2; and Yasuaki Fujita and Harumi Fujita’s beloved Mega Man 3 score.
– 49 remastered tracks from the classic NES titles
– Two ‘Mega Buster Blue’ heavyweight vinyl
– Printed inner sleeves and wide-spined outer sleeve
The propulsive rock soundtrack for Super Famicom/SNES spin-off title Mega Man X quite simply kicks ass. Setsuo Yamamoto led composition, with Makoto “Tomozou” Tomozawa, Yuki “Sato” Iwai, Yuko Takehara, and Toshihiko “Kirry” Horiyama also contributing — collectively known as ‘Alph Lyla’, Capcom’s house band at the time.
– 34 remastered tracks from the 1993 Super Famicom/SNES title
– ‘X-Blaster Blue’ heavyweight vinyl LP
– Printed inner sleeve with spined outer sleeve
________________________________________
Global sales of the venerable fighting game series smashed past 50 million units in the last few years. In 2021, we announced the last soundtrack release in our vinyl series — the mighty TEKKEN 7 — with all titles featuring beautiful sleeve artwork by illustrator Samuel Donato aka DXSinfinite. Most release tracklists were curated by four-time Guinness World Record-holder, multi-game world champion and all-round fighting game community legend Ryan Hart.
This fan-favourite soundtrack is stuffed with all manner of experimental electronic music by a sizeable composition team comprising Akitaka Tohyama, Keiichi Okabe, Nobuyoshi Sano, Yu Miyake, Rio Hamamoto, Yoshihito Yano and Satoru Kosaki (collective credits include Katamari Damacy, Ridge Racer, Ace Combat, SoulCalibur and many more.)
– Triple gatefold LP
– 48 tracks from the arcade and PlayStation 2 releases
– Cream, pink and grey colour discs
The soundtrack for TEKKEN 4 was unconventional for the series and more broadly, breaking new ground in the types of electronic music heard in video games. This release features tracks by Akitaka Tohyama, Yu Miyake, Satoru Kosaki, Hiroshi Okubo and Keiki Kobayashi.
– Double gatefold LP
– 35 tracks from the arcade and PlayStation 2 releases
– Music by Akitaka Tohyama, Yu Miyake, Satoru Kosaki, Hiroshi Okubo and Keiki Kobayashi
– Blue and yellow discs
The TEKKEN 5 and Dark Resurrection soundtrack vinyl comprises aggressive electronica, rock, nu metal and percussion-led music put together by an army of composition and arrangement talent.
– Music by Riow Arai, Bayaka, DJ MOTIVE, Rio Hamamoto, Satoru Kousaki, LAG STAGE, Tom Leonard & Jeff Pescetto, Yu Miyake, Junichi Nakatsuru, Numb, Keiichi Okabe, Hiroshi Okubo, RASA, NOBUYOSHI "sanodg" SANO, Koji Sekiguchi, Masaru Shiina, Ryuichi Takada, Kohta Takahashi, Akitaka Tohyama, Tetsuya Uchida, VOTOM, Hiroshi Watanabe, Yoshihito Yano, and yura
– Limited Edition rust-coloured galaxy effect discs
– 59 tracks from the arcade and console titles, and Dark Resurrection update
TEKKEN 6’s soundtrack was a collaboration between music teams that executed on the series’ signature fusion of rock and electronica, but with a variety of different flavours including orchestral and Asian instrumentation, trance and, yes you read it right, yodelling.
– Music by Rio Hamamoto, Shinji Hosoe, Satoru Kousaki, Kazuhiro Nakamura, Keiichi Okabe, Ayako Saso, Go Shiina, Ryuichi Takada, Akitaka Tohyama, Tetsuya Uchida and Yoshihito Yano
– Limited Edition pink and light blue discs
– 32 tracks from the arcade and console titles, and Bloodline Rebellion update
The Tag Tournament 2 soundtrack is chock full of dramatic electronic music, replete with floor-filling beats, melodic lines, orchestral and vocal elements, and the odd vocoder. The dizzying array of subgenres includes house, dubstep, psytrance, hard techno and much more, with many tracks fusing multiple musical elements — clearly a music team having fun and producing bangers in the process.
– Music from 2011 arcade and 2012 consoles versions
– 48 tracks by Akitaka Tohyama, Nobuyoshi ""sanodg"" Sano, Keiichi Okabe, Taku Inoue, Shinji Hosoe, Yoshie Arakawa, Rio Hamamoto, Satoru Kousaki, Yuu Miyake, Ayako Saso, Go Shiina, Ryo Watanabe and Yoshihito Yano
– Deluxe gatefold box housing spined inner sleeves
– Limited Edition features discs in translucent ochre, green, violet and, blue discs
Once again, an impressive roster of musical talent worked on the soundtrack, including many returning composers from previous games in the series. This time, Rio Hamamoto stepped up as lead composer, with Akitaka "AJURIKA" Tohyama and Taku Inoue pulling a heavy shift. TEKKEN 7 features some exquisitely crafted electronic music that mixes multiple musical elements, from jazz to EDM to synthwave and beyond.
– 75 tracks by Rio Hamamoto, Taku Inoue, Akitaka "AJURIKA" Tohyama, Haruki Yamada, Katsuro Tajima, Go Shiina, Yuu Miyake, Hiroshi Okubo, Keiichi Okabe, Nobuyoshi "sanodg" Sano, Yoshinori Kawamoto, Kensuke Inage, Yoshihito Yano and Junichi Nakatsuru
– Deluxe gatefold box housing spined inner sleeves
– Limited Edition featuring heavyweight discs in red and black galaxy-effect vinyl
________________________________________
We continued to bring the atmospheric Resi scores to wax, with series sleeve artwork and design by Capcom and Boris Moncel of Blackmane Design.
RE7’s international composition team comprised Miwako Chinone, Brian D’Oliveira, Satoshi Hori, Akiyuki Morimoto and Cris Velasco. The score is lower key and more ambient than its predecessors without skimping on the anxiety and intensity that Resi games are known for. Jordan Reyne & Michael A. Levine also contributed a chilling rendition of the folk song "Go Tell Aunt Rhody."
– 81 tracks including RE7 version of "Go Tell Aunt Rhody"
– Limited Edition colour with ‘toxic mould’ discs
The soundtrack played a huge part in establishing the taut atmosphere of Resident Evil 2, as the composers shifted gears between dark ambient electronic music, thumping cinematic percussion, and audacious orchestral and choral passages. Capcom veteran Shusaku Uchiyama — who worked on the 1998 original — was given lead composition duties, and also arranged several of Masami Ueda’s original pieces. They were joined among the soundtrack credits by Zhenlan Kang, Tadayoshi Makino, Sound Director & Sound Team Leader Kentaro Nakashima, Yuichi Tsuchiya, Masahiro Ohki and Mana Ogura. Syotaro Nakayama and Taisuke Fujisawa supplied the power metal with “Tofu On Fire”; while the vinyl opens with the stomping ‘true ending’ credits theme "Saudade" by Cody Matthew Johnson and Shim.
– 46 tracks from the 2019 remake of the survival horror classic
– Four 180g vinyl in printed inner sleeves, housed in a rigid box
– The Limited Edition features ‘undead iris’ discs
– Repress of the 2019 release
– 44 tracks from the 2002 GameCube release
– Laced 5th Anniversary Limited Edition blue disc variant
– Deluxe double gatefold sleeve
– Repress of the 2019 release
– 31 tracks from the 1998 PlayStation release
– Laced 5th Anniversary Limited Edition red disc variant
– Deluxe double gatefold sleeve
________________________________________
On the eve of Gears of War’s 15th anniversary, we joined forces with The Coalition to bring stunning remasters of the original trilogy soundtracks to vinyl and streaming music platforms. The box set and individual double LPs enjoy artwork created by graphic designer/illustrator Luke Preece, known for his striking, ultra-detailed posters, t-shirts and logo designs from all across the gaming and pop culture world.
Exclusive to Laced, the Gears of War: The Original Trilogy Soundtrack Special Limited Edition vinyl box set features 89 tracks by Kevin Riepl (Gears of War) and Steve Jablonsky (Gears of War 2 & 3.) Each game soundtrack will be housed in a wide-spined sleeve with two printed inner sleeves. In turn, these will be contained in a collector’s rigid board box.
– Six ‘Crimson Splatter’ colourway vinyl
– Three wide-spined sleeves with six printed inner sleeves
– Collector’s rigid outer box
– Exclusive Crimson Omen turntable slipmat
– USB drive containing Gears of War: Ultimate Edition 5.1 Surround Sound mixes
Composer Kevin Riepl (Unreal Tournament series, Rocket League) and the Northwest Sinfonia infused Gears of War's soundtrack with a propulsive sense of Sturm und Drang. On the frantic orchestral cues, driving metallic percussion accompanies thumping brass and busy string flurries. Riepl also forged the game’s signature sound with dark ambient pieces that employed electronic samples and delay.
– 31 remastered tracks from the original soundtrack to Gears of War, including never before released music
– Two red vinyl
– Wide-spined sleeve with two printed inner sleeves
– Artwork by Luke Preece
Composer Steve Jablonsky (Transformers film series) built on Kevin Riepl’s musical foundations by introducing more live and electronic instrumental and vocal layers to make things bigger, darker, and crunchier.
– 27 remastered tracks
– Two red vinyl
– Wide-spined sleeve with two printed inner sleeves
– Artwork by Luke Preece
Jablonsky returned to provide a textured, immersive, and thematically rich score, using layers of live and electronic instruments and voices.
– 31 remastered tracks
– Two red vinyl
– Wide-spined sleeve with two printed inner sleeves
– Artwork by Luke Preece
The Gears of War original trilogy remastered soundtracks are also now available to stream and buy digitally on all major digital platforms including Spotify, Apple Music, iTunes and Amazon — all the links.
________________________________________
Following our Street Fighter III release, comic book illustrator Andie Tong returned with stunning sleeve cover art for the Alpha series.
Enter jazz-funk fusion heaven with the upbeat arcade OST of the first title in the Alpha/Zero trilogy. The composition team includes Isao Abe, Syun Nishigaki, Setsuo Yamamoto, Yuko Takehara, Naoaki Iwami, Naoshi Mizuta, Hiroaki Kondo and Ryoji Yamamoto.
– Limited Edition red galaxy-effect LPs
– 38 tracks from the 1995 arcade game
– Side D features a sound effects collection at 45rpm
– Printed inner sleeves in a wide-spined outer sleeve
– Limited Edition red galaxy-effect LPs
– 47 tracks from the 1996 arcade game
– Syun Nishigaki, Setsuo Yamamoto, and Tatsuro Suzuki
– Printed inner sleeves in a wide-spined outer sleeve
The Alpha 3 music team comprised Takayuki Iwai, Yuki Iwai, Isao Abe (aka Oyaji), Hideki Okugawa, and Tetsuya Shibata. Working with the CP System II hardware and QSound system, the composers delivered a more contemporary, crunchy, and techno-led soundtrack in contrast to its predecessors.
– Limited Edition pink galaxy-effect LPs
– 44 remastered tracks from the 1998 game
– Printed inner sleeves in a wide-spined outer sleeve
________________________________________
To celebrate Laced Records’ fifth anniversary, and also to mark five years since DOOM ripped & tore up people’s expectations of the series, we present two new variants of the quadruple vinyl box set. The 5th Anniversary Limited Edition features galaxy-effect red LPs, a DOOM slipmat and art print. Both 4LP sets feature 31 tracks composed and sequenced by sonic cyberdemon Mick Gordon. The soundtrack won “Best Music” at The Game Awards 2016, and has continued to gain plaudits as one of the most distinct and innovative scores ever created for a video game.
– Limited Edition galaxy-effect red LPs
– Spined inners in a single rigid slipcase
– (Limited Edition) Custom slipmat
– (Limited Edition) Art print
________________________________________
Borderlands 2's music team comprised Jesper Kyd, Sascha Dikiciyan & Cris Velasco and Raison Varner, all of whom collaborated on the 2009 original. This core team was also joined by Kevin Riepl and Big Giant Circles for subsequent DLC. Together they honed the series’ Western-tinged, electronic and guitar-driven sound to create a fan-favourite soundtrack.
– Limited Edition yellow and black galaxy-effect discs
– 46 remastered tracks (23 from the OST, 23 from the extended soundtrack and DLC)
– Spined sleeves within a rigid board outer slipcase
________________________________________
Jesper Kyd amassed a broad palette of violent percussive sounds in creating his propulsive score. The music leans more towards this hypnotic array of scrapes, cracks, and thumps than it does the orchestral elements traditionally associated with dark fantasy — and is all the more distinct for it.
– 38 tracks including seven previously unreleased bonus tracks
– ‘Chaos Red’ and ‘Skaven Green’ discs
________________________________________
This triple LP set features original score tracks by Stephen Barton and tracks “Rainfall (feat. Tiana Major9)” by Brit Award-winning Stormzy and “In the Jungle” by Baby Knoxx. For Watch Dogs: Legion’s pulse-pounding original score, Barton blends a dizzying array of electronic and percussive elements, with flashes of breakbeat and layers of atmospheric ambience.
– Limited Edition red, white & black
– Deluxe triple gatefold
– 25 tracks, five sides include music, with the sixth side featuring a custom etching of the iconic DedSec pig mask
________________________________________
Lionel Gaget created a superb spy-jazz soundtrack that fuses John Barry’s ‘60s James Bond musical blueprint with David Holmes’ Ocean’s Eleven instrumental funk. The 11 specially remastered tracks on the LP — featured in both the 2003 and 2020 versions of the game — are stuffed full of first-class percussion, deep bass and subtle jazz stings.
– Half-and-half white and black LP
– Deluxe card sleeve
– 2020 remastered soundtrack; tracks featured in the 2003 original
________________________________________
TROY’s score comprises cinematic soundscapes, ambient washes, pulsing grooves, and basslines. Creative Assembly’s audio director and lead composer Richard Beddow created a vibrant, stylised fusion of elements from the Mediterranean, Balkan, North African, and Eastern cultures. Captivating choral performances by the Vanya Moneva Bulgarian female choir conjure an exciting and exotic sound, grounding the soundtrack in the ancient Aegean.
– Steam soundtrack download code on purchase
– Music by Richard Beddow, Jamie Christopherson and Tim Wynn
– Artwork by Tsvetelin Krastev, Lulu Zhang & Matt Wright
– 41 tracks on three orange LPs
– Deluxe triple gatefold with insert
– 53 tracks on two CDs
– Deluxe triple gatefold digi-sleeve with booklet insert
________________________________________
Croteam’s in-house composer Damjan Mravunac went full bore with the soundtrack, stuffing it full of thunderous orchestral rock, heavy drums, sweet-ass guitar tones, sweeping melodies, operatic choir, bluegrass (?!), and cinematic synths. It also wouldn’t be a throwback FPS without a dash of thrash: Nine Inch Nails guitarist Robin Finck lends his axe to “Hero Too”; while Croatian Heavy Metal band Undercode return to the Serious Sam series, featuring on the tracks “Dominate the Battlefield”, “Foreverwar”, and “Panopticon”.
– Translucent yellow discs
– Original artwork by Tom J Manning
________________________________________
– Orange and red side a/b effect vinyl
– 18 tracks
– All-new artwork of the historical strongest enemy in the game, Jad, plus iconic weapons and Barrows equipment arranged in the Combat Triangle
– Deluxe gatefold sleeve
– Includes 320kbps MP3 digital download
– CD in Digisleeve
– 18 tracks
– Includes 320kbps MP3 digital download
– Turquoise blue and purple side a/b effect vinyl
– 11 heroic tracks from the two high level dungeons
– Peelable RuneScape God Wars Dungeon sticker attached to shrink wrap
– Deluxe gatefold sleeve
– Includes 320kbps MP3 digital download
– CD in Digisleeve
– 11 tracks
– Includes 320kbps MP3 digital download
– Repress of our 2018 release
– Red gold discs
– Deluxe gatefold sleeve
– 43 tracks
– Includes 320kbps MP3 digital download
________________________________________
David Fenn’s score helps to fill players with hope and resolve rather than overwhelm them with aggression and bombast. The varied soundtrack is stuffed with exhilarating boss cues, more meditative and mysterious tracks, and quirky ditties. Every track is full of rich instrumentation, including layered percussion, piano, pan-pipes, guitar, and orchestral and choral elements. It’s a triumph both in-game and as a standalone listen, and another win for indie developer-composers creating soundtracks that perfectly resonate with their game’s visual and narrative aesthetics
- 50 tracks from the 2021 Zelda-inspired action game
- Sleeve art by Frits Olsen
- Black discs
– Printed inner sleeves in a wide-spined outer sleeve
Adam Drucker — aka doseone — took a vulcan cannon to genre with his giguntic-sounding Gungeon soundtracks. This selection of 38 anthemic and angular bangers spans the series (29 tracks from Enter the Gungeon, 9 from Exit The Gungeon) with each vinyl side a seamless suite of hyper music.
– Limited Edition colour-in-colour discs, exclusive to the Devolver Digital store
– 38 tracks from Enter the Gungeon and Exit the Gungeon
– Pop-up sleeve by Joseph Harmon
________________________________________
________________________________________
By Thomas Quillfeldt
Video games depend on loops: gameplay loops; looping animation; player feedback loops; looping music; the idea of ‘replayability’.
For long-time Arkane fans, Deathloop feels like the developer is trying to address possible barriers to entry with their previous immersive sim masterpieces — for example, the tension between rewarding patient stealth on the one hand, but providing gleefully violent powers and weapons on the other. Deathloop also includes nods to cinema, while pegging plot events, character motivations and gameplay mechanics to a scenario that is uniquely of video games.
The results speak for themselves: nominated in nine categories in The Game Awards 2021, including Best Score and Music (and winning Best Direction and Art Direction); 10/10 scores from IGN and GameSpot; and a warm reception from both Arkane newcomers and firm fans alike.
To deliver the original score, Arkane turned to recording artist and composer for media Tom Salta, who has built up a long video game credits list including forays into the Prince of Persia, Tom Clancy and Halo universes.
We corresponded with Salta about his choice of instrumentation, the spy-tastic musical references for Deathloop, and the importance of reverb.
Separate from Deathloop’s score music, Ross Tregenza handled diegetic music cues, while songwriter Erich Talaba and singer Jeff Cummings provided Frank Spicer’s in-game pop songs. Additionally, music agency Sencit and singer FJØRA performed the Bond-ish trailer and credits ballad “Déjà Vu”.
Arkane Studios is rightly celebrated for its artistic specificity and stylistic daring. The worlds of Dishonored and Prey (2017) are richly refined, and you always feel like Arkane’s finished products closely match the stupendous concept artwork produced by the studio’s own visionaries.
As a creative collaborator, Salta is evidently no slouch in terms of stylistic attention to detail. “Every time I begin working on a new franchise,” he comments, “I dedicate a good amount of time to research. For Deathloop, I spent weeks listening to all sorts of music from the late 1960s and very early ‘70s, fully immersing myself in it.”
One of the many influences on the Deathloop original score was electric guitar and rock pioneer Jimi Hendrix:
“I like to compare it to an actor preparing for a role; often some of the best actors will study for their roles by spending time researching and learning from real people. For me, it’s very much the same with music. I listen to all the nuances of the music I’m studying: the instruments, the performances, the types of chords used, and so on. I will reverse-engineer the music, and then create my own interpretations based on what I need to create for the score.”
“[As for Arkane’s art chops] I absolutely love working with people who pay attention to artistic details. I will always spend a good amount of time putting lots of detail in my music — things most people might not even notice. That might be adding detail in the instrumentation, sounds, hidden melodies, subliminal foreshadowing — you name it! I do what I do because I love getting lost in the music and taking people on the journey as well. So, when I’m working with an audio director who values that attention to detail, it gives me even more motivation and makes my work even more rewarding.”
Video game fans may not always appreciate how important the wider team of developers and others can be in fusing the soundtrack to the game experience. From game leads to audio programmers to music editors and mixers, composers are often guided by, or are able to lean on different people to deliver the finished product.
Possibly the most important person for composers to interface with in AAA game development is the audio director — Arkane Lyon’s Michel Trémouiller, in the case of Deathloop.
“The overall vision for the game’s music remained steady from the beginning because Michel is a very experienced audio director and had things well-thought-out,” recalls Salta. “That being said, there was one major musical change towards the beginning of the project, and that was regarding the main theme itself.“The first music I composed for the game was the initial main theme. It matched exactly what Michel had in mind in the brief. I felt it was very cool and mysterious but, after spending a couple of months on the game, I got a better sense of the personality of the project and felt we could come up with something even more appropriate for Deathloop.”
“Without telling Michel, I composed a new main theme and sent it to him with a description of why I felt this could work better as a main theme. He liked it a lot, but was understandably cautious in making any quick decisions. Keep in mind that it’s a major step to potentially replace an entire main theme that was already approved and familiar. We had some conversations and, a few weeks later, Michel made his decision and agreed that this would be a better main theme to use — and that theme became the foundation for much of the entire score. I think that was an amazing move by Michel and I give him tons of credit for that.”
We all know that repetition is an inevitable part of playing video games; and, as we know, repetition is an inevitable part of the gaming experience.
The role of composer is a little bit blessed and a little bit cursed. If a game is compelling and keeps people coming back, players can form positive associations with music cues they hear over and over. On the other hand, any frustration borne of repetition (difficulty spikes leading to retries, backtracking, etc.) can lead to players loathing a particular boss track or ambient music cue in a tedious section of the game.
Since Arkane were once again tackling the ‘recursive’ or ‘time loop’ genre, as they had with Prey: Mooncrash (alongside many notable contemporaries including Hitman, Hades, Returnal and The Forgotten City), this was front of mind for the music team.
“I was certainly mindful of the repeating nature of the game,” says Salta, “but we had a strategy right from the start on how to make it evolve throughout the game. One of the key aspects of Deathloop is that you revisit the same areas at different times of the day. So, musically, each of the four main areas of the island of Blackreef had four different variations depending on what time you’re visiting. This enabled us to keep things sounding fresh and evolving, while still being familiar.”
“‘Repeat-proofing’ is something I’m very accustomed to, having worked in games for so long. At this point, I instinctively know how to keep something from getting repetitive too quickly. For me, it all has to do with having a natural ‘yin and yang’ in the music. For example, if I'm creating a 60-second looping piece, I will maximize those 60 seconds with as much fresh material as possible so, by the time you get to the end, it feels natural to begin that musical cycle again.”
Deathloop’s score evokes late 1960s and early ’70s funk, soul, jazz, psychedelia and blues rock — with layers of organs, twanging guitars, and carefully chosen special effects.
Salta admits: “Initially, I was a little concerned [with drawing inspiration from that era] since the music of the ’60s isn’t known to be particularly aggressive or dark. Typically, that era is known to be relatively happy musically-speaking [as we tend to think of] the ‘flower-child’, hippies and ‘Make love not war.’
“Listening back to the score, I’m reminded of how I was influenced by artists like Jimi Hendrix, Frank Zappa and groups like Yes, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, The Who, The Doors; and even the scores of early James Bond films. Nelson Riddle’s music for the 1960s Batman show was also an influence, of course!”Batman TV Series Music Suite Nelson Riddle
“My top priority for this score was to hone a unique style that would complement all the high intensity action, while still sounding of that era. It also had to have a distinct personality to match this unique game. Eventually I was able to craft a sound for Deathloop that [I feel accomplished that.]”
There are a hundred or more small musical details in the Deathloop score “like a potpourri bowl of all the late ‘60s stuff swimming around in my brain. There’s “Strawberry Fields”-inspired Mellotron; little Pink Floyd-ish phrases; Doors-inspired Farfisa bits; Batman ‘66-esque fight scene chords; and a myriad of other sounds and parts that people might pick up on.”
The exact musical period that audio director Trémouiller, Salta and the team were musing on — from 1968 to the early ’70s — was a wildly experimental time for pop and rock, as electronic instruments started infiltrating pop hits and more ambitious long-playing albums from the likes of The Beatles and Pink Floyd.
Indeed, Floyd’s “On The Run” from Dark Side of the Moon is one of the most widely spun synth-led pieces of the 20th Century, featuring the EMS Synthi AKS. “[Floyd’s “On the Run”] is something I knew I wanted to channel once I heard about the scientific aspect of certain areas and characters,” says Salta.
The clearest reference is in the darkly tense opening of “Ubiquity (Wenjie Evans)”:
Because of this period-appropriateness, Salta’d use of specific organ and synth sounds sits perfectly with the other sonic and visual elements. At the same time, the inclusion of supernatural powers and fantasy technology take the game’s aesthetic into the territory of sci-fi retro-futurism.
“I used authentic late ‘60s-early ’70s instruments like Rhodes, Wurlitzer, Hammond B3, Vibraphone, Farfisa, Clavinet, Mellotron, Theremin, and more. The point of all this was to immerse the players in this other world — this one-of-a-kind place stuck in a late ’60s time loop. And, because you don’t get to experience this kind of setting very often, it gave me the opportunity to paint a musical canvas that was as unique and colourful as the environment and characters themselves.”
Salta has a long, varied credits list including many militaristic games from series including Call of Duty, Ghost Recon, and Halo. Deathloop certainly isn’t about love and peace, but its tone is markedly different from the typical shooter, giving him the chance to inject some groove into proceedings.
He explains: “The feeling I had making this score reminded me of how it felt when I was scoring Red Steel back in 2006. I remember that score received a lot of positive responses as well, which is great because that’s a huge part of my musical identity.”
“I love making music that deviates from the usual ‘epic’ stuff you hear in games, movies and TV. Anytime I can tap into my roots and create [groovier] music, I feel so free and liberated. It allows me to use more of my life experience and my whole musical identity. I often say that my musical journey reminds me a bit of Forrest Gump — I’ve been a part of so many diverse musical experiences in my life.
“I’ve always felt that video game music teams could benefit from exploring a wider range of genres and instrumental palettes. That said, I understand the difficulty and risks of trying to be unique. It’s way easier to take a formula that works and simply rinse and repeat. But I hope that [Deathloop’s stylishness and success] does encourage more developers to take more artistic risks and be creative.”
“Using music to create specific emotions is probably my favorite thing about making music,” says Salta. “I remember being mesmerised as a 10-year-old listening to John Williams scores on vinyl, reliving specific moments and feelings in the movies. I realised back then that it’s the music that does that.
“I like to say that ‘music is what emotion sounds like’. So when it comes to feeling cool, feeling worried, scared, powerful, fragile, vulnerable, in love — I can do that with music. Give me a scene with a white hallway and, with music, I can make you feel happy, uneasy or even terrified.
“There’s a ‘formula’ to a lot of it and it has all been done before, so it can be studied and emulated. To make a player feel ‘cool’ in a ’60s setting using that musical vocabulary means to give them a confident swagger. [This means creating] a regular pattern with some attitude. It could be a steady hi-hat phrase; a short two-note motif on bass or low piano; or a myriad of other things. I would just simply play around like a kid in a sandbox and create the feeling.”
The time it takes to assemble the emotional building blocks of a score can vary, reflects Salta: “Sometimes it just comes to me, and sometimes I have to sit there for a while and stay in that precarious creative zone where I’m actively not trying, but yet I am.
“The times when I’m going for something specific, such as that James Bond sound, I will often study and imitate the music. I’ll play chord sequences from various Bond films and try to make them all part of me so that I’m not thinking about it. Then I can create from an authentic place rather than re-fabricating someone else’s voice.”
Players spend a lot of time sneaking around Blackreef, becoming familiar with Salta’s more ambient passages in the process. Creating these tension-holding chord sequences and lower intensity palettes goes a bit underappreciated when video game music is discussed — and composers aren’t necessarily going to include hours of it on a soundtrack album. Craftsmanship is required to maintain a particular mood, and Deathloop definitely benefits from Salta’s skill in this department.
“Even when creating ‘simple’ mood music like this, I still put a lot of creative energy into making it fresh and immersive. When I create music like this, I always prefer to be looking at something, [e.g.] concept art. I think it helps me turn off the left side of the brain and just ‘feel’ my way through; painting a musical picture that puts me in that very specific place."
“My ‘secret’ — if I have one — to creating fresh-sounding music of any kind (including tense, stealthy, ambient music) is to simply create from an authentic place. I compare it to channeling the five-year-old inside of me. When I’m creating, I have to discipline myself to stop thinking, otherwise I’m doing it wrong — and I’m certainly not thinking about if anyone else has possibly done anything like what I’m creating! That just creates a sense of creative, paranoid paralysis.
“I believe that when any of us tap into our authentic creative spirit, and trust that it’s coming from a sincere place, the originality will take care of itself.”
Possibly the most commonly used production technique in all of recorded music history (not to mention media sound and dialogue mixing in general) is reverb.
Every human instinctively processes reverb information and understands at a primal level the difference between short tail reverb (e.g. when you’re close to a sound and/or in a small space) and long tail reverb (e.g. a huge, echoey hall.) It’s probably something gamers almost never think about unless it feels wrong, for instance if a character’s dialogue line bugs out and sounds like it's coming from 30 yards away even though they’re almost on top of you.
It’s an important but not often discussed mixing consideration in soundtrack music, and there are a galaxy of hardware and software reverb options all across the price range.
“I’m a reverb nut,” Salta confesses. “It’s amazing what a huge difference reverb makes — and the variety of them is almost endless. I always pay a lot of attention in making sure the reverbs I use put the music in the right three-dimensional space to complement the experience of playing the game. This doesn’t mean that you simply try to match what you see on the screen. Music creates a fourth dimension in the game — an ‘emotional dimension’ — and putting the music in the right sonic space to best enhance the experience is key.
“One extreme example is the music of Blade Runner by Vangellis. Most of it was put through a huuuuge reverb, likely a Lexicon 480 I’m guessing. One of the magical things about that music is how they used reverb in general, even on the voices. It added a dreamy quality to the film that makes you want to get lost in it and stay there, even though [1982’s vision of Los Angeles in 2019] was a dismal, dystopian place.”
“In the music of Deathloop, there is a multi-layered aspect to the music. Some of the elements are dry and in-your-face; some are in the distance; and others are right in the middle. This is a production/mixing technique that can be heard in most music. I made these decisions based on how I wanted the music to sit in-game. Some things would be atmospheric way off in the distance and others would be closer to the listener.”
Deathloop was firmly in the mix during the 2021 awards season and Game of the Year discussions. Salta says: “It feels great but I don’t take it for granted, not even for a second. A reception like this can never be planned, and anyone should consider themselves lucky to have something like this happen even once in their career. I never could have imagined the kind of response both the game and music are getting and I’m forever grateful.”
_________________
Tom Salta is a music artist and composer for film, television, advertising and video games – www.tomsalta.com | Twitter: @TomSalta | Spotify Artist Page | YouTube
By Thomas Quillfeldt
Orchestral music is in rude health in the world of video game soundtracks, with more and more composers around the globe creating exceptional scores.
The power of the orchestra lies in its tremendous dynamic and emotional range. A composer walking in the footsteps of Romantic predecessors such as Beethoven, Wagner and Rachmaninoff can make the listener feel like they're carried along by a gale of mystery and emotion.
This playlist doesn't make a distinction between live recorded ensembles and sampled instruments, although of course flesh-and-blood musicians always add something special. What matters most is the unmistakable sonic palette of the orchestra and associated instruments (e.g. harp, piano) and ensembles (e.g. choir.)
Also, there are some mindful omissions from the main list for variety's sake — we have so much love for composers such as Kirkhope, Kondo, Wintory, Uematsu, O'Donnell and Mitsuda, and where possible they're included in the longer streaming playlists linked below.
Album: Spotify | Apple Music
Spanish composer David García Díaz (currently Audio Director at Ninja Theory) creates music and sound worlds that can swing effortlessly from huge to intimate. While Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice is a different kettle of fish, his scores for RiME and Arise: A Simple Story are verdantly tuneful and melodramatic.
"Lullaby Over the Lake" is a short piano-led cue from Arise that is arrestingly beautiful from the very first note.
Album: Spotify | Apple Music
The music in thatgamecompany titles is always of primary importance to the aesthetic tone. Austin Wintory's score for Journey rightly gets a lot of attention, but other soundtracks in the TGC catalogue are well worth listening to.
Vincent Diamante, the composer behind 2009's Flower, returns to collaborate once again with Jenova Chen and co. Diamante's airy, angular harmony is reminiscent of the Studio Ghibli 'blue sky' vibes conjured by composer Joe Hisaishi.
Album: Spotify | Apple Music
RuneScape is a remarkable game for several reasons: because of its longevity (20 years and counting); because of the Guiness World Record-winning quantities of score music; and also because it's actually two distinct games. Old School RuneScape maintains the General MIDI sound that takes its players back to mid-noughties; while RuneScape 3 enjoys a varied soundtrack of live-recorded and digitally produced music.
Long-time games composer James Hannigan harnessed a grand orchestral and choral sound for RuneScape 3, with some sessions taking place at Abbey Road Studios featuring the Philharmonia Orchestra and Pinewood Singers.
Album: Spotify | Apple Music
Oure is a non-violent exploration and puzzle game set among the clouds. As with ABZÛ, RiME and several others, Oure follows in the wake of thatgamecompany's 2012 smash hit Journey, which saw players revelling in an emotive, minimalist vibe enhanced by an ethereal orchestral score.
British Ivor Novello Award-winning composer Ian Livingstone has a long credits list that spans all manner of franchises including racing and real-time strategy games, licensed platformers and more. What he brought to Oure — and is shared with the composers on this list — is a talent for soul-stirring, hummable melodies.
Album: Spotify | Apple Music
As well as the influence of Studio Ghibli/Joe Hisaishi, there's also plenty to be said for the influence of Disney's early '90s golden period (running from The Little Mermaid to The Lion King) in orchestral video game music. Composers like Bruce Broughton, Alan Menken and Hans Zimmer wove intensely melodic scores around the stand-out musical numbers. One might also cite Pixar's big hitters.
Composer-technologist M.R. Miller created a very special score for the haunting 2D puzzle-platformer that channels all the soaring sentimentality of the classic Disney and Ghibli animations. Miller's productions sound so effortless and fluid — something which he's also brought to other games through his arrangement and orchestration work for composers including Austin Wintory.
Album: Spotify | Apple Music
Beyond a Steel Sky is the long-awaited point-and-click follow-up to cyberpunk classic Beneath a Steel Sky. The sequel's look was crafted by art director Dave Gibbons, the legendary comic book artist behind Watchmen.
Young British composer Alistair Kerley drew from the sci-fi greats to hone the game's sound (in particular the three J's of John Williams, Jerry Goldsmith, and James Horner.) Beyond a Steel Sky's recording sessions also benefitted from conductor Nicholas Dodd’s experiences having orchestrated and conducted the scores for movies including Stargate and Independence Day.
Laced With Wax interviewed Kerley around the time of the digital release of the soundtrack.
Album: Spotify | Apple Music
Free-to-play sensation Genshin Impact was a smash hit in 2020. It's easy to guess what inspired the developers in terms of fantasy anime and gaming touchpoints, but the presentation and gameplay was of an incredibly high quality all the same.
Composer Yu-peng Chen crossed over from Chinese film and TV music production to video games when he joined Genshin Impact developer miHoYo. He was inspired by classical and Chinese folk music, and produced a beautifully airy and delicate score.
VGMO interviewed Yu-Peng Chen.
Album: Spotify | Apple Music
With Gears 5, Eternals, Game of Thrones and Iron Man composer Ramin Djawadi deftly blended a heavyweight Hollywood sound with impassioned melodies, bringing to life Kait Diaz’s journey across icy wastes and dusty deserts.
In true Gears style, the soundtrack features a varied mixture of orchestral textures, huge-sounding percussion, and atmospheric electronic sounds.
Album: Spotify | Apple Music
Since it released Everybody's Gone to the Rapture, developer The Chinese Room has been on a rollercoaster journey including a hiatus and acquisition. The poignant Shropshire-based mystery blended a fascinatingly realistic English setting with a compelling sci-fi radio play.
Few scores haunt the memory like Jessica Curry's. Choir, solo voices, piano and harp sit atop delicate harmonic beds as she plucks players' heartstrings to devastating effect. Nothing since has quite resonated like this mournful masterpiece.
Album: Spotify | Apple Music
Lost Words: Beyond the Page is an atmospheric narrative adventure written by Rhianna Pratchett — quite literally a narrative platformer that alternates between the pages of a young girl's diary and a fantasy story.
For Housden, writing great melodies for soundtracks is the same as writing great pop hooks, as his musical background was built on playing in bands rather than training classically. You wouldn't know that Lost Words was his first live orchestral project, as the execution is simply wonderful.
Laced With Wax interviewed Housden about Lost Words in mid-2021.
Album: Spotify | Apple Music
Moon Studios pulls no punches when it comes to emotional puppeteering of players in its Ori titles. The games' big moments are soundtracked by big themes courtesy of the Maestro Chief, composer Gareth Coker.
And Coker has also been in the background helping other composers with orchestration, including David Housden on the aforementioned Lost Words.
Laced With Wax interviewed Coker about his favourite melodists and more.
Album: Spotify | Apple Music
The benefit of mid-90s rail shooters like Star Fox and Panzer Dragoon is that, perhaps more so than top-down shoot-em-ups, their 3D polygonal worlds helped create the sensation of soaring through the air.
The late composer for media Yoshitaka Azuma knew how to kindle that feeling of careening through the skies, even if the SEGA Saturn's graphical capabilites were on the gritty side.
Album: Spotify | Apple Music
There's not much left to be said about what is, for many, the ultimate series reboot. The recontextualisation of Kratos, and the game's touching story built entirely around a father-son bond, meant that any incoming composer would have faced a daunting task creating the soundtrack.
Bear McCreary has forged a mighty credits list across mediums. If there's a thread that ties the majority of projects together, it's that they focus on human drama taking place in fantastical scenarios and worlds — with a side order of lightness and humour. With God of War, McCreary was able to complement characters' humanity, amplify the epic stakes of the story, and tread the line between deep, deific weightiness and jaunty familiy roadtrip.
Album: Spotify | Apple Music
If there is a canon of enduring video game music pieces, then Dearly Beloved would be one of the first tracks among it. It perfectly encapsulate that sense of earnest, young adult yearning (set against a fiery sunset) that JRPGs have returned to again and again.
Shimomura tends to be a piano-first composer, fond of glittering Chopin and Rachmaninoff-like runs — and these are always perfectly complemented by a lush orchestral arrangement.
Album: Spotify | Apple Music
The sixth Tomb Raider game lives on in infamy although, as one might expect in this time of interconnected fandom, there is a hardcore fan base committed to preserve and celebrate even the most unloved titles in a game series.
The score, recorded by the illustrious London Symphony Orchestra at Abbey Road Studios, was one of the few highlights of the whole project. When it was recorded in 2002, orchestral game soundtracks were still in their infancy (for some, 1998's Heart of Darkness was the first such score.) It's lovely to see the LSO still involved with video game music having, at the time of writing, just performed the Skyrim 10th Anniversary concert.
Here's some Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness photos from the 2002 recording session.
By Jerry Jeriaska (The Ongaku), Eric Bratcher, and Thomas Quillfeldt; republished with permission from The Ongaku
Contrary to misinformation from shady ‘news’ sources, Doom 64 is not the 64th game in the Doom series.
You could say it was the third mainline game (making Doom 3 the fourth), or possibly the fifth. Meaning that DOOM is the seventh. Or not. Maybe. Video game titles are weird.
What we do know is that Doom 64, developed by Midway with oversight from id Software, was an original, distinct entry in the series. The game recently enjoyed a fresh port for PC and consoles by specialists Nightdive Studios.
We asked the game’s composer Aubrey Hodges about his musical background, his work fighting against memory limitations on the various Doom ports and sequels, and his epic 8+ hours album release Doom 64: 20th Anniversary Extended Edition (Bandcamp; Apple Music Pt. 1, Pt. 2; Amazon Pt. 1, Pt.2; and Spotify Pt. 1, Pt. 2.)
Hodges’ audio credits span some 250+ game titles (over 128 million units shipped) including Sierra series King’s Quest, Space Quest, Quest for Glory and Leisure Suit Larry; and, at Midway, the console versions of Doom and Quake. He got his start in the mid-80s when the audio capabilities of some PCs was limited to a mere single-beep speaker; and was also among the first to use MIDI in a game.
“Music was always the thing I liked to do the most,” says Hodges. “I'm also an artist and a painter, and for a long time I thought that might be my career. But music just had that hold on me.
“I grew up with very modest means, but my aunt had a little organ and a piano. It fascinated me, so I would go there and annoy her. In school I learned violin and brass instruments, but then I got my first electric guitar — a Peavey T-15 — and it was amazing. The first time I played a power chord on that guitar, I was hooked.
“I started doing tiny concerts and church events, getting better and building my repertoire. Then I started playing at clubs — probably before I was legally allowed to — and, the way the world worked back then, I met the right people and started touring. I was traveling around the world opening for different groups, playing keyboard and singing.
“It was a lonely way to live, and I wasn’t a ‘party guy’. I don't do drugs, smoke or drink so there wasn't much to do. After playing a show, I’d be alone in a hotel room someplace and half the time I didn’t even know what city I was in.”
“When I got off the road, I looked for different gigs and tried to figure out what to do with my life, which ultimately led me to installing other people’s studio equipment.
“One of my clients was [Sierra On-Line’s] Mark Seibert. He gave me lots of business — and he always had the weirdest problems! In one case, I had to have equipment custom-made for him at a company specialising in cables.
“[Out of the blue] he invited me to ‘come and see the studio’. I didn't realise [where he worked] until I drove up and saw a giant ‘Sierra On-Line’ sign — these were the people who made those cool games I played on my computer when I was on the road!”
Seibert composed the music for Conquests of Camelot: The Search for the Grail, among several others:
Hodges recalls: “[Mark] took me on a tour of the facility and I was just blown away. I had never seen so many computer monitors. I had no idea that it was all done here in Oakhurst, California, of all places.
“He asked whether I’d like to come and work for them and I agreed, but it was scary because I didn't know if I could do it. I came in at Sierra as the most junior of juniors, doing whatever they needed such as preparing a lot of weird batch files and conversions. I was one of the first in the world doing General MIDI conversions, because we were working with Roland at the time to develop that platform. Sierra wanted to be one of the first to get [the term] ‘General MIDI’ printed on a game box [for 1987’s Mixed-Up Mother Goose.]
“I was thirsty for knowledge, and it was cool just helping other musicians achieve what they were trying to do. I threw myself into a lot of the work that no one wanted to do — I found it fun. I think my first computer there was a 286-10, which was basically powered by gerbils running in a wheel.
“About five months in, my manager called me in and said that one of the composers had left, asking: ‘Can you write a hundred and twenty-nine songs in forty-five days?’ I said yes, got to writing, and didn't look back. That project was Conquests of the Longbow: The Legend of Robin Hood, which was very successful, and everyone loved the music. It was a real learning experience.”
“The main lesson from that introduction into professional composing was to not write while looking over my shoulder. A lot of people are hesitant to take risks because they’re so worried about meeting market expectations, and matching certain styles and genres. That sense of worry can become like a shackle on composing and creativity.
“When I write I never worry about anything, really. I just think about whether I like the sound of it. Do I like the emotional state I’m in while hearing this cue in the game? Does it work with what I’m seeing? In having to write so quickly for Conquests of the Longbow, I lost all of that writer’s anxiety. To this day, I don't second-guess things. I can come up with something that sounds cool and make it work.
Unfortunately for Hodges, Sierra On-Line executed an office move to Seattle, Washington. In order to stay in California, he joined another gaming company, Midway.
For a while there he truly became the Doom guy, working on the PlayStation versions of Doom (1995) and Final Doom (1996.) Both titles were compilations of existing content and, strictly speaking, were developed by Williams Entertainment Inc. — more or less part of the same company as Midway as division names were shuffled about under parent company WMS Industries Inc.
Doom 64 followed soon after in 1997.
Bobby Prince, composer for the PC original of Doom.
The most obvious differentiator between Doom (1993) and Doom 64’s soundtrack is how much more ambient and atmospheric the latter is.
“In the early days, Bobby Prince took a bombastic, heavy metal approach to Doom’s music,” recalls Hodges. “That works to get you amped up, and drives the adrenaline and intensity you need to feel while playing the game.”
“What I tried to do in the way I approached the Doom 64 score is to achieve that same intensity, anxiety and nervousness that heavy metal delivers but in a different way. The game’s world is a dangerous space and these monsters are going to take you out.
“I liked the dissonant, dark quality to some of the chord progressions Bobby made with his MIDI guitar. There's also a sort of heroic cadence to it; and, in subsequent games, there was also a sinister quality that I wanted to pick up on. However, I wanted to give Doom 64 a more cinematic and serious feeling so I blended the grittiness of metal with the orchestra — a sinister and militaristic feeling orchestra, since you’re a marine after all. I tried to give it that space opera vibe of doing your duty and saving the universe.”
“People often wonder what made me think of ambient music versus the high-energy metal soundtrack of Doom. There are people who love it and people who hate it.
“There’s no right way or wrong way to do a soundtrack for a game if the emotional intent of the game designers is delivered. The designers have built all these neat gameplay moments to engage you intellectually and emotionally, to pull you into a world they have created. It's my job to enhance that and root you in the emotions they [want to evoke in you.] They're brilliant at understanding what makes those design choices fun. If the game designer wants a happy and relaxing mood, you can deliver folk music, or electronica, or rock with a happy and relaxing mood.
“There are no rules to this — music is about emotion and communication. People who [have rigid] expectations of things, and think that there is a ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ answer are fundamentally misunderstanding what music is trying to do for a game.
“I listen to Bobby Prince's work and I love it. I listen to [DOOM and DOOM Eternal composer] Mick Gordon's work and I love it. [Some of the comparative] ‘which is the best…’ arguments in forums are harebrained and ridiculous. ‘Who's better: Elvis or the Beatles?’ There is no ‘better’. They’re both fantastic, and I enjoy them both for who they are.”
Hodges states: “Everyone is familiar with the concept of a music soundtrack — you're playing a game and [to some extent] the music reminds you of that fact. But, with Doom 64, I wanted that feeling to disappear when you entered the game world. I wanted the score to diegetically be of the game world, and to give you that emotional feeling that you're not in Kansas anymore.
“Where I hint at music here and there, I hope it doesn't break the immersion too much, but I generally do not bother with tonal music as we know it. I lead you into the miasma of the anxiety of the place you're in.
“The hard part about working on the game was not necessarily having the technical acumen to make it work, but allowing for the emotional vulnerability to feel that very disturbed mood. I never took it lightly. Getting into that mindset could make you feel moody and frustrated [as I’m sure happens] with method acting. It’s hard letting yourself feel all the stuff that you're trying to deliver emotionally.
“It wasn’t about making something scary or spooky — I was experimenting with sounds to find what emotionally bothered me, what made me feel anxious. [I was looking for] atonal and dissonant sounds to pick at that fear and vulnerability we all have.
“Once I found something that bothered me [emotionally] I would look at it clinically as a technician. I [would try to balance something that has] a lot of low end with something super high end; something that felt heavy with something that felt light. By mixing them, I gave people emotional space as they played.
“You would hear something heavy, and then the track would breathe for thirty seconds before becoming thick with emotional anxiety again. You have to pace [out the intensity], otherwise constant tension would reduce people’s desire to want to go back into that world.
“When a level ends, I hit you with a different mood entirely — a badass mood. ‘You're alive! You came out the other side! Now, take a breath... and get ready to go back in.’”
“Doom is a nightmare if you're playing at one of the higher skill levels and I was never that great at it! For me, it was always intense to test things during development, because I would just get killed. The level guys teased me about being a ‘noob.’
“In some ways, I intentionally didn’t get that good at Doom 64 because I wanted to maintain that feeling of nervousness while playing. When you get really good like some of the level testers you’ve got nothing to be nervous about — it looks like child's play.
“I was excited to go back and create a 20th Anniversary edition of the soundtrack, although I felt a little hesitant about jumping back into these emotions. I put it off for a long time. I had to [dose myself on happy stuff like Disney films] before going back into that world, but once I started I was once again excited about the sounds and uniqueness of that emotional space.”
Hodges recalls: “[Both PlayStation and N64 consoles] were lessons in dealing with what you actually have, not with what you would like. Both devices had serious memory issues. In the case of the PlayStation, it wasn't how much total sample memory fit, because it was a disc — I could fit more in total. The problem was that, at any one time, I could only access around 500KB [half a megabyte.] Some of that was the music driver, and that was split between music and sound effects. We only allotted 200KB total for music. The remainder was for sound effects, the reverb and the sample engine.”
“On the PlayStation we were using [the sound engine] WESS (Williams Entertainment Sound System). The programmer behind it, Scott Patterson, sat down with me and mapped things out. We just did whatever we could do to fit those samples into the space available. The advantage was that every song could basically have its own unique sounds because there was no limit to the total, as there was on the Nintendo hardware. Another big differentiator was the reverb, which was really very beautiful on the PlayStation.”
The CD-based console also afforded them the luxury of directly streamed audio, just like a CD player. “The reason that the Doom theme sounds so high resolution on the PlayStation is because it's being played as Redbook audio. I was able to give you the full midi studio version of the song with real guitar, and didn't have to squish it down into a tiny little sample that could fit on the Nintendo 64. The same is true for the credits and level completion music.”
Doom 64’s soundtrack blends traditional gaming sample sounds with fuller, more realistic instruments. The main theme has brass and strings parts, and a crunchier, lower bitrate percussion track that all blend together.
Hodges explains: “Sound-wise, my budget for everything was 1MB, and you have to fit the sound engine in that, too. That takes you down to about 800KB for music and sound effects. You're left with very little space for music.
“In some cases, when I designed a sound effect, I would throw it into my sampler and mess with it to see whether it could be used in the music itself at a very low sample rate. The sounds themselves could be reused in multiple ways by messing with pitch and root key. What I found was that when you lower the sample rate intentionally to something like 5KB, it would start doing [interesting] things like aliasing, chirping and artifacting. These weird little idiosyncrasies would happen when you lost the ability, technologically speaking, for sound to cleanly define itself.
“When the sound driver doesn't have the information it squawks a little bit. That's what's going on with low bitrate sound. It's interpolating what should be there and doesn't do it accurately because there is not enough detail. That lower root key and those pitches work to your advantage when you’re creating a soundscape that is dystopian and disturbed; where you're trying to [play on] people's anxieties. It was giving me that ‘art of noise’ sound like, for example, what you might hear in Nine Inch Nails’ music.”
“The sound is bleached and torn up, real lo-fi — but sounding hi-fi in some ways. It involved constant maneuvering, like a shell game, to fit these sounds into that memory and leave room for the sound effects — platform sounds, the shotgun, the elevator going up and down, etc.
“In many of the pieces the sound effects themselves were being multi-purposed. While I was writing, if I needed something a little harsher, I would go through my sounds and throw them onto the palette and listen for a ‘musical instrument’ to find what I needed.
“The Nintendo tool that ran on the SGI Indigo machine was pretty crude. It was the very first version and the instructions were written in Japanese kanji. I tried reaching out to them but didn’t get a response, so I just made a cheat sheet of the symbols and what I thought they were doing, like raising the pitch, changing the root key, or changing the loop point.
“Eventually, I learned the symbols and didn't have to check the cheat sheet so much. Time was ticking by and I was just happy to make it work with that strategy — so long as it was saving and playing back in the builds.”
“The interactive nature of video games makes it a more difficult task than writing for a linear scene, as in TV. You don't have a clue about an individual’s playstyle, for instance whether they’re an aggressive player firing the plasma gun, or a sniper who’s careful with his ammo. They could walk into a room and it’s Club Doom packed with thousands of enemies — or completely empty.
“You have to keep writing with the goal to keep the player engaged no matter the scenario. Because of the memory issues, I wasn’t writing specifically for each level. In terms of style, I wrote roughly three ‘gradients’ of darkness. We tried them out and if they just didn't feel right [in a given level], we’d try something else.
“One of the levels set in the Command Station ("Hellistatic") didn’t feel technological enough in terms of hearing the sounds of the station. We went and found another one that had more chirps and bleeps that fit better. It can be easy to miss the forest for the trees [when you’re absorbed in music-making.]”
“I loved seeing screens, such as the credits at the end of the game, and writing directly for those — otherwise, I just have ‘Ending’ written on a piece of paper! On Doom 64, I started writing the theme before the 3D title scene existed. When they showed me that I had to go back and rewrite it to match the timings. You have to go back and forth quite a bit because of technical reasons.”
For the extended soundtrack, Hodges revisited pieces to elongate them with samples he simply couldn’t use in the ‘90s. “I intended to create extended length tracks at the time — for instance, for the mod community who were making very big levels.
“Now, with the extended album, I’ve been able to go back in and add things that I knew I had left out [in the ‘90s] — for example if I was after a wavy or shimmery sound with a high-end sheen, but couldn't find it because everything was below sample rate or didn’t sound right.
“I knew where to extend the tracks but had to figure out how as I went. I also thought it would be cool to go back through the sound effects and introduce those in a subtle way, to hit that nostalgia for the players without altering the initial spirit of the track.
“One of the hardest parts of the project was thinking back to when I was writing and remembering what I was trying to achieve but didn't have the samples for. When I checked through my old notes, I remembered at least half of them.
“There were a lot of samples I tried that just didn't work, such as smashing things with hammers, breaking glass, scratching metal, etc. Sometimes there just wasn't enough detail in the audio itself, and sometimes you get lucky. The whir of my laptop dying was an interesting sound so I recorded it thinking that I might use it one day. The sound when you blow demons up is packets of meat being dropped into a toilet. I don't think the janitor at Midway appreciated it much but I was just doing my job!
“A failed experiment can lead to a successful one. Out of seventy samples, sometimes only one — the sixtieth sample of glass scratching on metal that kinda sounds like a rusty oil can — resonates just right. You try all kinds of stuff. You make a lot of mess and a lot of noise. What I would say to any composer is: never be afraid to try stuff. The worst that can happen is it fails, and then you just try something else.
“People really like the crying babies track “Lamentation of the Forgotten”, and very little could be done there without potentially ruining what people love about it.”
Hodges explains: “For the Extended Edition album, the entire stereo field has been redone to give the sound more width. I used mastering software to remaster the album so that it sits, in terms of the stereo space, in a wider field — software that just didn’t exist back then. The music is also re-equalized and loudness maximized, so that everything is balanced. That was never something I got the opportunity to do the way I wanted to when the game shipped at Midway. To me, the pieces just feel better than ever because of it.”
The bonus tracks on the Extended Edition album are brand new, written using the same techniques and style. Hodges explains: “The key to the project was to make sure it still felt like Doom and that any enhancements don’t take away from players' memories.”
“The hard thing with the new material was making sure I had the right motivations. In an effort to re-enter that creative pace, I was pulling up Doom maps and watching people play levels on YouTube. Each piece became its own research project. These were pieces of Doom ambient music that needed to feel like they belonged within that universe.”
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Aubrey Hodges is a composer and sound designer – www.aubreyhodges.com | aubreyhodges.bandcamp.com
]]>
By Thomas Quillfeldt
In many ways, the 2D Street Fighter series was an intensified reflection of the 1990s — colourful, multicultural, globe-trotting, and people weren’t afraid to rip their gi and show a bit of skin.
For 2020’s Street Fighter III: The Collection vinyl box set, and the subsequent Street Fighter Alpha series vinyl releases, the Laced team looked to the comics world for an illustrator who could represent the movement, poise, and ferocity of the series’ characters. And we think we hit the jackpot.
Andie Tong is a Malaysian/Australian comic book artist who has worked on a number of titles including Spectacular Spiderman UK, Green Lantern Legacy, Legend of Shang Chi, Masters of the Universe, TEKKEN: Blood Feud and Tron Betrayal. He also illustrated the Dynamite Comics adaptation of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series and Disney's The Zodiac Legacy; an illustrated novel created by Stan Lee and Stuart Moore.
At the time of writing, pre-orders have opened for the Street Fighter Alpha 3 triple vinyl featuring more of Tong’s exceptional work — the Limited Edition is available exclusively via lacedrecords.com/collections/street-fighter.
Tong’s influences and inspirations are numerous, but he cites Canadian comic book creator Todd McFarlane — best known for The Amazing Spider-Man and Spawn — as the first artist that got him to pay attention and look into different art styles. “From there, it snowballed as I discovered Steve Ditko, John Romira Snr, Chris Bachalo, Joe Madureira, Arthur Adams, Olivier Coipel, and many others.”
Tong says: “Over time, I started to check out more manga, anime and video game creators such as Hayao Miyazaki (Studio Ghibli), Katsuhiro Otomo (Akira), Masamune Shirow (Ghost in the Shell) and Akira “Akiman” Yasuda (Final Fight, Street Fighter II).
Art by (top left) Hayao Miyazaki for Spirited Away; (top right) Katsuhiro Otomo for Akira; (bottom left) Masamune Shirow for Ghost in the Shell; and (bottom right) Akira “Akiman” Yasuda’s cover for Final Fight.
He explains: “With manga and anime, [the creative choices inspire me] both in how to draw action and also how to depict quieter set pieces. The use of dynamism and in-your-face angles adds to the urgency of an action shot — Japanese artists do this so well.”
Ghost in the Shell by Masamune Shirow.
“When it comes to the quieter scenes, again the great manga artists know how to tell a story of a simple scene, such as a person eating or having a conversation. Many elements make a simple scene into a great storytelling moment: the gestures, sitting or standing position, facial expressions, and detailed background environments.”
AKIRA by Katsuhiro Otomo.
“My favourite comic since childhood, and still to this day, is Spider-Man,” says Tong. “I remember my parents taking me to the local magazine stand to buy as many different Spider-Man comics as possible. I would grab every title I could, including The Amazing Spider-Man, Spectacular…, and Web of... I used to own a lot of comics! Because of limited space, these days I only buy the collected graphic novels.”
Spider-Man drawn by John Romita Jnr.
The heroines of Resident Evil drawn by Andie Tong.
With a demanding illustration career, Tong is a time-starved gamer who grew up on fighting games like Street Fighter and TEKKEN, before moving onto popular action adventure and RPG games like the Batman: Arkham and Final Fantasy. “I'm the type of person that gets consumed by what I’m doing. I'd start a game and, before I realised it, 10 hours had gone by. This is similar to my art: once I start drawing, many hours will go by before I remember to take a break, stretch, drink some water, etc. Due to lack of time though, I've only ever finished a handful of games.”
Tong says: “I started drawing video game characters as soon as I started playing as them at the arcades — and even more so after I bought my first console. I was so inspired by the character designs that I would take a mental note, and then draw them as fan art when I got to my desk.
“In the beginning, I drew mainly characters from fighting games including Street Fighter, Tekken, Virtua Fighter and Dead or Alive. Later on, as I developed interest in different kinds of games, I would draw characters from Resident Evil, Final Fantasy, Metal Gear Solid, Parasite Eve, and more.”
Tifa from Final Fantasy VII drawn by Andie Tong.
“Many years later, I got the opportunity to work with Bandai Namco to produce a comics mini-series to coincide with the launch of TEKKEN 7. It was a dream come true to be able to draw characters like Kazuya, Heihachi, Paul Phoenix and Nina Williams officially.”
Check out @andie_t's phenomenal Heihachi live sketch for @TEKKEN #1 - order TODAY! https://t.co/ooMCVbRD5F Order code: MAR172030 @cavanscott pic.twitter.com/PDaEhElbwy
— @ComicsTitan (@ComicsTitan) March 23, 2017
Andie Tong is a co-author of Titan Comics’ TEKKEN graphic novel.
Over the course of his career, Tong has had to immerse himself in various fictional and visually distinct universes including Tron, Spider-Man and TEKKEN — established worlds where many artistic interpretations already exist, both official and fan-made.
“I do tons of research before I even consider sketching anything. I'm not shy about seeing how different artists have approached a character, nor to be influenced by their interpretation.
“Another thing I pay special attention to is a character's clothing, so that even if I embellish it with my own trimmings and accessories, the character is still recognisable. Because I’m dealing with someone else's IP, I want to make sure the essence of the character is still intact.”
A close-up of Rose from Andie Tong’s front cover for the Street Fighter Alpha: Warriors’ Dreams double LP.
Street Fighter is a series renowned for its character design, box cover paintings, 2D pixel art, and animation. As with any fictional universe, there is the officially published, ‘canon’ story and character relationships; and then the fandom’s appreciation and sometimes appropriation and embellishment of it.
Tong jokes: “Thank God for Wikipedia! And there's also heaps of fan websites dedicated to these characters' history and costumes. As a casual gamer, I don't know the ins and outs of every possible character development that I need to draw on, nor am I able to play every game these characters feature in — it would take too much time. I'm so grateful that there are fans out there who catalogue every nuance of their favourite characters.”
One of Tong’s panels from TRON BETRAYAL.
Tong admits: “I love drawing fighting characters outside of their usual environment. For example, Ryu having a drink at the bar with Ken after a hard day's training; Johnny Cage from Mortal Kombat having a morning jog while being chased by adoring fans; or Kasumi from Dead or Alive playing a fighting game on her mobile phone. I still love drawing the action shots too, as it's a chance for me to draw the characters in dynamic poses, but it's nice to break out of that expectation from time to time.”
Chun-Li after training, drawn by Andie Tong.
“I also take great satisfaction in exercising some artistic license when drawing the characters in their various costumes. Occasionally I like embellishing the costumes a bit by including additional trimming or accessories, but keeping the basic design aesthetic intact.”
The Hayao Miyazaki (Studio Ghibli) character Nausicaä, drawn by Andie Tong.
Laced Records’ Street Fighter III soundtrack vinyl, covering all three games in that series, was Tong’s first foray into record sleeve design.
Andie Tong’s front cover for the Street Fighter III: The Collection quadruple LP vinyl.
Although now a full-time illustrator, he previously worked in multimedia and design for around a decade. “For me, elements like page dimensions, design aesthetics and the fundamentals of positive and negative spacing are all part and parcel of the artwork creation process.
“There's a few of the Street Fighter sleeve illustrations that I enjoyed drawing in particular: I was especially pleased with the layout for Street Fighter Alpha 3. Whenever Ryu is included in a design, there's a certain demand for his character to be the focus of attention. I considered how I wanted Ryu to pose, and worked all the other characters around him.”
Andie tong’s front cover for the Street Fighter Alpha 3 triple LP vinyl.
“Sometimes it's difficult to balance the layout when dealing with so many characters. With Alpha 3 and SF3, it was a bit tricky to balance them to be aesthetically pleasing, but I think they came out alright!”
Tong also created the front covers for both the Street Fighter Alpha: Warriors' Dreams and Alpha 2 double LP vinyl set.
“Of all my sleeve pieces so far, the most fun was the panel with Yun and Yang having dim sum at a street vendor. Every once in a while, it's nice to see characters depicted doing something they don’t do in the games, so this piece was a great change of pace for me to illustrate.”
An inner sleeve illustration by Andie Tong from the Street Fighter III: The Collection quadruple LP vinyl.
___________________________________________________________________
Andie Tong is a comic book artist and illustrator – Twitter: @andie_t | Instagram: @andietong | Facebook | Artstation.
To find out more about his background and his drawing tools, check out this 2017 interview with TEKKEN Gamer.
At the time of writing, pre-orders are open for the Street Fighter Alpha 3 triple vinyl: lacedrecords.com/collections/street-fighter.
**images shown here are mock-ups**
The Limited Edition features pink galaxy effect discs, and is exclusive to the Laced store. The Standard Edition sports traditional black discs. LPs come in three printed inner sleeves, all housed in a widespined outer sleeve.
All music has been specially mastered for vinyl by Joe Caithness, and tracks will be pressed onto audiophile-quality, heavyweight 180g discs.
]]>
By Chase Bethea
Something has been catching my ear in certain older Japanese video games scores, and I’ve got to share it.
There are few, if any, chord progressions more iconic than that which kicks off John Barry’s iconic arrangement of Monty Norman’s “The James Bond Theme”, popularised by the 1962 film Dr. No (much legal wrangling has occurred around the authorship of the music.)
I don’t know whether this repeated chord sequence appeared prior in the musical canon, but it has since spread like wildfire among Japanese video game composers in particular.
Here’s a brief bit of analysis of this well-known passage, and how it has leaked into video games.
The chord progression in the key of E minor goes something like this (don't worry if you're a music notation layman):
Emin7 | E9#5 | E6/9 | E9#5
The second and fourth of these are especially flavoursome, because they don’t go in the typical direction that music theory would suggest they should.
The most significant thing about this sequence is that it maintains both a sense of movement and tension — better in certain circumstances than a long, held bass note, for instance. This seems to suit battle music or serve as underscore for particularly dangerous levels.
One can’t help but vibe along to Michiru Yamane’s soundtrack to Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. As you defeat hordes of enemies, your ear might catch a few instances of the 007 chords buried deep within the score.
For instance, check out “Dance of Gold” around the 18 second mark:
(Key: F minor) (Notes: C, C#, D, C#)*
It also appears in “Marble Garden”, particularly from around 20 seconds:
The progression appears in a joining passage around 29 seconds in “Remilia’s Theme” from 2002 schmup Embodiment of Scarlet Devil:
(Key: B minor) (Notes: F#, G, G#, G)
However conscious or not composer Kenji Yamamoto was of the Bond connection, he evidently felt that the chord sequence helped set the mood for the Cell round of Dragonball GT Final Bout. It’s a slower use of the sequence, starting around 12 seconds:
(Key: C# minor) (Notes: G#, A, A#, A)
Here are two creative examples, composed in different ways.
I believe the following pieces are in modes, (a musical scale that raises or lowers notes within the octave to create new tonality), specifically the mode of Melodic Minor Mixolydian, which follows the scales degrees of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, flat 6, and flat 7:
The chord progression appears throughout the entirety of “Windmill Hut” from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time as an ostinato. With the opening theme being P5 to P4 (Perfect 5th - Perfect 4th) interval, it gives the music a sense of momentum that complements the gameplay. Although the first two notes are a whole tone apart, the feeling and movement is still achieved.
(Key: D minor) (Notes: D, E, F, E)
The composer of the iconic Pokémon series, Junichi Masuda, is no stranger to masterful writing techniques. The chord progression in “Last Battle (vs Rival)” from Red/Blue also differs slightly from the 007 progression thanks to a whole tone step from its second to third note, but it still manages to maintain the same aural intensity.
(Key: E minor) (Notes: E, F, G, F )
Speaking of Red and Blue, “Flying Battery Zone (Act 1)” from Sonic & Knuckles — composed by one of, or perhaps a combination of Howard Drossin, Sachio Ogawa, Tatsuyuki Maeda and Jun Senoue — leans on the 007 progression hard in the second part of the main musical phrase.
I don’t think this particular chord progression, associated with James Bond, is being used as a winking reference — it seems simply to be employed when menacing things are occurring. After all, the espionage and action of Bond films is about tension and release, and there’s something about moving in semitones that creates that feeling of tautness.
Has this chord sequence ever caught your ear in other media? Chances are, after reading this, you’ll probably pick up the odd use in classic video games and beyond
______________________________________________________
Chase Bethea is an award-winning video game composer – www.chasebethea.com | Twitter: @chasebethea | Spotify artist page | YouTube page
]]>
By Thomas Quillfeldt
There are narrative games, and then there are narrated narrative games built around a narrator's narration.
Released in 2021, Lost Words: Beyond the Page is an atmospheric narrative adventure written by Rhianna Pratchett (possibly best known for Crystal Dynamics’ Tomb Raider and Rise of the Tomb Raider.) The game is quite literally a narrative platformer that alternates between the pages of a young girl called Izzy’s diary and a fantasy story. The written words in the game are the platforms, and also help Izzy overcome various obstacles.
Its deeply personal narrative and watercolor aesthetic required a deft touch in terms of underscore, so developers Sketchbook Games and Fourth State turned to BAFTA- and Ivor Novello-nominated composer David Housden.
Best known for his electronic music scores for Thomas Was Alone and Volume, Housden’s background was actually playing guitar in garage bands — something he returned to for another recent game, Battletoads.
We chatted to him about his wildly different soundtracks for the touching Lost Words: Beyond the Page and slightly bonkers Battletoads, his love of moving melodies, and how much next gen consoles will change his approach to scoring.
Film and TV composers typically start the scoring process once the edit is more or less finished. It’s more complicated with video games because of the complexities and challenges inherent in development; as well as the interactive music possibilities, both creative and technical.
It’s common to hear game composers say they prefer to join projects towards the beginning of development — a feeling Housden shares. That said, he also prefers there to be a decent build up of in-development material to draw inspiration from: “I couldn’t imagine anything more intimidating than a truly blank canvas and having to magic something up out of nothing — so I’m always happy to join the party [once it’s got started.]
“All of my work is inspired by the narrative, aesthetic, mechanics, and references of the game, so the more I have to draw from, the more tightly I can align my work with the developer’s creative vision. Having said that, there is a balance to strike, because you don’t want the score to feel like it was produced independently from the game and placed on top at the end.
“Ideally, I like to have enough of a concept to inform some creative decisions for myself, but to come on board early enough for the music to still have a chance to affect and permeate into other areas of production.”
“Lost Words was a classic case of ‘right place, right time’” continues Housden. “I stumbled across it at EGX Rezzed back in 2016 [the original concept for the game emerged during the Ludum Dare game jam in 2013.] I found the demo moving and tweeted Mark [Backler, the game’s creator] to tell him as much, only to realise that he lived in the same town as me! We got together for a drink and it turned out he was a big fan of Thomas Was Alone. There was another composer involved with Lost Word at the time, so we just stayed in touch as friends.
“In 2017, the original composer stepped back and I got the call. We decided to restart the entire score from scratch, but because I knew the game and subject matter well, I was able to hit the ground running. There was still a lot of catching up to do, but also plenty of [design, narrative and art] material to draw upon.”
Quite often, the lone composer working on a game will have to harness different sonic palettes to best represent different places within a game’s universe. Composing for media means creating music under deadlines, which doesn’t necessarily permit hundreds of hours of instrumentation and harmony research — practicality reigns.
Housden explains: “By way of example, for the Djinn stage, I had to familiarise myself with the tropes and theory of cinematic ‘desert’ music, so I could then figure out how that would sound through the lens and palette of Lost Words.”
“Because I’m scoring the fantasy world of Estoria, I didn’t want to directly reference or lean into any one particular region or culture for inspiration. At the same time, I knew it still had to sound familiar.
“I took a hybrid approach comprising the different instruments, scales and harmonic languages of various regions throughout the world. I then blended them together with the palette I’d already been using across the game, to create something that felt cohesive and firmly at home within the sonic aesthetic for Lost Words, while still carrying the connotations of a fantastical desert.”
Heavily melodic soundtrack music might have been on the back foot in Hollywood since the ‘90s, but it is alive and kicking in all sizes of games and gaming genres. Like our past interviewee, Ori and the Will of the Wisps composer Gareth Coker [who was an orchestrator on Lost Words], Housden is an unapologetic melodist.
For Housden, it’s all about pop hooks: “Having grown up writing songs for myself and as part of various bands, my background predisposes me to think about music in popular song form — I naturally gravitate towards giving something a hook and presenting it in the most engaging way possible within the arrangement.
“This is something I was slightly concerned about given the opportunity to work with an orchestra for the first time, because I don’t have a classical background. I was worried that my structure and form wouldn’t lend itself to the palette as effectively as some of my more contemporary work. However, writing pop songs with a traditional palette seems to work quite nicely!”
“I don’t overthink melody writing — I’ll usually already have a tune in my head, or come up with one fairly quickly after sitting at the piano. Nine times out of 10, whatever I come up with then and there will be the final version. I might finesse it a bit at the start, but I trust my instincts when it comes to that side of things. Honestly, the hard part is filling in the rest from there!”
He has shown his versatility through his scores for games like Battletoads and Volume. But, similar to Gareth Coker, Housden has developed a bit of a specialism in writing emotionally poignant cues. Not to put too fine a point on it, they want to make the listener tear up.
Housden admits: “Writing emotional music for compelling narratives is my biggest passion, and where I feel the most at home. Music is an incredibly powerful tool, and my all-time favourite pieces are all strongly emotionally affecting. That’s something I try to achieve with my own writing, regardless of what I’m trying to actually say within the context of the piece. Make it matter.”
“I’ve been told many times that a lot of my music sounds bittersweet. I like that, because I don’t ever want to just hit a single, simple emotion on the head when approaching a scene. Feelings are more complex than ‘completely happy’ or ‘completely sad’. We’re all emotionally nuanced, and I try to reflect that musically.
“For example, ”Memories” isn’t a sad piece of music in and of itself, but it takes on all of these different connotations when listened to in context.”
“Those juxtapositions are something that I find fascinating. Rather than trying to capture that overwhelming sense of grief at the loss of a loved one, I scored the memory of the relationship that they had together instead. That almost feels more sad than if I’d plonked a melancholy melody over some minor chords. It’s a ‘happy sadness’, and this ties into the theme of acceptance of grief, which is ultimately what the game is all about.”
As a lapsed cellist, your Laced With Wax interviewer is hopelessly biased towards music that features the single most elegant instrument in the universe of sound (IMO.)
With the Lost Words track “It's Always Darkest Before the Dawn”, Housden elevated a lovely, sorrowful piano and synth-choir piece with a brief, beautiful cello passage.
“I have to give a shout-out to the first chair cellist of the Nashville Music Scoring Orchestra for taking an already beautiful sounding instrument and elevating it to the sublime — his playing was that emotive.
“The piano piece was ready to go for some time, but when I listened back to it a few weeks before the [orchestral] session, I felt it was missing a key ingredient. My intention was to write a string quartet accompaniment, and I started by improvising this little cello idea over the top, only to realise that it didn’t really need anything else from there. So it was a happy accident, but discerning when less-is-more is a vital skill to have as a composer.”
Lost Words: Beyond the Page and 2020’s Battletoads are somewhat different in tone, gameplay, and... well... everything really. And one doesn’t get much further away from sweeping, melodic orchestral music than hair metal.
Housden says that jumping between the two games was a ton of fun. “These projects were just polar opposites, and they served as amazing palette cleansers for one another. Whenever I was getting bogged down with writing emotional music for orchestra, I could just pick up my Les Paul and start blasting out riffs. Then, when my ears (and neighbours) needed a break from ‘90s metal, I could sit at the piano and write something intimate.
“Trying to work on multiple projects can be stressful, especially if they aren’t that distinct from one another. But, with these two in particular, I felt lucky to have them running in parallel.”
“It was also just awesome getting to go back and write on guitar for a different genre. It was the first time in nine years of professional composing that I’ve been able to base a score around my actual instrument of choice, and to utilise all of my band experience and musical contacts.
“Everyone on the recordings, from the players to the producers, were people I worked with previously from my band days, and I was also briefly in a band with the head of [Battletoads developer] Dlala studios many years ago, so things really came full circle!
“Battletoads definitely let me [turn things up to 11]. The whole game is over-the-top and the score had to match that. I was actively encouraged to push the ridiculousness at all times, and I can’t imagine many circumstances when I’m being told that a 16-bar face-melting solo needs to be longer and more self-indulgent!”
“Not only that, but it was ridiculous how many different genres I had to straddle. One moment the soundtrack is 1930s Big Band; the next it’s ambient Peruvian pan flute music; as well as 80’s thrash, contemporary orchestral, industrial synth, and more! It was truly ridiculous in the best way possible.
“Generally speaking, it’s about discerning what the game needs; and more often than not that tends to be more about subtlety than exaggeration, in my experience. But it is nice to get the opportunity to take the brakes off.”
As this interview goes live, the gaming world is transitioning from the PS4/Xbox One console era to the PS5/Series S|X. Much has been said about the increase in memory and computing power for audio, and one imagines the interactive music possibilities are starting to get as intimidating for game composers as they are exciting.
In Housden’s neck of the woods however, things will continue on much the same trajectory: “I was asked about [the changes and challenges that new platforms might bring] a lot during the advent of VR [over the 2010s]. That’s all any conference panel would be about, and people always seemed disappointed when I told them that it wasn’t going to change a single thing as far as my work goes.
“[Regarding VR] there were lots of interesting possibilities for sound design, but unless you’re intentionally trying to blur the lines between diegetic/non-diegetic music for effect, I can’t imagine why you’d want your score playing back in anything other than good old-fashioned stereo.
“The same goes for this new generation — I already have all of the technology and tools I could possibly wish for when it comes to realising my intentions for a score, so, while I’m sure that more technologically-minded folk will have a field day with the new advances, I don’t really see anything changing for me, creatively speaking.”
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––David Housden is a composer for media - www.housdenmusic.com | Twitter: @davidjhousden | Spotify artist page | Bandcamp
Be sure to check out his podcast interview with The Sound Architect: thesoundarchitect.co.uk/tsap-s04-e08
Here’s a brief look at Housden in the studio to record the Lost Words score:
]]>
By Thomas Quillfeldt
Video games are art. Usually, there’s a ton of artistry involved in their creation. Games are also often overflowing vessels of visual art, including graphic design, illustration, modelling, animation, and lighting design.
Take Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End, a blockbuster worked on by an army of exceptional artists. Arguably, it’s still the high watermark for big budget game visuals. But players can hurtle through Uncharted 4’s visually sumptuous environments without a second look.
Despite wanting people to be swept up in the cinematic action, developer Naughty Dog shipped the game with a ‘photo mode’ that permits players to freeze the game at any point and investigate the immediate scene ad nauseum. Perhaps devs are comfortable with photo modes because the resulting user-generated content (some say free marketing) serves to highlight all of that composite artistry.
True, photo mode camera tools allow users to look up Nathan Drake’s nose or in any old nook and cranny. But their increasing inclusion in games has also enabled the expansion of the field of ‘virtual photography’ — a practise that, under various names, has been going for well over a decade.
Virtual photographers (you might see them referred to below as VPs, screenshotters or even Screenarchers) largely sit outside of game development, an army of hobbyists dedicated to celebrating the visual art of games through the creation of their own digital art.
Given a virtual camera in a virtual space with virtual subjects, there’s an infinite number of possibilities for these creators — and video games of course provide a rich seam of interesting spaces and subjects. VPs often draw on the compositional principles of traditional photography, painting and illustration, and graphic design, and use a range of tools to achieve their artistic ends.
It’s also simply a fun hobby — being a snap-happy virtual tourist. Taking screenshots can be a soothing, engrossing and rewarding way to enjoy a game beyond its core play experience. But, as with speedrunning, competitive gaming and creative platforms (Roblox, Minecraft, etc.) there are pioneering individuals who have poured many thousands of hours into hacking game code, developing new software, starting communities, and iterating on a visual language for framing virtual landscapes, portraits, wildlife, still life, and architecture.
We spoke to nine talented people working in this space (some of whom eschew the label of ‘virtual photographer’, while others embrace it.) Contributors include:
-
As with many creative arts, virtual photography often starts as an amateur’s hobby. As with pursuits like photography or illustration, it can become a consuming activity that fires people’s passion and leads them to more serious semi-pro and professional work.
“Consider [virtual photography] just an act of creativity, with all the accompanying moments,” muses PulseZET.
For Andy Cull — already a filmmaker and writer — the appeal of virtual photography lies in the source material. “I love video games, the worlds they take place in, the characters they depict, and the stories they tell. There’s no more immediate and potentially affecting form of storytelling.”
Similar to Cull, Chris Taljaard (CHRISinSESSION) has a background in real world videography and photography, and started down the path of virtual photography by creating his own cinematics in Battlefield: Bad Company 2 back in 2010. “Shooting video games allows you to explore different techniques, angles, locations, scenarios and environments not normally possible in real life — or at least not always feasible. There's a huge amount of freedom that comes with shooting in a virtual world.”
A recent video of his was shot in Horizon Zero Dawn:
Taljaard (CHRISinSESSION) has also moved more and more towards speedier titles: “I absolutely love shooting racing games, as I've always been involved in racing in real life to some degree. Shooting racing games gives you the ability to try shots you can only dream of getting in the real world.”
Professional screenshotter Petri Levälahti (Berdu) explains: “[Like any hobby] it's fun, it's something you can better at, and it has a community around it. Of course, there are personal goals and demons — chasing the high of getting a good shot and rarely being happy with the results.
“This hobby… has changed my life in so many ways. I'm fortunate to be able to do it for a living. Very rarely is your work also your hobby.”
Pioneer of the ‘artful screenshot’ scene Duncan Harris (Dead End Thrills/DET) says that screenshotting was a “rarified pursuit” for quite some time because of how time consuming it can be. “I’d imagine the old-timers have all gone through the same phase of questioning whether the hobby is worth their time. There’s something compulsive about it that results in getting little sleep and taking it all very seriously — or maybe it’s just the sunk cost fallacy at play.”
He also points to a current ennui among those veterans who are heavily invested in the practise, brought on by — in the opinion of some — an over-saturated virtual photography social media scene. He jokes: “That’s the purist in me talking. I’m aware I come across as the old man shouting at clouds…”
“In the past,” recalls Harris (DET), “I’d often get asked to respond to accusations that ‘playing games for screenshots’ was a boneheaded thing to be doing. I responded by pointing out that since you’re spending £50+ on a game there was no better way [than taking screenshots] to ‘eat the whole cow’.
“In my zeal, what I wasn’t considering was that playing games for screenshots absolutely ruins traditional enjoyment of them, as you never relax into the intended flow, you inevitably break progression, and fret so much about injecting your own creativity into the mix that you forget to appreciate the developer’s. So, let’s update that to: ‘If you want to eat the whole cow, expect indigestion.’”
After many years taking screenshots, he clearly still has affection for his website deadendthrills.com — a heaven for screenshot consumers over the years. “It’s like a garden, always being pruned and renewed.”
While some might feel a bit worn down, others are bringing new energy into the space. For scientific researcher Mik Bromley (TheFourthFocus/VP Awards) it’s a case of a convergence of hobbies: “I've been an amateur photographer for over 15 years, and also a lifelong gamer with early memories of classic Atari and Amiga titles. It was probably inevitable that my interests would collide.
“The tipping point for me came when camera tools became more regularly available in console games. In-game photo modes give people the creative freedom to compose and capture unique shots without the need for additional hardware, or software code.
“Video games became ever more impressive looking, but it was this accessibility change that allowed me to engage with them on a different level, and capture images with real connections to the game's own art and characters.
“In terms of capturing compelling images, I see real and virtual photography as much the same thing.”
For Ángel Rivas (Ichisake), “shooting video games is an act of appreciation, sending a love letter to all the [game development] artists that make these worlds. It’s all about finding that hidden corner with sharp lighting that most players ignore as they pass through.
“Those kinds of spots catch my eye because they might be perfect for that portrait shot I wanted to take. A virtual photographer’s work relies on work by other very talented people, even when we twist it with tons of ReShade effects. Ultimately, we’re basing our shots around their amazing work.”
Duncan Harris (Dead End Thrills) is widely credited with being a trailblazer of the medium. He asserts though that “something like [the wider screenshot/VP movement] was always going to happen. No one person can honestly claim to have ‘invented’ video game photography because elements of it were popping up everywhere, even in the mid-2000s.
“There was a photo mode in 2004’s Gran Turismo 4 that was born out of [lead producer] Kazunori Yamauchi’s love of photography; as well as photo modes in other Sony first-party racing games Wipeout HD (2008) and MotorStorm: Pacific Rift (2008). Sony has been a key player along the way.”
Harris (DET) continues: “[In the mid to late 2000s] there was the rise of shared experiences born of single-player games like The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, where people created ‘postcards’ from virtual worlds. Also, more and more complex in-game cameras were being developed that brought games ever closer to cinema.
“[I thought that] the art within games was underexposed by the quite linear gameplay that employed it, which is what gave rise to ‘artistic screenshots’ in the first place.
“Around 2006, I worked at [video game monthly] Edge magazine, and felt a desire to improve the screenshot quality. [That pursuit made me realise that] game technology had so much more to offer than what was exposed during gameplay.
“Things started to crystalise via a series of artistic screenshots threads on NeoGAF.” Some of these are still online — minus many free-hosted images — including The Multiformat Artshots Thread, where Harris posted as TheOctagon.
“You can sense from the wording of the original post how formative this stuff was,” says Harris (DET). “I was suggesting people to turn off HUDs, diverge from gameplay, and experiment with higher resolutions. Those were anathema to what [marketing] screenshots were all about back then — the honest selling of the game to on-the-fence consumers.”
Other rules from the original post include “No disingenuous Photoshopping” and “All images have to be directly captured.”
Duncan Harris (DET) explains that there were two distinct paths with screenshotting, both of which he followed.
First, there were screenshots taken by someone in-house at a development studio who has access to tools and workflows that allowed them to construct something in the same way a cutscene might be built. “[Around 2010] I started working for industry clients who wanted to improve the composition and image quality of their PR screenshots, having seen what was being published in Edge.”
Second, a hobbyist working on the outside had to reverse-engineer the finished product. So, as the NeoGAF threads started to die down, Harris’ screenshot moniker Dead End Thrills was born.
“Dead End Thrills is the reason why I and many others got into this hobby in the first place,” recalls James Snook (Jim2point0). “He opened my eyes to how good games can look, both in screenshots and in motion.”
Ángel Rivas (Ichisake) was also among those who found Harris’ work inspiring: “He showed us how far beyond real photography this [medium] could go, raised the quality bar, and made a lot of us ambitious to take this beyond a hobby.”
The Undead End Thrills Flickr group was spawned, attracting some of the leading lights of virtual photography, including names that frequently come up: Natty Dread, PixieGirl4, Midhras, One3rd, Kputt, never047, Meep and Nic Clapper, as well as our interviewees Snook (Jim2point0) and PulseZET.
-
PulseZET recounts: “Around 2012, I stumbled across some amazing screenshots [from this community of creators] that seemed flawless. Unfortunately some of the people that inspired me then are no longer active.”
Andy Cull recalls: “I’d seen work by the likes of Midhras, Jim2point0 and Kputt on the Nexus (a Skyrim modding site) and found that they posted the bulk of their images on Flickr. I was blown away by the incredible shots I found there, back when Flickr was a much more active community than it is now. It had a large and enthusiastic community of ‘Screenarchers’ (as they were called then) and modders.”
Snook (Jim2point0) explains: “At that time, my sole motivation was simply to show off graphics and graphics mods. I don’t have a background in photography and have never owned a camera that wasn't built into a phone, so composition wasn't something that concerned me.
“It wasn't until I joined DET’s Flickr group that I appreciated the process of taking screenshots as an art form. That group started as a way to get shots featured on DET's website, so I was quickly exposed to people that had a good eye for composition [that best showcased] the art of video games.
“There still weren't a ton of people that did this as a hobby back when I started. Even though I was more of an image quality enthusiast than a photographer, I was still able to stand out on forums of people mostly posting gameplay shots with HUDs and all.”
-
Snook (Jim2point0) continues: “[I was inspired by] one of Dead End Thrills’ screenshots posted on Reddit back in 2011. His version of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim looked far better than the one I was playing. That's when I first discovered the magic of downsampling (basically what Nvidia DSR does today) and wanted to share its sorcery with as many people as I could.
“Also, we didn't have photo modes, Nvidia Ansel, or Otis tools back then, so when I wanted to take screenshots of games other than Skyrim, I had to learn to use a cheat engine in order to hide the HUD and wrangle the camera.”
-
Andy Cull came to the hobby in a similar way: “I started by taking shots simply to showcase the mods I was working on for Skyrim — just a means to an end.
“I posted shots of my work-in-progress follower mods, and didn’t expect the fantastic response they received. I got talking to other VPs, learned more from them, joined some groups, and the photography of my mods grew to become photography of Skyrim in general. Before long, I was completely addicted to virtual photography!”
-
Frans Bouma (Otis_Inf) also came to the scene through Skyrim modding: “I've always been interested in graphics, image creation, and graphics programming. I was a member of various demoscene groups for a long time (Amiga 500, PC.)
“Around 2015, I was playing Skyrim and started implementing some shader effects for the ENB mod (which allows you to run post-processing effects, as well as tuning graphical aspects of the game) and discovered a whole community around taking screenshots in that game. I tried that myself and loved it, so I started taking screenshots in other games as well.”
Crack shot – “Tangled” (The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim) by Andy Cull
This Skyrim shot — one of Cull’s personal favourites — is from earlier on in his VP career. “Back then, I was less savvy about the tools available, so a shot like this might take me a whole day to get it just right. It was a much more organic experience, much more like real-world photography, involving a lot of waiting for the right moment. It was incredibly rewarding.” |
-
It’s worth drawing a distinction between mods (i.e. software modifications) that affect how a game like Skyrim looks or behaves during gameplay; and mods and tools created specifically for the purpose of virtual photography. They’re arrived at in the same way of course: by changing a game’s code to achieve the desired results.
Harris (DET) points out: “There is a process of reverse-engineering games from their locked-down retail state to [create] something akin to development tools, where the artist has complete control over character position, animations, lighting, post-processing, etc.
“This… began with the more superficial properties of the game camera — position, depth of field, tonemapping, etc. — but has been encroaching deeper into code as time's gone on.
“In the rare event that I sit down with a game for fun, I'll usually have that mental list of essential hacks [such as] the positions of characters, bone rotation, and the game's lighting system.”
-
Chris Taljaard (CHRISinSESSION) says: “Having more control of things like tilt control and in-game weather is what pulled me towards virtual photography in the first place. The more control, the more creative freedom you have to express yourself.”
Petri Levälahti (Berdu) echoes this: “For screenshotters, it's all about having more camera control, and pushing the graphics beyond maximum settings.
“I'm too dumb to build anything myself, so I rely on the work of people like [fellow interviewee] Frans Bouma (Otis_Inf). If a pretty game gets released without a photo mode, he usually cooks one up in his lab in a matter of days. The basics of these are usually a free camera, timestop, field of view control, and the option to ‘hotsample’ i.e. change resolution to whatever you want (or what your computer can handle.)”
Frans Bouma (Otis_Inf) remembers: “As my virtual photography hobby became more important to me, I started to feel the limitations of both the photo modes available (if any), and the hacks made to move the cameras around at the time. As a software engineer, I thought ‘why not try to create better ones myself?’ This turned out to be a fun challenge and also a lot of work, but in the end it paid off very well.”
-
“As I had become part of the virtual photography community, I shared my work with others so they too could enjoy the hobby more. Nowadays I spend a few days a week full time on developing camera tools, and offer them for a small fee on my Patreon page. I sometimes share them for free (like the system I wrote for Unreal Engine games, which enables a camera system in over 300 Unreal Engine 4 games); but the Patreon route is a way to be able to build more cameras for new games.”
Ángel Rivas (Ichisake) points out that his own use of mods will depend on the game. “For something like The Witcher 3 or Skyrim I would have tons of mods for clothing, textures, and whatever makes the game look different so you can bring something interesting to the table.
“In most cases I would use tools to manipulate the camera. That may sound simple, but a lot of the time it means having to deal with a lot of different tools: one to inject the free camera into the game; Cheat Engine to have control of time of the day; SRWE to resize the game to a bigger resolution; and I use [MSI] Afterburner to finally take the shot.”
A critical tool in the arsenal of some virtual photographers is ReShade — a “generic post-processing injector for games and video software developed by crosire.”
“I use ReShade on most of the PC games I shoot,” says Andy Cull. “It’s a suite of effects (including ambient occlusion, depth of field and colour correction) that can be added to change or improve the look of games. You can install ReShade and then tweak the effects as you like them, or go to a repository online and grab a profile which offers someone else’s settings.”
-
Duncan Harris (DET) cautions that powerful image editing software like ReShade can be a “double-edged sword.” Such tools give users artistic control and creative options, but potentially risk homogenisation of output and “rob the [source] games of their art style, technological signatures, and, by extension, their historical value.”
While PulseZET does use camera tools and ReShade, he prefers to shoot original games with only minor adjustments, including depth of field, grain, deband, and exposure.
Crack shot – Dark Souls 3 shot by Ángel Rivas (Ichisake)
Rivas confesses: “Most of my favourite shots come about because of random mistakes I make while using ReShade, which end up resulting in something cool. That’s certainly the case with this shot of [Dark Souls 3 DLC boss] Darkeater Midir.” |
-
As mentioned, photo modes have opened up virtual photography to a significantly larger number of players. Such democratisation of tools inevitably leads to a higher quantity of content spreading across the Internet, as has happened with music production and other creative endeavours.
Many delight at the sheer accessibility of photos modes, while others feel like the art of screenshotting has been diluted. However you view it, there’s no holding back the tide.
Thanks to photo modes, someone with a passing interest in virtual photography (such as your author) can revel in the sense of being a tourist with an OK camera. One can be travelling across Midgard and grab a quick shot of the World Serpent in God of War; or snap a cheeky portrait of Kassandra as she plunders the Acropolis in Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey.
-
Sony has been pushing this hard, with photo modes featuring in many of their marquee titles from launch, as well as a dedicated capture button built into the PS4 and PS5 controllers. Photo modes are also being retro-fitted into games. At the time of writing, Mass Effect: Legendary Edition is about to be released with official camera tools being inserted into a 2007 title in the case of Mass Effect.
For the hardcore VPs, things seem to be moving in the right direction in terms of functionality.
“Virtual photography and [officially developed] photo modes have come a long way in the past few years,” says Andy Cull. “All games across all genres should come with photo modes.”
Petri Levälahti (Berdu) calls out several games doing things right: “In 2020 [we saw] poses and character positioning in Cyberpunk 2077; [additional positional] lights in Miles Morales; and environment controls in Ghost of Tsushima. I always appreciate when developers try out new things or put something extra in, for instance the motion blur slider in The Last of Us Part II, or the colour grading options in Days Gone.”
Mik Bromley (TheFourthFocus) adds: “More recent photo modes do a good job of emulating real-world photography by including the kinds of controls that you would find on an actual camera. Features like focal length, aperture value, exposure and colour grading enable photographers to use many of the same techniques and principles when composing images in-game as they would in the real world. I would definitely like to see developers continue to simulate the behaviour of real cameras and lenses.”
-
Whilst there’s some positivity among the community, the deeper into specialised modding software a VP is the less satisfied they tend to be with official photos modes — understandably so.
Frans Bouma (Otis_Inf) says: “I can generally sum up developer-made photo modes in one word: limited.
“Sometimes they function fairly well, but most of the time they're restricting the user through either artificial limitations (e.g. camera distance) or design limitations (e.g. orbit cams.) I often wonder if [some of the developers responsible] have ever used a photo mode themselves!
“They sometimes include nice features, but then [disappoint with] atrocious depth of field effects, for instance. [I appreciate the] effort, but I wish they would ask some virtual photographers out there what is really needed in a photo mode.”
Chris Taljaard (CHRISinSESSION) echoes this sentiment: “Some photo modes lack the most basic of features, although things have been improving. We’re not there yet: I would much rather have a basic set of features in place than 101 filters, for example.”
Since we happen to have a panel of dedicated VPs at our disposal, here are some of the (for them basic) features they would like to see become standardised…
-
Cull points out: “The main gripe I have with almost every console photo mode is the camera itself. Orbit cams anchored to the playable character and only allowing the camera to be moved a short distance immediately restricts the kinds of shots you can take.
“When you look at the composition of an epic scene in a movie or game, or concept art, it’s very rare that the camera is only a few inches from the character’s nose! In various games, players can often fly a drone, or send their pet eagle soaring 100 feet into the air [such as in the later Assassin’s Creed games.] This is somewhat more useful than the selfie stick distance achievable in photo modes, where it’s hard to represent a true sense of grand scale.”
Bromley (TheFourthFocus) concurs wholeheartedly: “More freedom will always bring more creativity, so I would like to see more versatile camera positioning with larger bounding spheres — and absolutely no more character-tethered orbit cameras!”
PulseZET jokes that of course he wants an unlimited free camera in every case, but also cautions against too much freedom: “I could list many [desirable features] but developers are unlikely to fiddle with them. Let's leave a little creativity for the screenshotters. Fewer functions [equals] more imagination for interesting shots.”
-
Ángel Rivas (Ichisake) looks forward to more control: “I would love it if photo modes trended towards giving more control over lighting, such as adding customisable spot- or point lights, as we saw with Miles Morales and Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order. These features create endless possibilities and fun.”
-
Several interviewees mentioned this as a desirable control for all photo modes, currently most notably available in Horizon Zero Dawn.
The images on the left and right were taken in exactly the same position, but the time of day (and corresponding weather effects) were tweaked using the official photo mode time of day slider.
-
Taljaard (CHRISinSESSION) suggests a two second replay roll-back would be helpful especially for action games.
Other suggestions for standardised features include:
-
Duncan Harris (DET) posits: “There will come a point where all of the [features included in community made tools have] been standardised and rolled into commercial photo modes. There’s a very specific end-point for where those photo modes are going.
“Now that we have ray-traced lighting — which is a very hard technology to market to consumers — the incentive to weaponise it with photo modes and social media is huge. [I predict] you're going to see a lot more lighting control and, soon enough, a lot more character control than just the cheesy poses you get now.”
-
Bouma (Otis_Inf) agrees: “Photo modes will be improved in the future as more and more publishers realise [that it enables] free exposure of their game on social media and sites like Flickr — it also gives players an added incentive to keep playing. [I’m not sure] how far publishers will allow developers to improve their photo modes. I wish they would consult virtual photographers more so that they ship something that's actually worth using!”
Cull adds: “I’d like to see more developers and publishers actively supporting virtual photography. I think Ubisoft and Guerrilla Games are doing a great job of highlighting the fantastic work that’s being created in the VP community. They regularly engage with virtual photographers, showcase their work, and raise them up. I think other developers and publishers could do a lot more.”
Crack shot – “Isolation” (The Last of Us Remastered) by Mik Bromley (TheFourthFocus)
“My favourite [personal shots] change all the time,” admits Bromley, “but one that I always go back to is this shot of Ellie. It was taken during a particularly resonant part of the story, where she bears the sole weight of responsibility, and I really wanted to capture the sense of isolation I imagined she was feeling. “With her hunting bow in hand as a reminder of the need to survive, I positioned her against a snowy hillside in order to get an almost entirely white frame. I then worked on capturing exactly the right direction of look and facial expression to transmit that feeling of concern and emotion to the viewer. It’s one of those shots that I feel conveys everything I had hoped it would, and that's why I love it!” |
-
There are trends and countertrends within all artistic mediums down the millenia, for example Realism vs. Romanticism in visual art and Punk vs. Prog in music.
Within virtual photography, techniques, tools and technology have been adopted by some, and rejected by others. This article is a celebration of the medium and its practitioners, not an attempt to ‘stir the pot.’ That said, there are a few interesting differences of approach.
Duncan Harris (Dead End Thrills) has been fairly clear down the years that his work in screenshotting was about celebrating the technicality and artistic idiosyncrasies of video games. He’s examining only what is present in the game, with an eye to preserving and highlighting it.
He doesn’t think of himself as a photographer applying photographic principles, and also distances his work from what he calls “fan-art” i.e. digital art that is created with use of post-processing image software like Photoshop or Lightroom.
Mik Bromley (TheFourthFocus) is explicitly bringing a photographer’s eye, and is as much of a purist as Harris (DET), just along very different lines: “I don't use any mods in my virtual photography. One of the things I wanted to prove when I started out was that people don't need a host of software add-ons or expensive additional hardware to be able to create visually engaging and inspiring images.”
Frans Bouma (Otis_Inf) responds: “I'm not feeling that distinction [screenshot vs. photography] that much. What we're working with are 3D artificial worlds where we can do whatever we can imagine, without restrictions enforced by physics (such as lens restrictions and sensor restrictions.)”
-
Bouma continues: “With the depth information provided by the 3D scene, we can apply effects not only to the 2D aspects of the shot, but also to the 3rd dimension, e.g. place a frame around it where the top/left edges are behind the subject and the bottom/right edges are not. Want two depth of field effects? A dark fog only on the left side? You can have it. So it enters the world of digital art.”
-
“I still think that basic photography principles apply too: for example avoid double subjecting; use leading lines if possible; make sure your subject is well lit and in focus; and don't crop at joints. There are no hard rules in photography, but guidelines which have proven to lead to shots that people are willing to look at. That's the base. In virtual photography we can go further with little effort; in real life it would require dedicated effort to achieve the same results.
“With a world without restrictions we shouldn't limit ourselves.”
Way back in 2017, Laced With Wax ran a discussion article about photo modes: “Point and shoot: Bringing video game photo modes into focus.” Photographer Gary Dutton, playing devil’s advocate, had this to say: “From a purist’s point of view, I’m not that keen on the idea of changing the time of day or the weather because I like the idea of recording a moment in time; a virtual moment where some things have come together that are out of your control.
“That’s what I love about photography. I do everything I can to set up something with the intention of creating a certain kind of image, but then the random factors are the thing that make it special. Something just happens to cast a particular shadow which creates a composition that you weren’t 100% anticipating.”
Petri Levälahti (Berdu) — a professionally employed screenshot creator — goes both ways on this idea: “With PC games, I'd rather have quick access to whatever I can. I ain't got the time to wait for a full moon for my Geralt portrait — I'll just use cheats. The more tools I have to help with creativity, the better.”
-
Levälahti points out though: “With consoles it's different: you need to use what is given to you. If you do this hobby a lot, you automatically spot little things that could help your screenshots, e.g. different light sources, animations, in-game effects or mechanics. You combine these elements and try to make something unique. It can be quite fun.”
Andy Cull’s preference is for realism: “I’ll often look around online to see if anyone’s created a ReShade profile that offers a realistic look first. I’ll tweak a few settings myself If I can’t find one, but I’m rubbish at tweaking to be honest.
“Being able to add lights is a nice touch, but I really enjoy hunting out good lighting spots — it’s part of the challenge of virtual photography.”
-
On the spontaneity point, Cull says: “Time-of-day control, on the other hand, is something I’d like to see in all photo modes. This is mainly because game time moves so much faster than real world time. By the time you’ve set your shot up, you’ve often missed the lighting conditions that inspired you to stop and attempt that shot in the first place.
“Spontaneity is nice, but when I shoot a sunset in the real world I might have 30 minutes or more to capture it. In a game that might translate to a minute or two. I’m not that spontaneous!”
-
Ángel Rivas (Ichisake) has also reached the same conclusion: “There is a beauty to spending hours and hours wandering around a game world looking for a well lit spot — I've done it, I enjoy it — but I prefer having tools that help me to bring the composition and lightning I have in my head into the game.”
PulseZET is similarly practical: “I prefer control, but I also take ‘natural’ shots very often because there are no other options.”
-
“This screenshot from A Plague Tale: Innocence is built on timing,” explains PulseZET. “[That includes] the crow taking off, the fight, and the position of girl and boy.
“It took a lot of time and attempts to create the composition using these dynamic elements. I observed the possible animations and adjusted the rest of the elements to the time the crow took off, as that was scripted. That was the starting point. I used free camera and timestop [mods] so it’s not a ‘natural' shot. In any case, I always ‘study’ the game before shooting.”
Crack shot – Rise of the Tomb Raider shot by Frans Bouma (Otis_Inf)
“It was hard to pick one but this one moves me the most,” says Bouma. “It's taken just in normal gameplay, with a depth effect applied to create the feeling that Lara is peeking at you from the darkness having only briefly stepped into the light. I like it a lot because the look in her eyes and on her face is one of vulnerability, perhaps even fear — something you don’t expect from a tough-as-nails character like Lara Croft.” |
-
Petri Levälahti (Berdu) insists that the fundamentals of composition will stay the same, whatever the future holds for virtual photography. “There will be less effort required to take good-looking screenshots. That will probably make the hobby more appealing to an even wider audience.”
With a tongue-in-cheek cynicism, PulseZET agrees: “Creating screenshots will be easier — and more boring — in future. You won’t have to worry about bad textures, clipping, ugly shadows, or poor draw distance. Everything will be cool out-of-the-box. Find a beautiful light, take care of the composition, and you are on top. I'm exaggerating a little, but nevertheless we are moving towards this, slowly but surely.”
Mik Bromley (TheFourthFocus) is measured in his positivity towards the ever-closer photorealism of video games: “There’s a natural tendency to assume that as games become more detailed and visually impressive, then virtual photography will do the same. There’s probably some truth to that; the incredible levels of detail we see in character models and facial capture go a long way to enabling people to capture feelings and emotion in their shots for example.
“What will make the difference though is authenticity. The human eye is uncannily good at recognising what ‘looks real’ and, as one of the most crucial factors in any form of photography, lighting is a massive part of that.”
-
“Although we do already see some great lighting in games, that often comes as a result of the work of skilled artists and developers making each scene look just right. Advancements such as ray-tracing will bring a more natural lighting behaviour that will not only make the already wonderful in-game environments appear more authentic, but also able to adapt realistically to changes in light and object positioning.
“Add into that the freedom of a photo mode camera and I think it becomes a whole new world of virtual light to explore.”
-
Andy Cull runs a Flickr group called Reality Bytes, showcasing some brain-bewitchingly photorealistic shots. “We’re already at the stage where good virtual photography can be mistaken for real-world photography,” he says. “As the worlds we can shoot become bigger and more defined, the opportunities to shoot will increase — less hiding bad textures or hunting for the right light!”
Arguably, virtual photography has matured just in time to help some people cope with the COVID-19 pandemic and its effects on travel and tourism. As Cull points out, “virtual photography will become more and more like real-world photography, but with the huge advantage of being able to visit places you could never possibly visit in real life.”
-
Ángel Rivas (Ichisake) is looking past photorealism: “I don't think better graphics would change the actual workflow of taking a screenshot, but I'm curious how this could change if virtual reality finally becomes a mainstream thing. Imagine playing around in Half Life: Alyx with your virtual camera as if you were in the real world. That could be awesome.”
Having come from a premium magazine background with Edge, Duncan Harris (Dead End Thrills) has returned to thinking about screenshots in print media. “In terms of higher fidelity [graphics], the one major change you'll see — probably mid-gen with the PS5/Xbox Series X or the generation after — is that games will cross a threshold into something suitable for print.
“People were talking about this ten years ago: the idea of players or studios setting up print shops for screenshots. But the fidelity was never there for something that could feasibly hang on a wall. The moment you spy a polygonal mesh, low-res particle effect or upscaled texture, the lustre is simply gone.
“Games are rapidly closing in on Hollywood-grade assets and rendering though, and when that coincides with the achievement of the [hypothetical fully featured] photo mode, you’ll have an explosive combination of technical and artistic potential. That might very well evaporate the line between, say, the artwork commissioned by a vinyl record label like Laced, and what players create on consoles or PC.”
-
“That's been my hobby this year: books,” continues Harris. “It's been on my bucket list for years and years, but the rendering has always been an issue; plain-old artistic merit another issue; and a massive one is the legality of it [in terms of publisher-owned IP.] There’s a lot of talented and motivated people on the industry side who want to help, so we're getting there.
“That's always been kind of the final frontier for me: being able to use the format and tactility of books to add something meaningful to all of this. It all started in print through magazines, so there's a nice symmetry to it ending up some place similar.”
Speaking of dystopian futures, he wonders what will happen to the identity of the screenshot scene if things veer towards the creation of digital art using extracted assets rather than in-game shooting. “People might get frustrated with the same shots of the same characters in the big games, take the models out of the game entirely and put them into a ‘lightbox’ in order to take high-spec, ever more glamorous renders in 3DS Max, Blender, etc.”
-
James Snook (Jim2point0) suggests: “The relationship between developers and screenshotters could potentially be explored further.
“A lofty ‘stretch goal’ might be to see screenshots/virtual photography recognised as a legitimate form of content creation. YouTube videos and Twitch streams are great for showing how games play, but streaming puts a lot of constraints on resolution, not to mention compression, which really hinders the ability to show off a game's graphical presentation and artistry.
“There are a lot of talented screenshot artists that, if given the opportunity, would love to work with developers to help show off their games to their audiences, although I'm sure there's a heap of caveats and complications.
“I don't often think about the direction that virtual photography is going in general — I'm quite content doing this as a fun hobby for now. I continue to see more impressive images being created by screenshotters, and that's pretty great.”
Crack shot – "God Bless Science" (Prey) by PulseZET
“I like how the screenshot content and title fit into the context of the game,” says PulseZET. “The pose was obtained completely by accident during the search for a composition, and it took me a split second to come up with the title.” |
-
There are several independent or smaller budget AAA games worth shouting out.
-
Far from indie, but still notable, is the release of New Pokémon Snap for the Nintendo Switch, all about capturing shots of the creatures “in their natural habitats.” The game has seen some criticism for its lack of player freedom in terms of photography.
Crack shot – "Paint the Town Red” (Red Dead Redemption 2) by Petri Levälahti (Berdu)
There’s a grisly story behind this shot, says Levälahti: “It's not the prettiest picture out there, but I have fond memories of taking this. “I used a mod to play as Sadie instead of Arthur, spawned a bunch of dudes, killed those dudes, and then used a mod to trigger an animation where she checks herself out with the pocket mirror. This took a few hours to get right: including dragging bodies around; adjusting the weather and time of day; using melee kills to get the blood on her; and finding the right animation frame before the blood disappeared from her body. “The picture tells a story that doesn't happen in the game, but if you know Sadie, you could see this being the cover art of her own DLC. Characters and storytelling intrigue me the most in screenshotting, and this picture combines both.” |
-
James Snook (Jim2point0) is a co-founder of the Framed Screenshot Community Discord Server, and he also credits Frans Bouma (Otis_Inf) with laying the groundwork.
Snook (Jim2point0) says: “Ever since I started creating screenshots, I've tried to find online communities where I could engage with other people in the hobby. There are a number of things you need to research when starting out in a new (usually non-photo mode PC) game, including: ‘can I hide the HUD?’; ‘is there some kind of hidden debug mode?’; ‘has someone created camera tools for the game in cheat engine?’; and so on.
“[Duncan Harris (Dead End Thrills)] had previously opened up forums and there was the Flickr group, but sadly those couldn’t be maintained. Because of that lack of a place to share knowledge within the community, I tweeted out the idea of creating a Discord server, and the feedback was pretty positive.
“We started out with a focus on PC, but there's still a lot of people that like to take screenshots on console as well — some exclusively, which is also cool. We're up to about 240 members now. As far as how people engage with it, we like to make sure that people who join are genuinely interested in the hobby, so it's not a public Discord.
-
“Getting an invite is pretty easy though — if anyone wants to join, they just need to flag me down or anyone else in the Discord and ask.
“We created the Framed website as a compendium of the collective knowledge we have for shooting various games, as well as guides for things like ReShade, DSR, etc. Any member can contribute to the site by creating these guides, though it's very much a volunteer effort.
“The Framed discord server recently launched the Hall of Framed site, which is a curated gallery of the most popular shots from our screenshots channel. I think it's a great overall showcase for what can be achieved in video game screenshots/virtual photography. The goal was to have a way to share the best shots externally for people not in the Discord, and it has caught the attention of a few people outside of the community.
“The Framed Discord server is a place for aspiring screenshotters to feel right at home.”
Mik Bromley explains that TheFourthFocus.com “is a website dedicated entirely to virtual photography that I created around four years ago, initially as a personal portfolio. Although it remains a solo project, and something that I do alongside my full-time job, it has developed into a more complete site that includes feature articles about the art, guides to help people get the most out of their creativity, and in-depth photo mode reviews that are essentially a blend of camera and game reviews aimed at the virtual photography audience.”
-
Bromley continues: “I've also been able to host a number of photo mode contests in collaboration with studios such as Guerrilla Games, Santa Monica Studio and Sony XDev, and I think the experience from those is what helped me take the next step to establish the inaugural Virtual Photography Awards.”
-
“The VP Awards are an annual recognition of the very best of consumer photo modes,” explains Bromley, “with both game industry and public entry categories that celebrate the best photo mode contributions from development studios, as well as the enormous creative talent that has emerged from gaming communities through virtual photography. The awards received a great response, you can see the nominees and winners at thefourthfocus.com/thevpawards-winners. I’m really looking forward to developing them in the future as this art form continues to grow.”
-
For anyone keen on getting into artistic screenshotting / virtual photography, here are a few tips.
Frans Bouma (Otis_Inf) explains: “See virtual photography as any other form of photography. As soon as you realise that, you also understand that the same basics apply to both.
“An exception to this is knowing what lenses are, f-stop, aperture, etc., as in games we usually have a pin-hole camera that's always sharp, and artificially apply depth of field effects to emulate a longer lens / low aperture.
“As a beginner, you'll likely feel like a kid in a candy store: everywhere you go, things look amazing and you can snap pictures at every step. I think it's good to do just that: take a lot of shots of whatever you find easy on the eye or interesting to look at.”
James Snook (Jim2point0) advises: “Find a game you enjoy that also happens to have a photo mode and/or tools available (if on PC.) Personally, I find it far more challenging for shots to come to me organically if I'm playing a game I don't enjoy just for the sake of shooting. Navigating the world becomes more of a chore rather than something I want to experience for the joy of it. Keep it fun.”
Bouma (Otis_Inf) continues: “Get your technique in order first; the 'oh wow' shots will come later. More importantly: learn to see. Most people can look at something but not see the things that are there. A good photographer takes a picture of a scene and transforms it into something interesting, while others have run past without batting an eyelid.
“After you've become used to the ways game worlds work, how light affects what you want to show, and discover what you can do, it's time to read up a bit about composition, light and dark, foreground, middle and background, what to avoid, leading lines, etc.”
-
Snook (Jim2point0) adds: “I also think it helps to look at other forms of art for inspiration as well. I follow a few concept artists and photographers on Twitter, which alway gives me interesting ideas for shots I want to try in-game.”
Bouma (Otis_Inf) says: “It’s so important to be fluent with the techniques and tools available: you can immediately put them to use in such a way to achieve what you want when you look at a scene you come across. They become second nature.
“It's a process, and you'll always be learning what works and doesn’t work. Don't be discouraged that what you initially produce isn't always of the same quality as that created by people who’ve done this for 5+ years (or longer as a real world photographer.) We've all been there, and we all have been through these stages.
“After a year or so, if you compare your shots to those you made in the beginning you'll see that you have made a lot of progress. Keep at it!”
Echoed by several other interviewees, Snook (Jim2point0) reminds people to “do whatever you enjoy the most, and don’t get bogged down in whether or not your images are getting a ton of likes on social media. Trying to figure out what pleases the masses will only make this a more clinical endeavor, and it will suck the life right out of your work. Chances are, if it's fun, you'll be able to inject a little of your own personal style into your work as well.”
-
All interviewees recognise the hard work and artistry of the developers behind these games, with a few teams and titles coming in for special recognition.
“I really love the work of the teams at Ubisoft Massive (The Division) and Ubisoft Montreal (Assassin’s Creed),” says Andy Cull. “I’d love to visit their offices one day and see them at work. It would be a dream come true to one day create publicity shots for a new game in those series.”
Ángel Rivas (Ichisake) says: “There are a lot I’d want to mention, but the people working at FromSoftware (Dark Souls, Bloodborne, Sekiro) and CD Projekt RED (Witcher 3, Cyberpunk) are just something else because.
Petri Levälahti (Berdu) adds: “The DICE teams at Stockholm and Los Angeles are simply marvelous. Mirror's Edge, Battlefield and Battlefront are some of the games that made me fall in love with this hobby. Battlefield 3 was made in 2011 and still puts modern games to shame.”
-
Levälahti (Berdu) continues: “Ubisoft's The Division will always have a special place in my heart — the atmosphere is unmatched. And then there's Red Dead Redemption 2, the best looking game ever made — and it will probably hold that crown til the next Rockstar game arrives!”
-
Red Dead Redemption 2 shot by Jim2point0.
Chris Taljaard (CHRISinSESSION) especially calls out Codemasters’ F1 games: “The F1 series still has one of my favourite photo modes.” He’s also very fond of the custom lights Insomniac added to the photo modes of Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered and Miles Morales.
PulseZET says: “[It’s all about] Arkane Studios. The Dishonored series and Prey (2017) are absolutely stunning games, and I’m very much looking forward to Deathloop.”
-
__________________________________________________________________
All our interviewees have an assortment of social media and image hosting site accounts, as well as some personal websites. Here are a few handy links:
Frans Bouma aka Otis_Inf – fransbouma.com | Twitter | Github | Flickr
Mik Bromley – TheFourthFocus.com | Twitter | Instagram
Duncan Harris – deadendthrills.com | Twitter
Petri Levälahti – berdu.org | Twitter | Flickr
Ángel Rivas aka Ichisake – Twitter | Flickr
James Snook aka Jim2point0 – Framed | Twitter | Flickr
Chris Taljaard aka CHRISinSESSION – chrisinsession.com | Twitter | Flickr | Instagram
There’s also a free monthly virtual photography e-magazine called The PhotoMode.
By Thomas Quillfeldt
There are composers hired to fill a game with melodies that will make players shed a tear. Some are hired to get the player’s blood pumping while they dodge a million bullets.
And then there are those composers hired to send a chill up the spine; to increase the player’s sense of foreboding.
Cris Velasco’s long career isn’t defined by soundtracking horror — his credits span action, virtual reality, real-time strategy, battle royale, and more — but he is undoubtedly an expert in eliciting discomfort through audio.
We got in touch to find out more about his D.I.C.E. Award-nominated music for the monster hit Carrion, a stunningly animated “reverse-horror” metroidvania where you are the thing that goes bump in the night. The game was developed by Phobia Game Studio and published by Devolver Digital.
We also touched on some of his work on titles including Starcraft II, Mass Effect 3, and Warhammer 40k: Space Marine.
________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________
Velasco has worked across many fictional universes including Star Wars, Assassin’s Creed and Tron. Unlike those projects where he has to hew to an established sound, or keep in line with the work of co-composers, Carrion is a new IP made by the small Polish studio Phobia.
He explains: “Every project is its own fun challenge. In a way, it’s easier to slot into an existing style: you know what’s expected but you can also expand on what that sound might be. It’s also great fun to work on a franchise that already has a huge fanbase built-in.
“On the other hand, creating music for a brand new IP is possibly more rewarding, especially when there are so many avenues to go down. To really embrace the [horror scores of the] past, yet strive for something new and unexpected — that’s a hard task but one that’s creatively exciting!”
This is a fairly sensible interview. Video game music as a wider topic is quite sensible. But, let’s be clear: Velasco’s day job often involves him trying to scare the shit out of people. He admits: “It’s actually a LOT of fun! A horror score is music at its most visceral. I’m actively trying to make the listener uncomfortable and that’s why I love it so much. You can get away with anything. From a sweet melody sung by a child, to the harshest atonal cacophony. It all works.”
Things got a little… viscous: “I recorded a ball of slime for this one — an idea I had after watching my friend’s kids playing with one. We wound up borrowing his daughter’s slime and turning it into a very cool sample library. It was just a neat ‘what if’ sort of idea I wanted to play with, but it wound up being heavily used throughout the score.”
A cursory listen to the Carrion soundtrack album might make one think of Ennio Morricone’s score for The Thing or Jerry Goldsmith’s for Alien, but Velasco is not one for reverential reference listening. “I actively tried not to listen to other scores too much. It’s inevitable that if you [do too much reference listening] it’ll become apparent in your score. There’s a definite nod to both Morricone and Goldsmith in my work, but I tried hard to forge my own path.”
In terms of tropes he wanted to avoid, Velasco says: “I absolutely did not want to do anything related to chip tunes. While the graphics may be retro, I thought the score should be fully modern and cinematic. It also needed to be a blend of orchestra, electronics, and sound design. As long as something sounded interesting, it was a contender for the score.
“That’s the cool thing with horror — you can find a way to make almost anything work.”
Quite often in games it falls to the overall audio, and especially the music, to keep players moving forward and maintaining their sense of momentum. The Carrion score is suffused fast-paced, rhythmic synth sounds, subtly placed in the mix.
Velasco says: “Some of those rhythmic sounds were even created by recording a heartbeat. I thought that it might help to subliminally invoke your fight or flight mechanism. Carrion is all about movement and it’s definitely part of my job to help create that sense.
“It’s like Jaws with the famous two-note motif: it’s all about propulsion, move and eat. Carrion is sort of a move-and-eat simulator and the music definitely helps to create that energy.”
On the point of keeping players moving, there isn’t a Soulsborne game in existence where players don’t have to be pin-point accurate with their movement, especially in boss arenas. Here’s Velasco’s audacious cue for the spectacular Amygdala fight in Bloodborne:
For a lot of modern titles, composers have to generate hours of subtle, atmospheric ambient music, bringing with it its own challenges.
Velasco admits: “I definitely struggle with paring things down. I’m always wanting to add more, but I think that stems from writing music in a vacuum. On its own, an ambient track might sound fairly dull and uninspired, but, once you add the visuals and sound design, it all works well together.
“The trick is to find interesting sounds. Just a [synth] pad or a delayed piano isn’t going to be very exciting or help tell a story. That’s one reason why I like to work with a custom set of sounds.
“On Carrion, I spent a lot of time trying to make my bespoke library. A lot of it might even be initially heard as sound design. In the end though, I felt like there was a good balance of the music working in-game and also on its own.”
His favourite ambient cue is “Containment Unit”: “I was doing some experiments with using granular synthesis on different sounds. For the fun of it, I tried it out at a very fast rate on a percussion rhythm and it produced this interesting, otherworldly soundscape. It felt just right for the monster. Sometimes my favorite stuff comes from these happy accidents.”
Velasco doesn’t always have to show such restraint, as evidenced by his work on the gloriously melodic soundtrack for Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine (alongside collaborator Sascha Dikiciyan), which has all the sonic scope of the biggest cinematic orchestral scores.
He recalls: “I fell in love with the orchestra because of its ability to take a simple motif, a chord, or even a single note, and turn it into an epic aural experience. John Williams, James Horner, Basil Poledouris [Conan, RoboCop], Wojciech Kilar [Bram Stoker’s Dracula, The Pianist] — these composers laid the foundation for me as a young composer. Their scores helped define what my own sound would become.”
“Writing this score for [protagonist] Captain Titus and the other space marines was an excuse to go big and thematic, and I definitely drew upon my influences throughout this score. There are some synths in there, but the score is around 95% orchestral, played by some of San Francisco’s finest at the Skywalker Ranch.”
And we have a special treat: here’s four unreleased bonus tracks from the Space Marine soundtrack:
Depending on their niche and workflow, game composers across the board continue to expand their musical knowledge and experiment with different palettes.
“With every year that goes by,” comments Velasco, “there are more and more interesting sounds that composers have at their disposal. It’s important for all composers to challenge themselves and find new ways to express emotion through sound.
“Synths have been around for a long time of course, but now literally anything can find its way into a score and become musical. I tuned water pipes for [murder mystery VR title] The Invisible Hours: it’s always fun to affect something with water for an otherworldly sound. I also used the sounds of insects for Starcraft II.”
He maintains: “The orchestra will always be where my passion lies though.” Here’s a particularly rich and melodic cue from the second soundtrack volume of Velasco’s score for co-op action RPG Dauntless.
“I’m always trying to learn new ways to compose and push myself creatively. That’s what makes composing fun."
Velasco recalls having to expand his musical tool set while working on Borderlands 2: “Until then, I had always been known as a fairly traditional orchestral composer. Borderlands 2 allowed me the opportunity to incorporate electronics and more modern sounds into my palette. Giving yourself a crash course in an unfamiliar genre — in the middle of scoring a AAA franchise — can be daunting! But it taught me so much and I found that to be an invaluable opportunity to become a better composer.”
“With Resident Evil VII: Biohazard, we used a technique called ‘musique concrète’. It’s something I’d glanced at in college but never actually used. It was developed in the 1940s and uses a lot of found/recorded sounds with traditional instruments. All the audio is manipulated in various ways and, ultimately, it becomes a very strange musical tapestry or montage.”
The first piece of musique concrète was by Pierre Schaeffer in 1948:
And here’s an example by Velasco from Resi 7:
At the time of writing, fans are eagerly anticipating the release of Mass Effect: Legendary Edition, which revisits and remasters a trilogy of games that had a gigantic impact on the industry.
“Mass Effect will always be a franchise that I’m so proud to be a part of,” says Velasco. “It’s truly amazing how many lives it’s touched over the years, and that everyone’s still so invested in it.
“Probably my favourite cue is from the last DLC, is the last track in the game, and happens to be the last track that I ever wrote for the series. I named the track “End of an Era” [although it’s credited as “The End…” on the official soundtrack.]”
“I always wished it could have been longer, but it was written to a cinematic. Maybe I’ll expand on it one day if there’s ever an opportunity to have it performed live…”
As we transition from the PS4/Xbox One generation to the PS5/Series X — plus advances VR and cloud gaming — Velasco is excited by the fidelity of next gen: “The latest games just look so good! If anything will change with the next generation, it’s that I’ll feel even more inspired and lucky that I get to do such cool stuff.
“One thing that remains pretty exciting to me is VR. The technology is still so new but it’s moving so fast. Of course, we all want the Star Trek Holodeck. Until then though, I remain pretty optimistic about where VR is at. Vader Immortal and The Invisible Hours proved to me that it’s an amazing way to tell a story.”
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Cris Velasco is a composer for media – www.crisvelasco.com | Twitter @MonarchAudio | Instagram @MonarchAudio | Spotify Artist Page]]>Originally posted 29th March 2019; updated 15th April 2021
By Thomas Quillfeldt
Few game series are as beloved and long-lasting as Resident Evil. From the moment that players first stepped into the Spencer mansion Resi games have been terrifying fans all over the world.
Interpreting characters and locations from an established universe seems like it would be as nerve-wracking as taking on multiple hunters with a knife, but Boris Moncel of BlackMane Design faced his fears to produce the sleeve art for a string of Laced Resident Evil releases, including double vinyl sets for Resident Evil (2002) and Resident Evil 2 (1998.)
We asked Boris about his background in art and design, and what choices he had to make when interpreting iconic characters and locations from the survival horror classics.
You can check the availability of Laced's Resident Evil vinyl series, including new Limited Edition variants and represses at lacedrecords.com/collections/resident-evil
Boris drew from a young age, wanting to become a comic book artist at just eight years old. After attending a renowned art school in Lyon, he started to broaden his knowledge across design disciplines, studying typography, graphic design, and more. His freelance art career has seen him work on board games, paper RPGs, adverts, and in the video game world for both indie and AAA companies.
In terms of influences, he’s omnivorous: “I have so many interests, and for each of those I have tons of people inspiring me everyday. It depends a lot on what I am currently working on, and my mood. When it comes to illustrations, drawing, and concept art I always hold in mind classic painters like Delacroix, Caravaggio, and Rembrandt.”
(Bottoms, top) “Death of Sardanapalus” by Eugène Delacroix; (bottom left) “The Deposition” by Caravaggio; (bottom right) “Self-portrait in a Flat Cap” by Rembrandt van Rijn.
Boris explains: “Those classical masters have inspired so many other artists. For example, look at [American fantasy and science fiction comic book artist] Frank Frazetta and you'll see Caravaggio; look at Mike Mignola's Hellboy and there is Hergé and Rembrandt going on.”
"Conan the Conqueror" by Frank Frazetta.
Mike Mignola’s Hellboy.
“The same holds true for graphic design: look at Aaron Draplin (below right) and you'll see Saul Bass (below left); if you check Saul Bass you'll see Constructivism and Bauhaus.”
(Left) The movie poster for Hitchcock's Vertigo by Saul Bass; (right) "Ernie Ball - The Colors of Rock'N'Roll" poster by Aaron Draplin.
“Right now, my main inspiration for a comic book project I’m working on is [Polish multidisciplinary artist] Zdzisław Beksiński.”
“KO” by Zdzisław Beksiński.
The Resident Evil vinyl series is not Boris’s first foray into the land of musical wax, with the designer also having worked on sleeve design for Laced’s releases for Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine (below – top picture) and Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II (bottom picture).
Moncel's dabbled in vinyl collecting, acquiring a few treasured first pressings by metal bands; but it's his gargantuan CD collection that helped him understand what is required when it comes to designing a killer sleeve for a physical music release.
“I love designing for vinyl. It's initially an odd feeling — in a good way — to work within a square format. I don’t find it more challenging than other art commissions any more, but it has its own quirks. I like that the square format invites designers to create an iconic image — I feel this worked well with the Resident Evil covers.”
Partial to some death-, black-, and doom metal, Boris recalls that the most striking album cover he’s seen in recent years is that for US band Skinless’ Savagery:
As a gamer, Boris was right there in the late 1990s as Resident Evil graduated from being a smash hit to a hit franchise, playing the first two titles with his little brother. “Thanks purely to nostalgia, my favourite is the 1996 original. I loved the fixed camera angles; the game featured the kind of shots a filmmaker would frame for a movie. The technical limitations of the time also led to some fantastic game design ideas. Limitations are great!
“The other thing I loved about Resident Evil was the sense of huis-clos — ‘no exit’ — where most of the game takes place in this one crazy mansion. It’s also what I love about Resident Evil VII: Biohazard with the Baker house.”
To get in the mood to create the final artwork for the Resident Evil vinyl releases, Boris started off with some sketches: “Nothing to be used later on, just for their own sake as a warm up. These are usually only for my eyes only…”
He has worked on the sleeves for multiple Laced Resident Evil vinyl releases to date, but set the tone for the series right at the top: “I wanted a dominant colour for each of Resident Evil and RE2. This drove my design thinking.”
“Next, I needed to identify what is iconic about each of these games. I’d played them both previously and know the series so I tried to draw out what the most iconic imagery was that resonated across the different games. In Resident Evil ‘96 and RE 2002, there is a famous cutscene at the beginning of the game when you stumble upon the first zombie. This moment, at least in the original game, would probably make it into a ‘Top 10 iconic cutscenes of all time’. Everyone remembers it, so it became the foundation for the RE 2002 vinyl front cover.”
(Above) Various stages of the front cover design; (below) Moncel’s final design for the Resident Evil soundtrack vinyl.
“For RE2 '98, I needed something similar and, to my memory, the most iconic monster in the game is the Licker. Rather than base my image on a frame from the in-game cutscene, I illustrated it to be consistent with the RE '02 vinyl cover — side-on, lots of contrast, and plenty of gore! I knew I wanted to create a claustrophobic feeling with both of the front covers, hence why they’re both close-up creature portraits with deep black surrounding them.”
The front cover design for the Resident Evil 2 soundtrack vinyl.
“Similarly iconic images from both games are the principle locations: for RE '02 that means the Spencer mansion; and the Raccoon Police Department for RE2 '98. Those buildings are essentially characters in their own right, so the front of the buildings appear on the respective back covers.”
The back cover of the Resident Evil vinyl.
The back cover of the Resident Evil 2 vinyl.
For both packages, the gatefold image comprises the main hall of the respective iconic buildings. Boris adds: “I like the idea that opening the gatefold is like opening the front door and entering into these imposing, drafty atriums.”
The gatefold of the Resident Evil vinyl.
The gatefold of the Resident Evil 2 vinyl.
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Boris Moncel (BlackMane Design) is an illustrator and designer – you can get in touch directly via kontakt [at] blackmanedesign [dot] com (he doesn’t bite) | Instagram @blackmane_design | Twitter @BlackManeDesign
You can check the availability of Laced's Resident Evil vinyl series, including new Limited Edition variants and represses at lacedrecords.com/collections/resident-evil
]]>By Thomas Quillfeldt
Sometimes it happens the right way.
Sometimes a video game releases in considered stages. Players’ expectations are appropriately managed. The stable team of developers prioritises their own health and creativity throughout the process. Marketing buzz is generated because of concrete demonstrations of the game’s design potential. The community around the title is respectfully listened to but not pandered to.
A firm, realistic 1.0 release date is set and met. A complete package is made available across multiple platforms. Critics and customers are made to feel happy about the whole affair.
If only this were the case for more games. With Hades, at least, it feels like the industry and gamers have been blessed with a positive example of how it should be done. The game has scored highly with critics, won major awards (including Best Game at the BAFTA Awards, and graced (and topped) more than a few 2020 end-of-year lists.
An indispensable part of Supergiant Games’ four titles to date has been the music and audio efforts of Darren Korb. Laced With Wax caught up with him in November 2020 over an Internet call to chat about his Rock Band obsession, mad riffage, and royal British accents.
(YouTube)
Korb’s musical path was somewhat traditional: singing and performing from a young age; picking up a guitar and forming bands in his teenage years; becoming fascinated with multi-track recording and studying music production; interning at a studio and producing local bands; and picking up gigs.
What brought him to game music was long-time friend Amir Rao. The pair had played in bands together and shared a love of D&D and video games. After working at EA, Rao co-founded Supergiant Games in 2009 with Gavin Simon, and called on Korb to contribute audio and music for their debut game — what became 2011’s colourful isometric smash-em-up Bastion.
“When I got the call, I was like ‘yeah, of course I'll do that! I don't have any experience, but thank you for asking!’ I jumped at the chance even though I’d never really imagined myself doing audio for games. Once I started, I realised that ‘duh, of course this is what I should be doing.’”
Laced With Wax spoke with Korb a week after the Xbox Series X|S consoles were released. He was especially giddy that his 2,000 song Rock Band library would load faster over 10 minutes faster on the new machines than on previous consoles. “I come back to Rock Band every week or so and jam out, so I had to grab a new console just for the time saving!”
More than just a hobby, Korb also was part of the winning team at the Total Rock Total Rewards 2010 Rock Band competition, getting to meet a certain Starr in the process. “I don't claim to be the most proficient Rock Band player in the world,” admits Korb, “but I can certainly put on a show!”
“Playing Rock Band 150% informed Hades’ score. I started off playing on guitar and bass because I had come over from the Harmonix Guitar Hero games. Rock Band really helped me hear bass parts better, and allowed my producer ear to become more finely tuned to what was going on.
“I started playing a ton of Rock Band drums, eventually ramping up to ‘Expert.’ At that difficulty, it’s basically translations of the actual drum parts. It improved my timing and my drumming got a lot more precise. I’m not someone who loves practising where you drill exercises for two hours. I’ve never had the patience for that. I like to play songs and practise sections that I can’t yet do. Rock Band helped me push at the edges of my ability over time.
“I wasn't a big Rush fan before playing a bunch of their songs in the game and now I kind of dig Rush! Their riffs are just fun to play.”
The remarkable thing about Supergiant as a studio is its stability over the course of ~10 years and four games. With very few departures and relatively few additions, the team and its workflows are well-established; something which clearly helped them ship Hades despite the COVID-19 pandemic forcing a shift to remote working.
Korb himself tends to be the first name mentioned when in-house video game composers are discussed. This is partly because there are seemingly so few, but also because his body of work through Supergiant Games is so distinctive.
There are some advantages to being an employee at a stable indie studio: “The deeper you can be embedded in a project, the better you’re able to write stuff that's going to feel right. Getting in right at the beginning from the earliest discussions about high level ideas [is great because] I can then start experimenting and bring that back to the table. There's a lot of synergy that we're able to create by working together throughout a project. A lot of us found our groove on Hades.”
His actual job role — Audio Director — stretches far beyond music, encompassing sound design, voice direction, and voicing protagonist Zagreus and his talking punchbag Skelly in Hades.
“Being a composer is only about a third of my job — the most fun part — and the other 66.6% of my time is spent on other aspects of the audio. I really appreciated the different kinds of work [music, sound, voice] because it was nice to bounce between them and not become fatigued. It's a bit of a marathon working on a project like Hades especially because it was in early access for a while — you're chugging for a long time. It was creatively helpful to focus on different aspects of the audio and then go back to making music [feeling refreshed.]”
A common refrain among players in 2020 went something like this: “Zagreus’ voice acting is great. Who played him? No way, the composer? Wow! Huh.”
Voicing both the main character and a supporting role in a large game with thousands of lines of dialogue would be a tall task in and of itself. Korb not only fitted it into his workload — he knocked it out of the park.
In the captivating and candid documentary series Developing Hell by noclip, Korb can be seen smashing out dialogue at a crazy pace. He admits: “I'm maybe a harsher critic of my own performance than when I'm directing other actors. I can do 10 takes in the time it might take me directing another actor to do two or three because I’ll know as soon as I finish whether or not I want to do another one.
“I’ll often do quite a few takes, especially on some of the chunkier lines where there's more nuance involved and there are a lot of beats that I want to get across in the delivery. I've certainly spent 15 to 20 minutes on an individual line. But there are also hundreds of lines that are just ‘Over there’ or ‘Urrrggh damn it.’”
He agrees that, in general, Supergiant’s games are shaped around the strengths of the individuals that make up the relatively small team. Zagreus as a character wasn’t necessarily molded around Korb as an actor. “Greg Kasavin [Hades’ Creative Director] had a pretty clear idea of what Zagreus should be like, and [Art Director] Jen Zee’s concept art gave us all an idea of what this guy should sound like. We had some actors in mind as reference, for instance Tom Hiddleston’s Loki from the Marvel universe, or Asa Butterfield.”
Formal auditions were held, but Korb ended up winning the parts of Zagreus and Skelly because the rest of the team fell in love with his temporary ‘scratch’ voiceover recordings, which were only supposed to be placeholders during early development.
There were some obvious advantages to having the protagonist’s voice actor be accessible 100% of the time. A principal benefit was that the team could record iterations on lines almost instantaneously.
A good example is that of the game’s self-imposed difficulty system known as ‘Heat’. Korb says: “We noticed right away after adding the system that not many people were engaging with it. Somebody came up with the idea that Skelly could reward the player with statues as prizes for completing the game at different Heat levels. Greg wrote a bunch of dialogue for Zag and Skelly, I recorded the lines, and Jen created amazing art for the statue prizes. We were able to crank it out in a day and put it straight into the game. It was so fast! That agility is a real benefit of the way we like to work.”
If anyone around the world knows anything about the UK, it’s that there are a gazillion different, often befuddling accents. And any born-and-bred Englishman playing Hades would surely be intrigued by Zagreus’ smooth on the ear, louche patter.
Korb explains: “Our approach to Zagreus’ accent and the gods in general was to play upon what people imagine them to sound like based on media portrayals of Greek mythology. We went with Lord of the Rings’ [fairly loose] approach where we could have British accents for some parts of the cast — like when you get four different accents for hobbits that supposedly grew up together — and American for other characters to delineate them.”
One of Zagreus’ most agreeable ticks is his love of calling people ‘mate’, and there is plenty of playfulness around formality and class divides within the underworld. Korb admits: “I didn't consciously think about that while we were doing it. The writing is awesome and I suspect that ‘code-switching’ — where the royal prince changes his language while slumming it with a servile skeleton — was something Greg considered. As a choice, that little detail makes perfect sense to me in hindsight.”
Supergiant’s four games make for fascinating case studies in terms of game development. The sophomoric Transistor and party-based fantasy basketball RPG Pyre seem to have been challenging projects in part because it was hard to nail down mechanics and tone, extending the pre-production phase. If you’ll permit the pun, they were striving to zag where they had previously zigged.
Korb explains: “The one big difference for Hades was that our pre-production period was relatively short. That was exciting for me because it created a situation where we couldn't spin our wheels too much. We had to trust our instincts a little bit more. I enjoy that process where you follow where your gut tells you and see what happens.
“The long pre-production periods for Transistor and Pyre led to interesting stuff that was maybe a little headier than what we gravitate towards when we don’t have as long. Our strength as a team is making stuff — that’s my favourite. So it was fun to be able to spend even more time on Hades, going to town and making lots of things.”
“On previous projects, especially [debut title] Bastion before I was a full-time employee, I would make a piece, get some feedback, and make some changes. As the projects have gone, there’s less of that [simple back-and-forth] as everybody’s more confident. There’s less meticulous oversight and everyone’s increasingly the ruler of their own kingdom.”
“Hades was liberating because everybody was just so on the same page. Everyone could go and make stuff — or at least I could! I went to town and just put pieces into the game, occasionally iterating on them.”
Artwork by James Gilleard for the Supergiant: 10th Anniversary vinyl box set.
Supergiant soundtracks are never straightforward when it comes to musical genre. Over the years, Korb has heroically tried to categorise them. Bastion was ‘acoustic frontier trip-hop’. Transistor was old-world electronic post-rock. For Pyre he was trying to “extrapolate out a whole subgenre based on the beginning of Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven”. It was like ‘70s occult fantasy rock — or something like that!”
Hades’ OST is no different, with Korb describing it as “Mediterranean prog rock Halloween music.” He settled upon the sound a little way into pre-production: “For the first few months, we knew the game was going to be Greek myth related, but we had a pretty different approach, protagonist, and story focus. There was going to be a labyrinth, a minotaur, Theseus, etc. We were into it, but it wasn’t exciting in the way we wanted.
“So Greg [Kasavin] pitched a creative [reworking] with Hades and Zagreus and instantly we thought that was better. The first piece I made in that style was “Out of Tartarus”. Once I had that sound, [I stuck to it.]”
Even if they don’t realise it, there’s a history of gamers being exposed to fairly diverse music genres including prog rock and folk. Perhaps the most well-known example of prog exposure is Nobuo Uematsu channeling the keyboard-led bands of the 1970s into 1990s Final Fantasy pieces like “Dancing Mad” and "Battle at the Big Bridge". Around the same time, Uematsu’s Squaresoft colleague Yasunori Mitsuda was also experimenting with Celtic influences in the Chrono and Xeno series.
As the 2020s get underway, Korb and his prog-loving contemporaries — including Risk of Rain composer Chris Christodoulou — are riffing it up to the delight of their fans. He explains: “I wanted Hades to have a metal rock component because it's in hell. It's just right there for the taking — I had to grab at it. But I was also coming at it from a couple of different angles, so it's not just regular old metal. It’s a little spicier.
“The prog rock [label] speaks to the rocking nature of it, and there's also something unsettling and hellish about weird-ass time signatures! They can add an extra layer of subliminal excitement.
“In terms of the folk aspect, I was using Mediterranean instruments while listening to Finnish folk and other stuff that has crazy time signatures as well. That was a common ingredient [between prog and folk.] The Finnish band Värttinä have a song “Tielle Heitetty” that’s in 21/8 compound meter!”
“For a lot of traditional folk music like that, the time signature is based on however long a particular vocal phrase is. I thought that that was an interesting approach to writing, so I would write a riff for Hades and the time signature would be defined by the riff.“It’s super fun to go a bit more nuts than that I've previously been able to do; rock out to my heart's content. I even had to push myself to rock a little harder than I instinctively would. I tended to find that the crazier I would go, the more the rest of the team said ‘oh, rad!’”
The careful, puzzle-solving work of implementing music into a game is perhaps more important to the player experience than many people give it credit for. In a combat game where the action constantly waxes and wanes, getting this balance right is key to avoiding music fatigue.
Korb explains that the team employed a semi-randomised system where discrete instrumental parts (or ‘stems’) of a piece would be chosen programmatically at the beginning of each chamber “to keep things fresh and get some extra longevity out of the music.”
The music in Hades is ever-present and contains some strong flavours as discussed, but the developers made sure that it took a back seat where appropriate.
Once Zagreus has dispatched his foes to the sound of more percussion-heavy, energetic cues, the mood simmers down while he collects treasure and passes between rooms. Sometimes no instruments are left in the mix; sometimes it’s just the bass; or sometimes it’s bass and guitar.
Despite being a 2018 early access game, Hades’ 1.0 launch was a highlight in an otherwise pretty miserable 2020. It was present on — and frequently topped — many Game of the Year lists (including Time Magazine’s.) It won Best Indie Game and Critic’s Choice at the Golden Joysticks and Best Indie and Best Action at The Game Awards.
With a 93 rating on Metacritic (the same as behemoth titles Red Dead Redemption 2, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and The Last of Us Part II) and maintaining an ‘Overwhelmingly Positive’ review aggregate label on Steam, Hades is a solid gold critical hit. A masterpiece.
Supergiant Games has set higher standards for themselves with each release, but Korb doesn’t particularly feel any extra pressure. “That’s not at the front of my mind when I'm working on music. It's all about serving the project and enhancing the experience. I also [carefully consider] the moments in the game that I want to execute on. For example, I wanted people to love finding Eurydice in Hades.”
**SPOILERS FOR A HADES CHARACTER REVEAL**
“The response has been thoroughly overwhelming to say the least. People have had nice things to say about all of our games, but it’s never been this unanimous and at this volume.
“It's super validating because we set out to [make something with this] clarity of concept. Each game we make is very much a response to the previous one in a lot of ways. We wanted a game we could describe in a sentence, whereas Pyre would take a while [to explain.] It feels good to have that acknowledged — that it’s clear and people can understand what it is right away. But we’ve also tried to build in as much depth, excitement and surprise as we could.
“We’re acutely aware that the industry is more crowded than ever, and there are more and more incredible games releasing every year. When Bastion came out in 2011, there were 10s of games releasing — now it’s thousands. We don’t take for granted how miraculous it is to be able to float to the top of the conversation.”
“[In terms of awards] we’re super grateful and honoured to be up next to these games that a lot of talented people spent a lot of time creating.”
(Left) Ashley Barrett, (right) Darren Korb.
Korb puts a lot of himself on show through his work without seeming the least bit ‘showy.’ His multi-instrumental performances make up the vast majority of Supergiant Games’ soundtracks, and his voice acting is a confident constant in Hades.
As well as continuing a long-term collaboration with vocal muse Ashley Barrett, Korb has also sung several Supergiant songs. The pair have played live shows internationally, and recently released the 10th anniversary album Songs of Supergiant Games with orchestral arrangements written by Brian LaGuardia, conducted by Austin Wintory, and recorded at Abbey Road Studios.
Beyond putting a lot of himself in the work itself, there’s an earnest transparency to how Korb and company operate. Members of Supergiant often share their knowledge through industry talks, panels, interviews, and the aforementioned noclip YouTube documentary.
Korb agrees that being part of a stable team has enabled him to encounter and capitalise on the various opportunities, to some extent. “Were I a hired composer for a project like Hades, I wouldn’t have been providing scratch voiceover. It just wouldn't have come about in the same way.
“The live performances [and extended music projects are all] super interesting to me and I like doing them a lot. The 10th anniversary Pax West orchestral show came about because we wanted to do a cool thing for fans, and ended up developing an elaborate plan! I saw it as a learning opportunity, a chance to branch out.
“I'm always interested in expanding my comfort zone and trying new things. It’s important to find a balance between the things you already do competently and the things that you are nervously excited about.”
Darren Korb is Audio Director at Supergiant Games – www.supergiantgames.com | Twitter @DarrenKorb | Instagram @DarrenKorb | Spotify artist page
]]>