#Game Music

[koboldfactory]

New music time:

this time it's a track for the bird game I should be working on more often lol

[2mello]

I'm in Bomb Rush Cyberfunk!!

I've been holding this back for a long time--INCREDIBLY EXCITED to say my song "I Wanna Kno" was chosen for the Bomb Rush Cyberfunk soundtrack. Grateful to director Dion Koster for seeing something in the track and letting me help color the game world of New Amsterdam. I still can't believe I'm part of one of the coolest games ever in a music lineup like this. Out now on PC/Nintendo Switch, coming to consoles soon after!

[kystral]

[fieldsofmistria]

Enjoying Fields of Mistria's music? 🎶

Check out our full soundtrack on YouTube and listen whenever you want!

🎵 Music by Hidehito Ikumo and Catton Arthur

🔗 OST Playlist Link

[alphachromeyayo]

Nearly finished Umineko When They Cry... phew, what a wild ride 🧙‍♀️

Here's a little taishōgoto version of some of my favourite music from it 🦋

If you dig this, maybe check me out on Bandcamp! 💖

[smileyface098]

THE MURDER OF SONIC THE HEDGEHOG (GAME ASSETS)

HELLO. I extracted all of The Murder Of Sonic The Hedgehog game assets. You can find sprites, backgrounds, audio files and other stuff here (no credit needed) https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1CCZy4UllhMBWPC7tco5gE-wCUoxCQJ6x?usp=sharing

EDIT: I uploaded the animations and other stuff I don't quite understand (I know nothing about coding) and also a link on how you can extract the assets yourself. I hope it helps. If you do something using these please share, I'd love to see. Thank you!

[boltcutterparty]

I have THOUGHTS on Ifan's Theme. Mead Gold and Blood is a masterpiece and if you haven't seen Borislav Slavov's talk about his composing process you absolutely should (it's on YouTube), but hear me out:

+Spoilers under the cut+

His theme is divided into three acts. At first we get the flute - maybe a bansuri, but I'm not sure - lively and light-hearted, but slightly dissonant, which perfectly mirrors how we're introduced to him as a character. He's charismatic, he's nice, cracking jokes and enjoying himself even under dire circumstances. But there's a layer of darkness to him he won't reveal (yet). We know pretty early on that he's an actual contract killer, and definitely hiding some shit. Ifan's sweet side is not a front, but it's not all there is to him, either.

Then, in act two - after you get a brief piece of the main theme, which for me signals his connection to the divine, but maybe I'm reading into it too deep - the flute keeps going, but it gets MORE dissonant, in contrast with the strings rising in the background. It's hectic. There's a sense of danger and despair, and this part always makes me think of Ifan running through the forest to deliver the rift portal to the elves.

Then, the third act. We've got brass, and the flute stops, it sounds triumphant, there's a sense of overcoming that despair that we have in part two. It's the perfect soundtrack to him getting his revenge, placing his trust in himself and his friends instead of the leader that doomed him, and giving divinity back to the people. That part also plays after he kills the lone wolves, he's changing as a person, breaking free from his past, and he's choosing a different path like he does at the end of the game (at least, as a companion with high approval.)

And I know people think differently about this, but for me, that's his "good" ending - and deeply tragic that it isn't canon, that he makes one more misplaced sacrifice in Lucian's name, and the cycle goes on.

Man idk. It's such a banger.

[adam-sadmon]

Something I really like and noticed upon re-listening to the Elden Ring soundtrack is the harpsichord and guitar in Mohg, Lord of Blood. At least in comparison to the medieval aesthetic of the world and most of the OST the use of more 'modern' instruments really help set it apart and ingrain the idea of a coming age, beyond the medieval realm of the Lands Between, a new Dynasty.

[acquired-stardust]

Game Spotlight #17: Telenet Music Box (1989)

Acquired Stardust is back with another spotlight! Need something to read to get your mind of recent world events? Been hunting for some new music to listen to? Do you just like learning about cool obscure stuff? Join Ash for a look at one of the most obscure things as of yet featured on the blog in 1989's Telenet Music Box for the PC88!

When thinking about the history of video games, many people of a certain age conjure to mind a beginning marked by the boom that Nintendo's NES (known in Japan as the Famicom) brought to the world. Fewer people will be overly familiar with Atari's platforms or their competitors, and fewer still will likely have heard about the infamous crash of the American video game industry in 1983 beyond being able to regurgitate myths of Howard Scott Warshaw's adaptation of E.T. the Extraterrestrial (1983) bearing supposed direct responsibility.

This pop history approach becoming so normalized to people is frustrating but understandable because it's all around us. Being inundated with countless YouTubers and streamers professing a love for retro games has inadvertently created a narrative that video game history is a straight line through mainstream smash hit consoles and this couldn't be further from the truth - there is a whole world before and around the NES that has gone largely unexplored, particularly in the west, and odds are if you've spent much time on Tumblr you're probably passingly familiar with the subject of this spotlight.

Japan has finally begun to more widely adopt PC gaming (in part due to the phenomenon that is vtubing), with an absolute explosion in market share in the past decade. What you might not know is that Japan actually has a pretty rich history of PC gaming that really blossomed in the 80s and 90s with several hardware manufacturers such as NEC and ASCII offering options that would give the world some early looks at teams and individuals that would come to define the medium going forward.

One such game changer (no pun intended) is Hideo Kojima's Metal Gear debuting in 1987 with its definitive version on MSX PCs and getting an incredible sequel that puts the NES-exclusive Snake's Revenge to shame, and another Kojima title would go on to define the NEC PC98 in popular consciousness with classic sexy adventure Policenauts easily being the most memorable title which would subsequently be ported and updated several times for home consoles such as the Sega Saturn and Sony Playstation.

You may be familiar with the PC98 as screenshots from its many games are popular around Tumblr, most often featuring gloriously mid-late 90s anime girls rendered in stunning pixel art that feels like it exists somewhere out of time as things isolated from their origin as video game screenshots. Having been on Tumblr for over a decade (and the internet at large for even longer), it's my observation that the rediscovery of and appreciation for this retro anime aesthetic (and its later PC98 permutation) was really born here on Tumblr before spreading to other platforms to the point that you've probably seen at least one shot cross your dashboard before. But for this spotlight we're going even further back to the predecessor of the PC98, the PC88.

NEC's PC88 was released in the early 80s and most models featured a whopping 62 KB of RAM (in comparison to the NES's 2 KB) and many later models featured Yamaha sound chips which resulted in games often being visually and aurally significantly more impressive than you would see in home consoles at the time, in some cases lightyears ahead of the NES particularly in regards to music which is a pretty great thing for the sake of this spotlight. The games themselves were also quite varied in content from everything to the kawaii and comedic to erotic and even plenty of horror, with many standout games more accurately reflecting wider Japanese pop culture of the era than what you'd see on the comparatively sterile NES.

This wild west, edgy punk rock software library that goes part and parcel with Japan's nascent PC gaming scene is one of the coolest elements of going back to explore it. You never really know what you're in for, and you might be surprised (or even disgusted) with some of the unique experiences the platform has to offer. Many of these games (and those on the successor PC98) are completely untranslated and Japanese comprehension helps their enjoyment greatly and while often simple enough to enjoy without it that aspect has certainly contributed to their enigma in the west.

There are a lot of factors that have made PC88 and PC98 fandom and emulation not as glamorous as that of home consoles and some of that is due to limitations of the hardware in how it handles scrolling screens, with a noticeable chug as games scroll. Another factor is the compounding nature of its flaws and obscurity meaning emulators themselves are in Japanese and a bit tricky to figure out how to handle, old PCs infamously lacking a lot of user friendly features we take for granted today.

One such surprise is Telenet Music Box, a collection of then-prominent publisher Telenet Japan's biggest games' music. It's barely even a game and more a piece of software fit for a museum, with minimal activity limited to browsing game albums (a total of 13), choosing songs to listen to and creating custom playlists. Each of the 13 game albums is showcased with beautiful splash art and accompanied by a tracker for the keyboard as well as titles for each song and a timer for the length of songs.

Included in the mix is an impressive slate of Telenet Japan's games that showcase the depth and variety of the PC88's library such as Mugen Senshi Valis and even an early alternate manifestation of Shin Megami Tensei as a top-down dungeon crawler reminiscent of Gauntlet. Each of Telenet Music Box's 13 albums have their standout tracks, with some from Luxor and Final Zone being among our favorites.

Telenet Music Box is not a wholly unique concept and several other similar games were released for the platform (as well as the PC98), but it is an exceptionally clever one who's usefulness is perhaps all the more apparent now almost 40 years removed from its release, serving as a fantastic introductory course to a little understood part of video game history. It's a fantastic time capsule and with plenty to offer listeners of its roughly 3 hour runtime well beyond its value as virtual archaeology worth excavating.

Perhaps its most valuable asset is its ability to highlight the true nature of history. History is not a static thing with a start and an end but rather a living breathing thing that touches our everyday lives. Rare is it that anything begins or ends from nothing, with things instead in a constant state of evolution even when rising from the ashes of something else. One particular example of this is in Wolf Team's Final Zone (which features hilarious commentary in its opening scene that I'm not sure how made it past management - do look it up if you can) and Mugen Senshi Valis, the latter of which having been extremely popular in its time, spawning tons of ports and several sequels, with the team behind it eventually morphing into Namco's Tales Studio, responsible for some of the most beloved JRPGs of all time such as Tales of Symphonia and Tales of Vesperia.

While PC88 emulation can be frustrating to work out or find files for, an unforeseen strength of Telenet Music Box's concept of 'game as an album' is how much easier its discoverability is in recent years compared to the more traditional video games it shares a platform with, being far more easy to interface with and experience than the games it itself chronicles, and it can be found on YouTube in its entirety for your listening pleasure alongside plenty of other PC88 soundtracks. I invite you to dip your toes into this little-known scene and hope you come out of it with appreciation for the wide world of games outside what may be familiar to you, and maybe even some new favorite tracks.

A gem hidden among the stones, Telenet Music Box is undoubtedly stardust.

- Ash

[thewandererh]

anyone ever heard of unravel? it’s one of my absolute favorite games, and it’s message and experience will never leave me. you’re a lil yarn fella exploring the memories of an old lady, and uncovering a heartfelt and realistic story of growth and loss along the way. absolutely gorgeous scenery, puzzle design, and metaphor of a game.

it does all of this with absolutley zero words. the only thing you hear from the game is ambience…and the music. i need to talk about the music.

one thing that’s always stood out to me about Unravel’s music is that it’s based completely on violin. composed and preformed by frida johansson and henrik oja, it’s a work of art (and awesome for studying!). i love this choice of experimenting with an emotional instrument to describe different areas: it succeeds so naturally in capitalizing on the emotion. your character goes through areas themed with sun, snow, water, ice, forests, and metal, and the music compliments it every step of the way. the environment changes pallette after pallette as you experience the story through a vessel of expression that admires and fears the world around it.

you are a yarn cat reminiscing on the good and bad of life. you go through trials and triumphs just like anyone would. but in this journey through the eyes of a wordless red thread of destiny, you experience life to the fullest. this thesis is reflected to its full potential in the music.

frida and henrik are masters of expressing emotion through music alone and i will always admire them for that. never have i heard a question, statement, and exclamation interpreted so thoroughly through instrumentals. they handle cord progression and storytelling so extremely well. the sequel, Unravel 2. continues this emotional-musical trend while incorporating different instruments too, giving the game a collaborative and heartfelt feeling. they add guitar and digital doodads that groove endlessly in their own ambient way, further expanding the style of the unravel games. the music of this game (series?) is a friend to you on your journey—empathizing and playing with you through the ups and downs. it’s a masterpiece of design and i will never stop preaching praises for it.

please play the game (and it’s sequel with a friend!!) on steam. i am on my knees. please. it isn’t covered as much as it needs to be and deserves all the love it receives. the message is timeless, the music is wonderful, and the puzzles are worthwhile. it’s an absolute indie gem that will never leave you for as long as you live.

.-.

this was something different for me, and a bit of a ramble-tumble, and that’s ok. i’ve always admired video essays and rants on social media that feel like persuasive essays. i’m been experimenting with wordplay and sentence structure recently, and wanted to give something like this a try :]. it’s unprofessional since i’m no expert, but i’m noticing something and commenting on it to the best of my ability. thanks for reading!💛

[furapoggers]

wrote mario paint styled track for my fren game :P

[bowserinthesky]

Dunno if someone already uploaded here, but here is the special collab between squid sisters, off the hook and deep cut that they made for the grand fest

[neshirys]

Save this date, Golden Sun fans!🌞 I'll be there too! 😄🎶

Visit TandA's Youtube profile on Sunday, December 1, 2024, 5PM UTC-0 -> https://youtube.com/c/TandA-Music and then check Neshirys' social media~

[alphachromeyayo]

Some dream pop kinda sounds before I go to bed early 💿✨

Made the visuals in Bryce 3D

Which I'm not great at but hey, it's fun!