Ah yes, the video game soundtrack, I’ve heard that some people play video games mostly for the music itself. Though ironically, Atari 2600 games for the most part didn’t really have music. Anyway, it’s time for me to touch on who’s composing the soundtrack for Randy’s Crazy Mission!. The OST is actually being made by yours truly, me! Yeah, I’m also composing the music for this game. Before I move on, if by any chance this is the first bit of this indie game dev blog you’re seeing, you should check out the very first post for context. I also recommend you work your way up to this post after that.
Soundtrack Discussion
Let me discuss one important thing to note about the soundtrack. For the music, I’m taking an approach similar to what I did with the art. The Atari 2600 isn’t directly influencing the music, even though the game’s based around the console. Overall, it will sound more like “real” music instead of “retro video game soundtrack”.
Like I explained in the first post, this game will begin with the in-universe 2600 game being played. So that means you get to suffer through playing a poorly-made advergame yourself, for six levels. In the beginning, there will be no music playing. A lot of games of the time lacked background music. The real game begins after it’s put on the shelf. You will replay all six levels (with some more thrown in). There’ll be story cutscenes, and the stages will improve, with stuff added to them. One of the differences is that there’ll be actual music, made by me, playing, as opposed to the silence of the first round. The score won’t sound like Atari 2600 music, it’ll use much better samples.
Pictured: Me playing this game’s music on a beach, during the vacation I was on last week.
Style
For the general sound of the music, a lot of it is jazz. I feel it fits the game’s aesthetic. But overall, the soundtrack is actually quite stylistically diverse. There’s a wide range of different styles used in the OST. And, while I know I said the songs won’t sound like 2600 music, there will be parts of the OST that’ll use the console’s soundfont here and there. There will be a time and place to use the Atari 2600 sound in the music.
For example, when you first boot up the game, the title screen will be the in-universe 2600 game’s title screen. A better menu will replace it later on. The first title screen will be based on the E.T. one. It’ll have a pixelated close-up of Randy, with an awkward-sounding Atari 2600 rendition of the game’s main theme which you hear in the real game. Kind of like how the E.T. title screen had a 2600 rendition of the John Williams E.T. theme.
Closing Words
The music has actually been one of the most worked on aspects of this game so far. I’ll showcase some of the songs I made for the game on this website. However, none of the songs are 100% finalized just yet. If I do upload some songs to this site anytime soon, they’ll use placeholder instruments, because I have yet to acquire all of the perfect samples for the music. And by the way, I’m using FL Studio for this. Anyway, that’s all for now.
