Composer scntfc (C. Andrew Rohrmann) talks about two of his scores for games: Gibbon: Beyond the Trees is from 2022 – an ecological adventure game about Gibbons. As a player, you swing, slide and somersault through the trees while learning about these special creatures. Andy’s music is heavy on struck percussion, rhythmic and full of…
Read moreComposer Austin Wintory talks about his music for Aliens: Fireteam Elite, a squad shooter from Cold Iron Studios. The game is a part of the Aliens universe, you know, the face-hugging, chest-exploding, H.R. Giger-designed Aliens. And the soundtrack is fabulous, with many subtle and less-subtle tributes to the famous film scores written by Jerry Goldsmith,…
Read moreComposer Maclaine Diemer‘s music for Salt and Sacrifice is grimy and unpolished. As producer Sam Keenan says, “You can make a cello sound a lot of ways, and he found a bunch of fun ones.” Of course, Maclaine is best-known for his gorgeous, lush, epic orchestral music for Guild Wars 2. And this is definitely…
Read moreComposer Andrew Prahlow wrote music for Outer Wilds over the course of ten years, most recently for the game’s giant expansion: Echoes of the Eye. At the conclusion of that project, Andrew felt compelled to write more music inspired by the game. The result is The Lost Reels, a set of segueing tracks Andrew wrote…
Read moreComposer Jason Graves talks about his music for Moss: Book II, a VR game where the player helps a mouse named Quill save her homeland from evil. The score has numerous solos for various wind instruments, like flute, oboe, English horn and Irish penny whistle. Jason also mentions the baby grand piano he bought and…
Read moreComposer Nick Roder talks about his music for Roadwarden, an illustrated text-based RPG released in September (2022). Since the game is text-based, the music functions a bit differently than game music often does, allowing Nick to stretch tracks out over longer periods of time. It’s very melancholic music – deeply introspective, calm… maybe a bit…
Read moreThe Game Brass are a team of seven musicians on a mission to share video game music in a brassy way. Six of them are performers: John Robert Matz (who’s been a recurring Level guest), Robby Duguay, Danny Flam, Daniel Romberger, Alex Hill and John Stacy. The seventh, Thomas Kresge, is The Game Brass’s arranger…
Read moreComposer Phill Boucher wrote a fantastic score for HEROish, a new castle defense game on Apple Arcade. It’s an amalgamation of Celtic instruments, a full-orchestra and some hardcore metal guitar. He calls it “Celtic metal plus” and the description is appropriate. Definitely take a few moments to check out this score video if you want…
Read moreComposer Nainita Desai is all over my playlist these days, whether it’s her game music or film music. Most recently, it’s for Sam Barlow’s new interactive film/game called Immortality. In Immortality, the player sifts through footage of 3 unreleased feature films, trying to solve the mystery of missing (fictional) film star, Marissa Marcel. As a…
Read moreBen Hanson and Kyle Hilliard are serious content creators in the world of video game media. They have a media empire of sorts here in Minneapolis at MinnMax, with weekly podcasts and videos, a vibrant Discord and a variety of events. They met years ago as colleagues at Game Informer magazine (published here in Mpls)…
Read moreAlina Matson is the founder of Glossbird, a Minneapolis-based game developer making a game called Fitment. Alina and her company are making a social micro-fitness game, described as Animal Crossing meets Duolingo for exercise. It isn’t out yet, although it will be hitting early-access soon! Fitment’s release is expected in 2023, and now you can…
Read moreBrian Schmidt is a composer, but his influence and reach within the game audio community are wide after more than 3 decades in the industry. Brian is also the president of the Game Audio Network Guild (G.A.N.G.) and the founder of a game audio convention called GameSoundCon. Importantly, Brian is encouraging game composers to submit…
Read moreI loved talking with Zac Tiessen. He’s a phenomenal guitar player (look him up on YouTube for sure). He’s just composed the soundtrack for a StarCraft II mod called UED: First Light, a prequel to the StarCraft universe. Zac’s music matches the epic expanse of the cosmos he scored, with an epic orchestral style and…
Read moreComposer Kristofer Eng‘s music for It Takes Two is fantastic. For the most part, it’s cinematically orchestral, with other styles heard depending on the level in the game. The game is a 2-player puzzle/adventure platformer, where you play as the parents to a girl named Rose. Her parents are planning to divorce, and Rose doesn’t…
Read moreMeena Shamaly is a singer, an instrumentalist, a composer, a radio host and a performance poet. While not a definitive list of his artistic talents, it’s a list relevant to our conversation we had at the end of July. So, we talk about how he sang, played oud and served as an Arabic music and…
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