I thought about just posting this in videogame, but then I felt hey, maybe this warrants it’s own little thread and paragraph of contextualisation because after all, this was a lot of work. I’ve been working on a couple of songs for a game that’s now out on Steam called “Soundodger 2”. The name of the game is beautifully self explanatory : sounds generate stuff that are thrown at you, now dodge them. It kinda sits halfway through a rhythm game and a bullethell shmup like Ikaruga / Radiant Silvergun and other Treasure influenced shooters. It’s deceptively simple at first sight, and surprisingly deep when you commit to it.
Making those two tracks was an interesting challenge. I’d already worked on the first game this sequel is based on, so I was kind of tuned to how the game functionned, and I wanted to make something that gave the devs some margin to work with and be creative with the gamedesign. I wanted the songs to have big mood swings, elements of noise and mixing contrast that could playfully break the patterns in unexpected ways, ebbs and flows so that there’d be enough time to gradually amplify or decrease difficulty of certain sections. All of this while simultaneously just writing songs that I connect to, as I’ve always appreciated the balance and friction between the playfullness of the game, and the fact that the song itself remains genuine and heartfelt. It’s an odd thing to write a song thinking someone might have to listen to it over and over to “finish a level”, it makes you pause a little more because it’s gonna be a very specific way to approach it that you must try to embrace as a songwriter.
In the end I think I really like the result, it’s a little odd, sincere, and it looks incredible. At times it feels like the abstractions provided by the game’s visuals collide with the song to create some other form of unxpected meaning. It’s a strangely touching feeling.
Anyhow, here are the two tracks.
