#Geoff Follin

[zerojanitor]

RIP Geoff Follin (1966-2024)

Geoff Follin has passed away of pancreatic cancer, as confirmed on Facebook by his brother Tim Follin.

Geoff was known for his work composing the music for games like Silver Surfer, Solstice, and Plok, alongside his brother Tim.

[johntayjinf]

i thought this would be really fucking stupid but pico-8 turned out to be a little more versatile than i thought

[its-ya-girl-phoeni]

@zay-does-things

Tim and Geoff Follin (R.I.P.) just casually dropping the hardest boss theme you’ve ever heard for a game about a sentient pile of clothes with detachable limbs:

[sonyplaytation]

21st Century Schizoid Man [WIP]

(In the soundfont of Rock N' Roll Racing for the SNES)

I only found out about RnR Racing a bit ago, and as a big prog fan/Follin bros enjoyer I thought it would be funny if they had leaned into their own prog influences more when they made the games soundtrack.

I thought the fact that the original game already had a cover of a Black Sabbath song was funny as is, so naturally I wondered "what would the funniest song be to appear in the Rock n Roll Racing soundtrack" and this was the first thing that came to mind.

Obviously its not done yet but I think it sounds much better than it has any right to tbh. the soundfont actually had a pretty fitting brass instrument so its kinda the one crutch holding this whole thing together

[musicalueion]

Garlen Beach (Plok)

Artists: Jredd, Senn, Tudd, Bl∀karot, Xemogasa, Blu3, CosmoBG, Dex, GXSCChater, JOGURT, Tom Miller

Original Composers: Tim Follin, Geoff Follin

Original Work: Plok - A Line In The Sand

[7grandmel]

Todays rip: 14/04/2024

Thwâmpröck Desert

Season 8 No Album Release (Read More) Thwomp Desert (OST Version) - Mario Kart Wii

Ripped by Madinstance

So you know how yesterday's post was about a ripper with a very clearly defined niche of work, with Jamangar and Locked In The Underground? And earlier in the week I was covering the sheer prowess of ripper Madinstance, the raw power he exudes with I will Never be a Redneck? And just a few more days before that, where I talked about how much Mario Kart Wii's music means to me with Sweatpants Select? Well amidst my lineup of possible future posts, I slowly realized how perfectly Thwâmpröck Desert fit all three categories - a great way to end the week, and another Season 8 rip to boot.

Madinstance is an exceptionally skilled ripper, that much I hope I've made clear over my past posts on him. But with a few exceptions from time to time aside, he's also a ripper with a rather particular focus - a lot of his greatest rips, such as Every Mob Wants to Rule My World, Fell From a High Place (Reprise) and M​-​O​-​O​-​G City, are all focused on paying respects to Minecraft and its legendary original composer C418, wheras recently Initial Deluxe (I've Just Raced on this Course Before) appears to reveal a newfound love for the Mario Kart series. You may think at first thumbnail glance that Thwâmpröck Desert is an extension of that, a rip of a Mario Kart game, but there's one more field of his expertise that I'm yet to cover on here. C418 is beloved by many, yes, but within those privy to video game music history, particularly in the chiptune community, few composers are as revered and celebrated as the Follin brothers, Tim Follin and Geoff Follin.

To VGM aficionados, they need no introduction - but then, its those same aficionados who would know such things as that Robocop on Game Boy of all games has amazing music, as I discussed in Viva La Robocop. Most others, those who are primarily video game fans, will simply choose their favorite composer based on their own favorite games. That's completely valid too, of course, many long-running franchises like Kingdom Hearts, Sonic the Hedgehog, Dark Souls and so forth have key people composing for them that are incredibly distinct, to where you KNOW what a Kingdom Hearts game will sound like, what a Dark Souls game will sound like, and so on. Yet what makes the Follin brothers so fascinating in contrast, is that their soundtracks were attached to all kinds of games from all sorts of places: Ecco the Dolphin on Dreamcast, Silver Surfer on NES, Pictionary on NES, Plok! on Super Nintendo - practically the entire spectrum of games of the 80s and 90s, from shovelware to all-time classics, the Follins contributed to. Yet to them, the individual game quality hardly mattered! Be it Pictionary or Plok, Tim and Geoff Follin composed every soundtrack like it was their life's greatest achievement, creating full-on chiptune prog-rock in games that had NO business going that hard (I know that's a bit of an overdone and reductive turn of phrase, but really - PICTIONARY???) The brothers knew how to make any platform they were working on positively sing, and their obscure weirdo games have become titans amidst VGM enthusiasts as a result. An underdiscussed side of video game history, still cherished by a specific subset of nerds yet today.

Which, then, brings us back to Thwâmpröck Desert - an arrangement of one of Tim Follin's most insane pieces, the title screen music for NES game Solstice. It deserves a listen all of its own - the way it fakes you out with the most barebones little ditty of all time before switching into a rock masterpiece is an absolute work of art, and the piece just keeps growing from there, at once impossibly layered yet incredibly cohesive. Madinstance LOVES ripping the Follins' work, he's made a name for himself in part for ripping the SNES game Plok! in particular during Season 6 and Season 7, yet even still I was unsure how well Thwâmpröck Desert could really work. Its not a rip of a Follin composed game like the aforementioned Plok! rips - its arranging this impossibly dense piece of music into a song that already sounds like the violin version of pure, yet elegant, panic. Yet I suppose that also makes it the perfect fit for the Solstice title theme's sheer density - and when actually listening to Thwâmpröck Desert, its hard to imagine that Thwomp Desert ever sounded any different.

It's just - GAAHH!!! Its fucking mind-boggling how good it sounds, how this odd song I'd barely thought about from Mario Kart Wii wound up being the perfect template to arrange Follin's music into. The melody's string instruments are perfect for the Solstice title theme's pure distilled chaos whilst still capturing that sense of elegance and flow, and the most quirky instruments still present in Thwomp Desert add a delightful texture to the arrangement. I have to pause it every 10 or so seconds I listen to just process all that I've heard - the percussion, lead, backing, the progression of the song, its all handled absolutely masterfully, I cannot BELIEVE this was just dropped on us on a normal tuesday! I will Never be a Redneck was at least a season premiere!!

Whew...well, alright, I hope you get the picture - The Follin brothers' music fucking rocks, and I am SO glad that a ripper as amazing as Madinstance has taken it upon himself to pay regular tribute to their work. Games like Mario Kart Wii are leagues more mainstream than the games that the Follins typically worked on, and the idea of SiIvaGunner getting less VGM-savvy viewers to find out about these legendary composers - it just makes me really happy! Madinstance's rips are bangers to be sure, but much like Beautiful! ~ Curveball of Sean Kingston, like Beyond the Floating Isles, like Gate Happy: they're bangers that can also open up a whole new world of musical interests to viewers like you and I. And isn't that just the coolest way for SiIvaGunner's art of subversion to live on in?

(oh, also, its called Thwâmpröck Desert because the Solstice NES game takes place in "Kâstleröck" and I just found that very funny)

[gamesline]

The Bulletin: State of Play in the Month of May

Sony dropped another State of Play, and it wasn't very exciting! However, there's still other news, so here's the Bulletin rundown! Read the full article

[tanookireviews]

R.I.P Geoff Follin. You and Tom Follin gave us the bop that is the Plok OST.

[insanaquarium]

what the fuuuuuuuuck

[miximagic256]

In Memoriam: Geoff Follin

Normally I try to keep my blog (and social medias in general) to be places where you can be happy and laugh, with me intentionally not talking about more serious issues for a variety of reasons, but this post is going to be an exception because this year the video game game composer Geoff Follin passed away in May very suddenly (yes I'm aware this is VERY overdue and I do apologise, but I figured a proper memoriam post was worth it because of how influential he and his brother's music was to me growing up). You can imagine how shocked I was when Tim Follin announced the news of his brother's death especially as it was clear they were incredibly close with his description of Geoff Follin being "the most empathic, caring, loving brother you could wish for, I loved him as much as it's possible to love anyone". I hope he and the rest of the Follin family are coping well with such a tragic departure.

I’ve already wrote my thoughts on Twitter and on the very last YouTube video Geoff Follin uploaded on his channel, but I decided to make a proper post dedicated to him because of how impactful him and his brother’s music was to me. Many of you would also probably be curious about my thoughts towards his passing considering anyone that's known me for a long time knows growing up I was obsessed with the music by the Follins. I tried to find all the soundtracks and information on them I could, I would bring them up constantly to the point of it basically becoming a meme within several friend groups and when I was deep into my chiptune phase their style of composing undoubtedly effected me the most out of all the classic video game composers of the time as whenever I would be using a certain soundchip the philosophy of making the best sounds with what you were given with were strong within me.

It's ironic then that despite playing video games for a brief period due to the inclusion of a ZX Spectrum in the family home via his brother Mike Follin, Geoff never got into video games and only ended up working at Software Creations because in 1988 he was on a phone call with his brothers about wanting a different place to work and they thought they could get a job for him there, this was successful and Geoff composed many games both solo and with Tim. Geoff's last composition credit is the SNES game Batman Forever which was released in 1995.

When people talk about music of the Follins I've noticed Geoff gets sidelined quite a lot from discussion and I think that's a shame because many of his soundtracks like his brother's were incredible then and I think they are still incredible all these years later. if any of you would like to check out his music and aren’t sure where to start, my personal recommendations would be:

Altered Space: A 3D Alien Adventure (Nintendo Game Boy)

Sly Spy (Commodore 64) [I couldn't find a playlist for this one]

Spot: The Video Game (Nintendo Game Boy)

Terminator 2 (Nintendo Entertainment System) [The uploader credits this soundtrack by both Tim and Geoff, but it's actually a Geoff Follin solo soundtrack]

Wolverine (Nintendo Entertainment System)

I never knew Geoff Follin personally but I did talk to him directly once years ago in my interview with him, I've avoided bringing this up because I don't want to make this memoriam about me but what I will say is despite how I cringe at some of the questions I asked him he didn't show any sign of being annoyed with me, that combined with what Tim said in his post about Geoff makes me like to think I got a reflection of that warmth and kindness that was described by Tim in his Facebook post.

Rest in Peace, Geoff Follin, thanks for all the music and may your music and legacy live on!

[gimmick1992]

RIP Geoff Follin, you were one of the greatest video game composers of all time.

[musicalueion]

[OST] Plok! [1993]

Video Game

Artists: Tim Follin, Geoff Follin

Developer: Software Creations

Publishers: Activision, Tradewest, Nintendo

Plok! is available to play on:

Super Nintendo Entertainment System

[jacobtheloofah]

this is doing numbers so just so y’all don’t sleep on the rest of the plok ost you are GOING to listen to the beach theme, you have no choice

japanese game dev in the 90s: hey dude can you make some music for our game about anime girls getting fucked sloppy style

guy who's about to push the PC-98 sound card to its absolute limit and create the most heartachingly beautiful music you've ever heard: Yeah okay

[game-levels]

[theakrillictimes]

Geoff Follin has passed away from pancreatic cancer.

Many of the game soundtracks we know as being by Tim Follin were actually co-productions with his brother, the Plok soundtrack included.

A few years ago, Plok began to develop a real, active fandom. These days I see art of him regularly, remixes, video reviews, and it's almost entirely off the strength of the soundtrack. I hope Geoff knew before he passed, and that he felt vindicated. Rest in peace, and thank you.

[pallisia]

what is your favorite absurdly well-produced tim and/or geoff follin SNES track

plok is the only one i've really listened to. i tried to think of a less obvious pick but none of them were snes...anyway, time trax is a favorite.