Head over to www.pipetrouble.com to have a look at the great new indie video game "Pipe Trouble." Developed by Pop Sandbox, Pipe Trouble is a re-imagining of an old arcade classic that challenges players to ferry gas and oil across a variety of challenging environments. In addition to its challenging gameplay, Pipe Trouble – now available for iOS and Android — is designed to explore both sides of the debate around energy extraction by putting the player on the spot when hard choices need to be made.
Myself and Mike from FU collabo'd to write the soundtrack, which is three separate levels of multi layered, gameplay-based music. As the game gets more challenging and hectic, so does the music.
This was my first real foray into electronic music composition (though there are a lot of analogue instruments involved as well), and the first time i've had to contribute to songwriting which has no linear or structural goals beyond its own infinite repetition. These are not songs as much as it is 'music,' or at least an abstraction of it. Focusing so closely on one musical cell gets you closer to traditional ideas of composition -- the development of one musical idea through a long piece of music -- but based on how passive and repetitive video game music has to be, one is forced to simplify every urge to diversify what you're coming up with. While any canonical approval a la Super Mario or Tetris is probably a long way off, this was a much needed stretch of creativity.
HERE is a link to a trailer for the game.
Here I am in digital format. They even nailed my jumper.
