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S2 Ep178: VGBD - Music
76 Plays4 years ago
Join Dave and Jake as Jake's memory goes and the importance of music choice shows in this week's episode! Includes a with a bonus music quiz to play along with!
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Thoughts? Comments? Requests for new episodes? Feel free to email them in!
SoapstonePodcast@gmail.com
Like our podcast? Like our podcast! We'll post when new episodes are uploaded!
https://www.facebook.com/SoapstonePodcast/
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Transcript
00:00:13
Speaker
you
Opening Banter: Productivity and Potatoes
00:00:52
Speaker
How's it going, everyone? Welcome to another episode of Soapstone. My name is Jake, and I'm joined by my co-host as always, Dave. How's it going tonight, Dave? It's going good, I think.
00:01:03
Speaker
I've been a pretty solid Thursday so far. That's true. That's good. I was productive at work for the first time in a while because I had something to do. Went to Wegmans for a quick grocery run. Had some meatloaf, green beans and a very mashed potato.
00:01:22
Speaker
Usually I like a little bit of chunks in there, but this is like just potato puree. Yeah. I was just going to call it potato pure, but puree sounds better. It's more French, right? It was a little accent at the end there. It's pure potato. Yeah. Yeah. But it's like, it's a very fine potato. Right. Yeah. Yeah. It's a very, very class potato.
00:01:43
Speaker
We must not dilute the potato through the, ah, no, no, that's wrong. I mean, there's definitely some butter in there for how smooth that was. Yeah. I mean, I hope so. Mashed potatoes with like out salt or butter is just like sadness, basically.
00:01:59
Speaker
I'm going to also add in garlic. Yeah, it feels really needed prerequisite for that. But that's like for anything. Just garlic. Anything on garlic. Well, I mean like, yeah. I'm just imagining a mixed drink and you're just like, I mean, like, yeah, it's like Long Island iced tea, but is it really without garlic?
00:02:22
Speaker
I mean, have you ever had like a bowl of cereal without salt, butter, and garlic? Just a clove or two to taste. Have you just had like, it's just so bland. These cheers are so bland. Vampires hate them.
Culinary Humor and Drink Education
00:02:37
Speaker
Also, do you know what is in a Long Island iced tea? Because I know you don't drink. Alcohol? Iced tea. That's all I got. No. I mean, you were right on the first one. It is an alcoholic drink. But there's no tea.
00:02:51
Speaker
Oh, that seems kind of pointless. Is there ice? It's like. Yeah. But usually it's like I think it's three to five different shots of different alcohols and then it's like a splash of Coke for color. Oh.
00:03:08
Speaker
So it's literally just a mix of alcohols. It's literally just alcohol. Oh, that's the primary ingredient. So the whereas most drinks drinks, most mixed drinks are actually mixed. And this is just kind of alcohol. The name is just ironic. I don't know who named it. I don't know the etymology, but. What about the entomology?
00:03:34
Speaker
Oh, um, would, would in strength this, um, but no, I do find that just a little bit surprising because that's blatantly misleading. And usually alcoholic beverages have some like real key, like they have some context for what's in them. Um, I know you didn't have this at the wedding, but, uh,
00:04:00
Speaker
At the wedding we were recently at, there was something called Amor Azul or Blue Love. And it was so nice. It's a tequila based drink with like some elderberry stuff and something else. But that went down like fruit juice. That makes sense. Amor Azul is what? Like love blue? It's literally that thing I just said. Yeah. I'm going to translate it. No, I did translate it.
00:04:29
Speaker
Oh, did you? Oh, I somehow missed that entirely. Yeah. Whoops.
Podcast Editing and Transition to Video Game Music
00:04:35
Speaker
Just cut this part out, cut this part out.
00:04:37
Speaker
I mean, I controlled the edit this week. So I was going to, even if I didn't say I was going to put it in anyway. There's no, there's no faster way to keep something in one of our episodes than ask to cut it out. Yeah. I don't think we've actually cut anything out unless we had like a hard stop or like, all right, that, that thing got fucked up. Right. Yeah. And sometimes you just go on like racist tirades and things like that.
00:04:59
Speaker
Usually don't want to we don't want that to represent the brand that we present here. So that was my bad I thought it was a racist parade. I was trying to bring some levity That's fair Because it's because the balloons for the plate parade right that's where the the levity comes from yeah, yeah How can you be racist if you have balloons?
00:05:22
Speaker
I don't know. I have no quippy, witty remark or comeback for that. So instead, I'm going to transition into talking about this week's episode, video game breakdown, more stuff, music and games or video games or gaming. We'll use one of those. Music and tabletop gaming. What has Monopoly been missing all these years?
00:05:48
Speaker
Yeah. A lot. Monopoly is not a good game. Fight me. It's not. But now I do like the idea of one of the event cards instead of like going to jail or going to go. It's like, oh, go to track 17. Yeah, he's my jam. It's like the most AAA kids bop, corporate approved type music. Yeah. Doo doo doo doo capitalism.
00:06:18
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. But anyways, games have music in them. Sometimes, most of the time, I would pause it. And that's what we're going to talk about.
The Role of Music in Video Games
00:06:31
Speaker
Solid intro, yeah. So this is one of those things that we wanted to talk about for a little bit. Obviously, every time we talk about a game that we really enjoy, one of the key components that can draw us to a game is the music. Because it's very immersive, it drives a lot of the emotional pieces, because we will correlate certain types of music with certain feelings.
00:06:56
Speaker
Because we've been exposed to media. We're socialized. We're socialists. But yeah, every time I talk about Undertale, a lot of my memories with it are from the music. And I get to relive some of the experiences of the game by listening to those songs.
00:07:17
Speaker
So we wanted to give some kudos and some highlights to some really banging video game tracks and then kind of explore music and games a little more.
00:07:28
Speaker
But we were thinking about starting this off with a quiz, which is not something we've done since Diablo 2. So I burned an extra hour of Jake's time playing this. Yeah, I was like, I was about to hit the record button. He's like, now what if? I'm like, no, Dave. Jake's like, I don't even watch Marvel. Stop it. It is. Oh, yeah. I haven't seen that either, but I have heard about it.
00:07:52
Speaker
I haven't either. I'm way behind on Marvel stuff. But I don't care at this point anymore. There was like an end to the Infinity War arc. And I was like, that's good. It just wasn't stepped away. Yeah. And then I haven't seen movies or people in such a long time. So Marvel's done now. That's fair.
00:08:09
Speaker
But what the plan is, is we're going to go back and forth trading tracks. We've each sent each other six tracks anonymously labeled. On our side, we have a cheat sheet, so we know what it is. But we're going to have the person listen to the song for 30 seconds. And in the edit, you'll be able to listen along with us. And then afterwards, we'll try and guess what the game is from, or what game the song is from, and then talk about it a little bit, and then go back and forth.
00:08:38
Speaker
Right. And then we'll go off the rails talking about more music and game stuff. Yes. That's not like a plan. I'm going to edit in one person. And it's just like a crowd of people disapproving, just like all booze. If I had the edit, that's what I would have jumped in with. But do you remember Red Block Remover? It sounds familiar. It was like an old flash game on
00:09:06
Speaker
Newgrounds, Albino Black Sheep, anywhere that had like a thing. But anytime you cleared a level, it was like the most happy, like 3,000 kids going like, an army of children celebrating.
00:09:19
Speaker
I hear that those are popular. I didn't confirm. But yeah, I mean obviously I'm poor this because I put in the time to pick some songs. Who should start? Who's our first listener among the co-hosts listening today?
00:09:40
Speaker
I'm going to pick you to be first to listen. Okay. All right. So I am going to begin listening to the first track and you guys can listen along. Um, I'm gonna not, if I figure it out, I'm not going to immediately spoil it. Um, but, uh, feel free to shout out when you get it and we'll, we'll cheer you on. I won't be upset if you spoil it for me. Do your listening.
00:10:18
Speaker
I'm getting like some funky vibes for sure. 80s, 80s sort of synthy stuff. Oh my gosh, I'm not gonna get this one. I don't think I get it. It's...
00:10:47
Speaker
It's got a lot of like running man running in the nineties, sort of like energy to it, but I don't think I know what this is from some sort of arcade or indie game. So I will, I'll give you two hints. One, you are correct. It is in the related, but it's actually DLC for a non-indie game. Interesting. Hmm. Is it a platformer?
00:11:12
Speaker
It is not a platformer. OK, I give up. All right, so this track was Payday 2, Hot Pursuit, from the Hotline Miami deals. Ah, gotcha, gotcha. That makes sense. A little bit of a curve ball. Yeah. But I think this one in particular. So we played some after Jacket was added to the game, obviously. I picked him. But that was toward the end of our payday time. That's my excuse for why I didn't remember the track.
00:11:42
Speaker
But I think it's your turn. He would like to listen to my number one. All right. I'm going to be checking this out. Let's go. Rachel. A little bit spacey.
00:12:20
Speaker
I also want to say it's from an indie game. Um, knee jerk says Celeste, but I know it's not cause I've listened to that. You'd immediately know. It does sound a little bit risk of rainy as well.
00:12:37
Speaker
I mean, you said it, you said it basically, so you're correct. It's risk of rain too. So yeah, that would count. I mean, the soundtrack between the first and the second games, I think they're the exact same composer. I don't know how you'd tell the difference between them. No, they are. So I know we've mentioned his name before, but like I've forgotten it since.
00:12:55
Speaker
You get like Microsoft Sam to say his name here for us. Chris Cristal now. But yeah, that one is Risk of Rain. I actually, I didn't even, so we played some Risk of Rain too, but I haven't listened to the soundtrack a lot. I just know that having played the game with you, I was like, Dave may know Risk of Rain. I'm not going to pick like the title theme or like one of the most noticeable tracks. And so you could still get it. So good job on that one.
00:13:23
Speaker
Yeah. Are we ready? I can do number two. All right, do it up. OK, this has to be Warhammer, I think. Is it it? It's so like dark Gothic, I want to say mechanicus, like right off the bat.
00:13:55
Speaker
But it could also be in another game with religious themes. Huh. It's it's literally like kind of like Latin singing type. Is it what was the. OK, Emmett time, so let's say this would be.
00:14:20
Speaker
I know that there, what was that religious, yeah, what was that religious game? The two-dimensional sidescroller. I can never remember the name of it. It's... I like how every time we talk about this game, I'm the one who can never remember the name of that game. It's Blasphemous. Blasphemous, yeah. But no, it is not Blasphemous. And it's not 40K. It is not 40K. Dang it. I was really hoping it was Mechanicus. Really good soundtrack. Are you puzzled by this song? I am. Is it a game I played?
00:14:49
Speaker
Are you puzzled by this song? Am I puzzled? I don't play puzzle games, so I immediately discolored the song. Am I puzzled by this one? Yes. I know that is the hint, but I'm going to just answer quietly. So this is Sanctuary from the Talos Principle. Ah, gotcha, gotcha. Yeah, I never played that game. I just made up my entire experience with manufacturing.
00:15:15
Speaker
To be fair. It was a while back that one that one is fair that that makes sense. That would be one of the The more ethereal areas as you're sending Yeah, I so like for these so far like These are all like really banging tracks. Mm-hmm from good games We can wait and delve into more stuff later. Yeah. Yeah, I think yeah, let's just keep it going my number two up track to
00:15:48
Speaker
This is some elevator ass shit. So you've hit the title of the track already. But identifying what it's from is going to kill me. Have I played this? You have. We even had an episode on it, although it's pretty old.
00:16:15
Speaker
Oh, hear me out. OK. I'm now going to say Stanley Parable. It is. Yes, it is a Stanley Parable. I had to expose it. Why? Why are there like light background vocals? Uh huh. The narrator. I had to literally splice this so that he didn't say Stanley because that's how he opens the track. He's like, oh, yeah. I was like, nope, not putting that in. Let's move the track. Um.
00:16:38
Speaker
That was a sneaky one. I like that That's what I'm going I'm going for the curve ball that you ultimately do hit at the end But you gotta like you gotta track it for a bit first. All right, I'll go for three and see if I can actually land one Also getting some some sort of like 8-bit indie vibes some scent in there and
00:17:03
Speaker
The piano is like a little bit, I feel the piano is too pronounced for this to be some like super giant. Strong bass. And then it goes crazy.
00:17:34
Speaker
OK, I don't think I'm I'm not sure on this one either. It's definitely an indie game, though. It is indie. Definitely pixelated. And I'll even throw in it's a top down view. Top down. Have I played it? Yes, but not as much as some other people we know, myself included. Gotcha. Hmm. Pixelated top down view. Indie. It's is it a roguelike? It is a roguelike. It is a roguelike.
00:18:03
Speaker
Is it Isaac? Is this from Isaac? Yeah. Nice. Binding of Isaac. This is from Antibear specifically, but this is the basement theme. Gotcha. Gotcha. Gotcha. All right. I've got one on the board. I'm happy for that. I've got my one. So now you can click my
Quiz Segment: Guess the Game Track
00:18:21
Speaker
three. See if you can pick this one. It's subtle. Here we go.
00:18:31
Speaker
Oh, so, yep. I'm getting something very quiet, lonely, spacey. Though maybe lonely is not the right term. I'm gonna let this play out.
00:18:53
Speaker
Jake was nice enough to cut his in exactly 30 seconds. That is Among Us. Yep. That's the main menu theme. Which I think is the only music that came as if I remember correctly. I was like, you know what would be funny? Among Us. I'm like, ah, that's just only one song. Uh-huh. This is my meme pick. That was a good meme pick. I had to throw that. I will say, I did throw in a meme pick for Jake as well. That's coming up. That's good. All right, you ready for track four? All right, I am listening.
00:19:26
Speaker
okay um synth a beat higher production value space sounds um hmm i'm almost getting like dark perfect dark literally vibes but i don't think it's perfect dark it's a little too upbeat
00:19:56
Speaker
Okay. Let me see. So there's some options for what this could be. This could just be a track from another kind of like dark industrial type game, something like Ruiner or Ghost Runner or something in that space. Is it like a cyberpunk type game?
00:20:22
Speaker
No, it's more of an older RTS. Older RTS? Uh, Command & Conquer? Is it from Command & Conquer? No. Crap. Is it one that I've played? I think you might have played it. I know I've definitely talked about it. Is it classic Starcraft? A brood war?
00:20:45
Speaker
Huh. Okay. Older RTS. Have you played it? I have played it. You have definitely played it. And you've talked about it. And I may have played it. Unfortunately. Let me throw the hint out and if we don't get it, we won't move past. Sure. They made a movie about it. They made a movie about an RTS. And that sounds like a bad idea. Was it a good movie?
00:21:14
Speaker
Huh, yeah, I don't recall.
00:21:16
Speaker
I picked very niche curveballs, apparently. This is from WarGames. This is OST track seven. But it's something that you'd hear. I thought of the name. I just couldn't think of the game. I was like, this is definitely OST track seven for something. This is classic track seven right here. Yeah, I never played WarGames for the record. That was my bad. I was a little bit too niche. It's all good. Feel free to queue up mine, number four. Track four.
00:21:54
Speaker
The way this is compressed makes me feel like old. PS1? Might have been going for it. They might have been going for it. Nothing's too distinct for this. Right. This sounds like something I would make in FL Studio. But better, but much better.
00:22:17
Speaker
Hmm. OK, so my best guess is Centipede, like 3D. Gotcha. So this is actually a newer game, I guess it's old at this point. Does it help? This is a big hint, I feel. Actually, it's that hint. All right. The hint is Valve title, Valve published.
00:22:45
Speaker
There's no option. Half life two. It's from the original portal. So this is the escape track that plays when you're when you're escaping. I kind of picked this one because I figured no one's paying attention to the music when they're running for their lives. But this is when you escape your birthday party.
00:23:09
Speaker
Yeah, going back after you said I do hear that now, right? Yeah. The context. It's basically the only track I feel I could have picked from Portal that wouldn't have been like Portal. Yeah. Still alive? Yeah, that's Portal. Yeah, I feel. Yeah. Yeah. All right. I'm going to venture a guess on this next one for you for track five. You're going to get it immediately. All right. I'm going to feel real disappointed if I don't get it. I will also be really disappointed.
00:23:34
Speaker
Okay, I got it immediately. I'll give it some time for the listeners. Such a good game.
00:24:04
Speaker
Alright, I'm at time. So this is Loop Hero. 100% licious theme, I think. I can't remember the exact name, but it is the licious theme. Cosmic Temperance is the song. But yeah, Loop Hero, spot on. Yeah.
00:24:16
Speaker
Mm hmm. It's really I uh, I have a cover of that that I listen to on Spotify. Mm hmm. Like I'm just like walking around and like every time like that, the drop comes. I'm like, yeah, I should have. I'm I'm almost regretful that I didn't pick a song from this just to hear. Listen to a loop here or more. It's really good, which is why I just had it like thrown in.
00:24:38
Speaker
Yeah, it's it's ridiculous. Oh, my gosh, that's a good song. It's such a good song. And now I'm not sure if it is actually because the name Cosmic Temperance makes me think that it was a different boss instead of the Lich. But I'm still going with it. I still think it's the Lich. We'll see. I think it's when like the arena shows up or like the whatever. It's one of the boss portals because that's when all their tracks kick in. I'm just not. I think it is for the list. Yeah. You want to listen to number five for me?
00:25:08
Speaker
Here we go, number five. Mambo number, is it Mambo number five? That would be hilarious. Here we go. Smuppied synth. Oh, there's a drop in there. There's some filled.
00:25:39
Speaker
Okay, I have a guess because it's definitely cyberpunk-y themed. I want to venture Ghost Runner. Yeah. Yeah, that is correct. Title Let Them Know is what it's called. But yeah, it is from Ghost Runner.
00:25:54
Speaker
I thought about this as soon as we got to the track and you were listening to it. I was like, did I fall into the psychological blunder of guessing for your track, the thing that I had picked for my track? You know what I mean? Like, you know, tell me five things that are worth thinking about. And you're like, all right, I'll tell you, you know, whatever. But keep saying penis. Penis, penis, penis. But I had to include Ghost Runner. Ghost Runner also. Bang game. Great soundtrack.
00:26:20
Speaker
Yeah, it feels kind of like cheating because I mean, these aren't all original compositions. You know, some of them are other tracks out there, but they all fit into the game too. But I can move on to number six. Six is my Mimi pick. All right. So this is. So this is that this is a mech game you made me play.
00:26:50
Speaker
I could probably spend the next 20 minutes trying to recall the exact name, but I'll try to guess the name at the end.
00:27:03
Speaker
For everyone who's listening now and guess the opening to an anime, you're still pretty much correct. All right, I'm at time. So it's like Shogo or something? Yep. Yeah. 100%. Shogo mobile armor division. That's the main theme. Yeah. I needed the freebie. My score was a little bit low. I needed the freebie at the end. So legitimately, that game doesn't really have standout music at all. But the opener, holy shit. Yeah, it's literally an anime opening.
00:27:32
Speaker
My last one's not a meme pick. So if you want to learn it, put the pedal to the metal. Getting very chill vibes again. Some high-pitched whirring. Filled. Layered in some drums.
00:28:03
Speaker
Having trouble placing, though. Still getting those indie vibes. Yeah, I think this would qualify as an indie game. It was massively successful, though. This is the first time. I'm going to say Mirror's Edge. Very close. I actually almost put a Mirror's Edge track in here. But this one is more aquatic in nature.
00:28:30
Speaker
Subnautica? Yes. Indie water base game. There you go. Subnautica, right? I see you said water base. I'm like Subnautica. Subnautica, though. Yeah, so this is Safe Shallows from Subnautica. Nice. Yeah.
00:28:46
Speaker
I was like listening to different tracks on it. And apparently the tail end of their OST is like rave music or something that's like not even in the game except like on the OST. Just like the credits or something? I have no idea. It's not even in the credits because the credits are pretty chill. I don't know where it is in the game or if it's just in the files, but it was hilarious. It's like not going with that because that's disingenuous to pick. But safe shallows, this would be what you would hear when you start the game after the first dive, I believe, which has its own track.
00:29:15
Speaker
Okay. Nice. Yeah. So out of these, were any like real stan-ass were like, holy shit, that was my jam. Among the picks for myself or the picks? Either your list for me or my list for you of these 12 songs. Yeah. I mean, I'm a huge sucker for that loop here song in particular. Yeah, it's really good.
00:29:38
Speaker
Honestly, a lot of tracks on the OST like they're all good. There's a few that are really standouts. And that one is just like it's an eight bit drop, right? Like if this would have come out in an eight bit game. People would be nostalgic for this in 20 years, right? Like, yeah, it's freaking great. And the way that it builds to the escalation in the game and it's just attached to those good vibes of like you're about to finish this loop for me. So.
00:30:07
Speaker
Yeah, this is something I've categorized under like driving music because it has that build and it's getting you hype, right?
Driving Music and Emotional Engagement in Games
00:30:15
Speaker
It's not something that's like ambient and just out there, which I'd say like a number of these tracks definitely are. And like it fits the tone of those games for those moments. But the thing with like the loop here is cosmic temperance is like.
00:30:29
Speaker
The game's already pretty fun and well-designed musically. But when you get to that drop, you're like, oh, fuck, it's on. And that's such a good feeling in a game because it really gets you invested. And I do think part of it is like, and we can talk about this more in general terms, but a lull in the pacing of the game, particularly Lupiro, if you were to critique it, one critique could be
00:30:50
Speaker
that if you're just sitting there farming going loop by loop by loop by loop, it's not a terribly engaging experience. It's kind of like an idle game almost when you're almost done with the map. But then the music drops and the contrast between like this plateau you were at and the peak that you're climbing to is choice. It's good stuff.
00:31:11
Speaker
Yeah, sure. You can't have like stuff going 24 seven. So even like something like doom 2016, obviously great fucking music. Yeah. Oh, actually let's, let's put a little listen here.
00:31:59
Speaker
Yeah. I'm going to guess what you added after the fact. I'm going to I'm going to guess that it's BFG division. Maybe it's not, but it probably is. Yeah, it's very much like there'll be like some background music going on. But like when it really picks up is during these fight sequences where you're fighting like hordes of demons and it gets your blood pumping and it motivates you to keep going forward.
00:32:24
Speaker
Obviously, if you had something that was much more laid back, it would be a much different tone of like, ah, yes, casual demon murder, sips on pipe. Right. Do you sip on a pipe? I don't smoke. Yeah. I mean, maybe a water pipe. I hear those are things. I don't know. A bubble pipe. Is that a thing still? Yeah. It's like you blow bubbles through it and you dip it back in the bubble sauce, I assume. What's going on? Bubble sauce.
00:32:52
Speaker
Is that your soap? Is that your water? Don't drink this.
00:33:00
Speaker
Yeah, you can't go completely all... You can't go to the wall all the time without diminishing the overall impact of the escalation. For our notes here, I think the driving music, as it's termed here, is our top category. We have tons of examples of music driving the pace of the game.
00:33:26
Speaker
And a lot of them are very upbeat and it feels really good to like engage with that, but you need the lull. You need the downtime. Let your senses recover a little bit or else it just all becomes kind of noise or normalized in the background.
00:33:42
Speaker
Yeah. So any DJ who's playing in a club is going to have some slow stuff, some more upbeat stuff because you need to ride the wave. Otherwise, like I said, it's pure noise and you burn out so quick. You saying that kind of reminds me of, I think it's Lonely Island's skit. It's like, when will the bass drop? When will the bass drop?
00:34:03
Speaker
And they're just like, when will the base drop? When will the base drop? For like two minutes, then the base drops and everyone's heads literally explode in gore.
00:34:14
Speaker
It's it's the give and take. It's the give and take in music. Is there another example you want to splice in of like a really good example of something you've enjoyed as far as like driving music? Yeah, I mean, I have I have several I really like here. I have to mention my essentially meme pic at this point. But Revengeance, I'll treat it not as a meme pic. It does actually have really awesome music. I've listened to the OSD a bunch.
00:34:40
Speaker
But in particular, and a few games on this list actually have this feature, as a boss fight escalates, it'll layer audio to like, this part's just vocals, but now like the backing guitar comes in, now like we're switching to the next phase of the song. So like as you're going through the boss fight, the music is matching the phase that you're in.
00:35:05
Speaker
And that builds to the climax of the fight. And I think that's freaking awesome is what it is. It's really fucking cool to have pieces built together. Because for the few hours I've measured on FL Studio Total, now sometimes when I listen to a song, oh, how did they do that? Where you can piece apart certain things.
00:35:28
Speaker
But it feels really cool when it all comes together. So if I'm fucking around FL Studio trying to make a song, I'll start with a simple couple of notes into a chord type thing. Like, OK, here's some bars. And then I'll layer it, I'll shift it, and then piece some things together. And it feels really cool to have it all actually come together. Yeah.
00:35:50
Speaker
Because like going back to late motifs with anything in Undertale, you hear pieces of cool audio and then you have those extra layers built in. Right. Or you're like, oh, my God, that was a thing from earlier, but it's now better. Like they've just improved upon it by adding more instruments. You get to hear it as a more complete piece rather than just something eight bit.
00:36:15
Speaker
But yeah, Undertale is freaking great for a lot of reasons, I think, on our list. Obviously, the consistency, the lead motifs, everything about tech, go back to our Undertale episode, there's so much, right?
00:36:33
Speaker
Musically, to try to limit it to the music or the impact on the game, even the use of leotifs builds the sense of community and belonging by making you feel everything's connected, right? Here's an upbeat track. It relates to the themes present in the community. Here's a dramatic track related to the themes present in the community, things like that. It ties the world together.
00:37:00
Speaker
which is legitimately hard to do, but really impressive when it comes together. Oh yeah, absolutely. Shout out to Toby Fox. Yeah, Deltarune episode, one of these days, one of these days. And Undertale, it's OST. It's freaking great. It was my stake. I remember I literally have a memory of driving, like around the time we were all playing it kind of at work, we already had completed the game.
00:37:29
Speaker
And I had like the OST on in the car. I'm just like, maybe I shouldn't pick a song, like a track that will actually just make me cry in front of my coworkers, you know, in the car. But I mean, there's not that many video game tracks that could elicit that emotion from me and Undertale still can.
00:37:49
Speaker
That's again a really impressive feat for a game because I don't normally have emotions But that game made me feel emotions and part of that was because of the music associated with the events happening at the time. Yeah, so My brain just will call back that with the music when it's played. I'm like, oh shit. So It's really fucking awesome. I think I listened to
00:38:16
Speaker
When I went to the grocery store today, I listened to, what was it? Another medium. Another medium. The first gets like the hot lava area. Yep. And it just, it's such a banger. Yeah.
00:38:27
Speaker
The game also, another aspect I want to give it credit for is it knows. So a lot of games will tailor their music to the gameplay. That's a good idea. You should do that. 100% you should do that. But there are times in Undertale where it feels like the gameplay is actually tailored to the music. And by that, there will be like sections at the end where you're just kind of walking through a pretty open area.
Emotional Depth in Game Soundtracks
00:38:51
Speaker
specifically so the game will let you focus on the music track, slow it down, take stock of what's going on, ask yourself some questions, and then move to the next scene. It's basically the equivalent of a loading screen if it had way more intent and purpose to it. And it's really freaking great.
00:39:19
Speaker
Yeah, I'm just in blanket agreement for anything. We've talked about talked about it at length in almost every episode. Right. I was going to say it's it's been like, you know, over half hour or whatever at this point.
00:39:32
Speaker
We should get rid of that Dark Souls related logo. I feel like it's confusing for people. Substone from Undertale. Yeah, the Undertale people. You didn't summon any phantoms in Undertale? Man, that game must have been hard. But yeah, for sure. Is there another one on this list? Do you think Phil falls well into this driving principle or maybe exhibits a different angle or aspect to it?
00:40:01
Speaker
So the last example I got a call back is from another old episode of fury because the whole fucking time, like the boss battles are obviously very active and aggressive music, but using toxic Avengers cut here.
00:40:51
Speaker
I like how I'm not going to re-listen to the whole episode and cut out this anyway. You basically have to. Yeah, this is going to be the most difficult episode to edit second to the actual theory episode. Yeah, I'm fucking fucked for time.
00:41:12
Speaker
But the reason that I love that so much is that like in between these boss fights, you have narrative going on, which is kind of encouraging you from a story standpoint, saying like, got to figure out what's going on, move forward. But as the music goes, it's like a constant build.
00:41:28
Speaker
It's not just downtime where you're walking like, oh, it's just chill. It's like something's coming. It's me. I'm the fucking reckoning. And it gets you pumped for the next boss fight. And they just do a really good job of that. Yeah. And the song names become spoilers, basically, by the end of the game. And I love that. When your gameplay and the titles of the tracks that admittedly, I don't even think
00:41:58
Speaker
Um, that song was actually, maybe it was made for toward the end of the game. Some of those songs actually were made for the game and they fit in just perfectly. They just fit in perfectly.
00:42:10
Speaker
It really does fall into like, I think when we reviewed, reviewed, when we talked about Fury, we're like, this is basically a boss fight simulator. And the soundtrack is boss fight music simulator. And it's really good. Boss fight music is some of the best, you know?
00:42:32
Speaker
What about for some games that are less action driven and are a little more like chill ambient? Right. My mind will always jump to a disaster piece. Right. Who did the music for Hyper Light Drifter and other games. Just look up what he's done. Floor is jelly.
00:42:49
Speaker
I never will get that into an episode or a video. It's too much work. You shot it down yourself. I think at this point sometimes we're just like, we have like a 10 minute episode or we just listen to the OST. But I feel like he does a really good job of things are more ambient or isolationist. Yeah. I do like this is really important. This isn't on our list, but I'm going to throw it up here. But Breath of the Wild actually also has
00:43:19
Speaker
an astoundingly good soundtrack. When we're playing Smash, the reason that my level is currently the Breath of the Wild level is because I love the music for the great plateau and everything related to that. And it uses common gameplay design decisions like this music will play in this area.
00:43:39
Speaker
This is the combat music. This is this. What have you. But when a game is focused particularly on exploration, that allows most of the music tracks to kind of just enter this soothing background state in a world where you're exploring at your own pace. And I guarantee you, there's like hundreds of playlists on YouTube that are just like, listen to Breath of the Wild music to sleep. Here you go. Or whatever.
00:44:05
Speaker
Yeah, there's a million chill Nintendo vibes type stuff where it's just a little bit more laid back. I feel like Minecraft does a good job of that as well. Yes. As far as, hey, here is you're exploring. You don't constantly have music, but then it kind of fades in. Mm hmm. So it's raining time. Oh, yeah, goes down. Music kicks in.
00:44:27
Speaker
And it feels really good because all of that music is very soothing, piano based. And it's just you along with some chickens, punching some trees, hanging out, maybe going to a cave. But it helps with the loneliness. Because if you are doing a single player exploration game, it's like, hey, there's something here with me. It's the music. Right.
00:44:52
Speaker
And it just it feels good. Like, you know, when you play the game and you've been soothed by the music, you appreciate it. It's not just like, oh, that's cool. You're like, ah, it's like taking a sip of hot tea. That's what it feels like. Yeah, I think at risk of putting our listeners to sleep, we should have at least a little excerpt from C418 here. But I'm sure everyone will recognize.
00:46:10
Speaker
And now that I've woken back up, you can resume with the episode. But honestly, multiple albums. If you like that sample, there was the original recording for Minecraft, but there's also a couple other albums that have come out.
00:46:30
Speaker
Ricey 418 they all have like absolute bangers that have been added to the game over the years So if it's been a long time since you played Maybe missing out on some of that some of that sweet audio. I Think there's one called like a
00:46:45
Speaker
pig remix. I believe it. Or pig pig step. Uh-huh. It's actually good. I forget what it what exactly it's for in Minecraft. The title is actually check it out. It's not as crazy as I'm making it sound, but I'm imagining a good track. It's like dubstep with pig sounds. No, that would be awful. You hear like the building pig squeal. Huh? But a bit, but that's.
00:47:15
Speaker
Oh, yeah, this is this is kind of kind of a banger. Yeah, it's surprisingly good. Hmm. Yeah, not it. I wasn't familiar with this one. So as of apparently the nether update last year. So what's going to be great is when I don't edit this and people are just like, yeah, well, this is this is the homework. This is the homework section. I got to look up pig step.
00:47:41
Speaker
Of these categories, it's like we have a couple here, and these are some high level ones that were just briefly thought of. Definitely not covering everything, but ambient, exploration slash isolation, driving, feels. Yeah. And for a brief description on feels, it's like things you listen to and you're like, oh god, I do have emotions. Yeah. So when you listen to anything in near, you're like, oh, yeah.
00:48:08
Speaker
Um, the whimsy for something that's like very lighthearted, right? They're introducing like a joking character into the mix or something else is happening. It's just not sad. Yeah. Very lighthearted. Um, like a character comes on screen and then their theme music starts playing. That's yes. Um,
00:48:30
Speaker
It is I, the guy who flings poop. Is he a villain? I think he's a villain. He would have been the best last smash character, the guy who flings poop. Right. Yeah. And I think so. I actually I put this one in here. I want to I know you haven't challenged me on it yet, but I want to defend it for exploration isolation. I put left for dead. And I realize that's going to sound weird, but
00:48:58
Speaker
Left 4 Dead absolutely tailors the music to what's happening in the game. It was part of a game director system. So I almost guarantee no one would know what the music sounds like in Left 4 Dead when you're just slowly making your way through zombies. But when Bile gets thrown or something like that, the horde starts running in and the music picks up, everyone would probably be able to identify that sound.
00:49:28
Speaker
And so the music really fates, it matches the pace of the survivors progressing through the level.
00:49:39
Speaker
It's really low so you can keep track of everything that's going on. Perhaps you could hear special infected callouts, things like that, and their sounds that they're making. But as soon as things start to go out of control, all of that gets lost in the music itself. It no longer is giving you the advantage of being able to hear everything.
00:49:58
Speaker
Yeah, like when chaos breaks down, it's like, hey, you got to shoot a lot of shit and quick. Exactly. And like there's very few points in the game where it's absolutely like, hey, we're going to just blast you with music. I think the finales are one part where they'll usually emphasize the music a bit more. And the standout one for me is when you reach a safe house.
00:50:22
Speaker
It's like, especially Left 4 Dead 2, there's like the guitar riff of Arrival, because there's nothing else to take your attention. You're just like staring at a score screen, basically, at that point. Yeah, the only thing that's jumping out at me is like the... Yeah, I think that's the Left 4 Dead 2 one. The Left 4 Dead 1 Safe House song was more rock, I believe, was more electric guitar. But what was I doing?
00:50:53
Speaker
You were doing banjo, I think. Yeah, that's definitely not a game where certain songs are like, oh, I could definitely listen to this on a playlist.
00:51:06
Speaker
But I do like the dynamic music of things for going between like we're walking or we're fighting for our life. Yeah, it's really cool. And it suits those types of games. Whereas I have to give mention. Fucking Starcraft, some bangers, for sure. Any of the Terran themes from original Starcraft? It's really just the Terran. Those get brought up a ton.
00:51:32
Speaker
Terran one still on my playlist always will be It's so like ubiquitous that when watching professional games for Starcraft 2 Like they will use some of the Terran themes like for the broadcasts Because everybody knows everybody knows They're just good like it's one thing I really liked about old Blizzard is they had a lot of
00:52:00
Speaker
some really cool tracks in their games. Like I love when I listen to something in a game and I'm like, wow, I never actually knew whether like the type of genre of music exists or it's just, it's so out there and unique and lovable and I'm like, and I'll steal that from my playlist. So I can listen to it forever. Again, like Diablo Tristram is a very iconic track because of how
00:52:25
Speaker
long it is. But how much like the music does it's like eight seconds of crazy awesome acoustic guitar that makes you feel lonely, but also empowered. But also you want to fight Satan. I don't know. It's just so good.
00:52:45
Speaker
It is really good. There weren't that many, um, to my recollection, like super standout tracks in Diablo two. I remember like the act two desert area ambience. Um, I could have just said desert, I guess, but, um, interest stream is, is absolute standouts.
00:53:08
Speaker
But like Tristram, I think they literally made they made another track for it for Diablo three at some point. I think they've done it in each version. Yeah. I never played Diablo one because it was literally just keep going down floors, but. But yeah, that was yeah, there's always a stand out there.
00:53:33
Speaker
And I think it's an impressive ambience. I think the thing Diablo II in particular to get around, even though I don't know the specific tracks, is so many of their tracks sound desolate. They make you feel like you're a wanderer at the end of the world, essentially, or civilization's falling apart. Or in one case, the other stand out for Diablo II was, do you remember the harem, like, Beneath the Palace?
00:54:03
Speaker
The track there is freaking haunting. Like it legitimately. I don't remember the track specifically. I'm going to I'm going to have to like find it. We pause the recording, which is literally not a thing that we do anymore and have you listen to it. And I don't even know if I want to include a sound bite for it because it's just like sad and very, very creepy, but.
00:54:27
Speaker
music can be used to convey a sense of dread and mystery, and they did that for sure. I'm already going to shoot down my question here. Do you think it's possible for music to not be able to express or convey a specific type of emotion or feeling, or do you think everything can be encompassed by music?
00:54:53
Speaker
I'm just imagining that this is like a clay pigeon shoot and you throw the pigeon in the shotgun. I've loaded the pigeon into the gun. You just shoot clay everywhere. Clay shotgun. I think music hits most of them. It might be tough to pick out a specific emotion on the spot that music couldn't make you
00:55:20
Speaker
feel, right? Like strings lend tension a lot of the time. And even absence of music is unnerving if you feel it should be there. Yeah, it's wild what can be done with sound design in general. But I feel like a lot of that is
00:55:47
Speaker
somebody at some point in a movie, um, tried out a thing for what they're going for. And then that became the thing. Wow. Right. Or like the theremin in like old horror films. Yeah, I see. Because it was a very freaky out there instrument. Nobody knew what the fuck it was. So it was very foreign. And now we associate that with fear. Yeah. Right. Mm hmm. Sorry, not theremin. That's theremin or whatever it is. Spacey. But
00:56:16
Speaker
using, sorry, like a, like a violin bow on just pieces of metal for like a very sharp shrill sound is something we associate with like horror. And that was somebody just fucking around in a studio, but then that became the thing. Right. Or the same reason we now think of like jazz and sex being a thing together. You hear a jazzy riff, you're like, Oh, in the mood type thing. Right.
00:56:45
Speaker
That is really funny. And I don't know, you'd literally have to be a scientist to study the relationship between conditioning with music and reality. Because like, what if there's somebody out there and they hear like the spooky theremin type sound and
00:57:03
Speaker
There's like oh, yeah, and we train this person to like be really happy when this happens, right? Wouldn't be your shrill sounds like huh. It is a good day, right? We feed them whenever people are screaming Science gone too far. Yeah. Yeah in this case
00:57:25
Speaker
But yeah, I do think a lot of it is off of existing tropes or things that we associate, which is why you can put that in there like, oh, people recognize it as this because it's understood as that. Yeah. It would be really interesting to find somebody, like you're saying, who's like so removed from all of that to where they would form completely unbiased opinions for what certain sounds or songs might make them feel. Yeah.
00:57:54
Speaker
And I think like what's funny about this is, so one of your points here was like, are there any examples of games where the music doesn't exactly fit or it's not good enough? And I was looking at this question on the notes and I was like, I can think of none because like, so on the scale of acceptability,
00:58:16
Speaker
Anyone who's raised in a society kind of knows if the music fits. Maybe you could sort of miss a little bit, or it could be uninspired. You're just like, oh, are you playing rock music in a first-person shooter? Cool. But at the same time, you know when it's completely missing or if it's entirely off the mark.
00:58:42
Speaker
It's not like my heart will go on and Starcraft or something like that, right? Yeah. And so I couldn't think of anything because I think it's just so ingrained in people like music appropriate, not appropriation, appropriateness of music to the situation. To some extent, it's just some people have a much better idea of what could be done with music.
00:59:13
Speaker
Yeah. And to those people who innovate and do really cool shit, Lena Raine shout out to you again. Um, disaster piece, Darren Korb. Oh yeah. We didn't even say super giant. Put them under feels. They've gotten so many mentions. It's supposed to be like, they didn't mention Halo one. That's a really notable, notable song. We know. Um, but yeah, there's a lot of good stuff out there.
00:59:41
Speaker
Which we definitely can't cover all of it. Yeah. But I would love to hear people's thoughts on something that maybe this is a really good song for motivating me or this song always makes me feel sad. Yeah. Maybe it's from like your experience with the game. Maybe just the music itself. A lot of times I'll hear music from a game that I've never fucking played and be like, wow, Neo Tokyo is a cool game. I should probably play it at Harrison, right?
01:00:06
Speaker
Ed Harrison has amazing tracks. Yeah. And Neo Tokyo was like a fan mod for a game. They somehow got him to make an OST that is going to carry the legacy of the game far past his lifespan. I've listened to like a three hour OST of that game more times than... More times. A lot. More times than you, buddy. Probably true. Probably true. This is at the audience, not you. You've probably listened to it more than I have.
01:00:34
Speaker
I also have to just throw in the name Chrono, Chrono Trigger and Chrono Cross, or else someone's just going to beat me with a stick later. That's I just have to I have to say it. It's part of the contract. And we really didn't touch that much on retro games, right? We kind of skipped over the entirety of, you know, Yoshi, Mario, all of these names, Kirby Eggman. And those are amazing in their own right.
01:01:01
Speaker
It's not really possible for us to make this episode not take an entire day and still cover, you know, what is the core of music and gaming. I'm going to say just as like a blanket thing to cover retro, there's a YouTuber called 8Bit Music Theory where he goes in and can like breaks up how certain games were composed and is really cool. And if you just like music, you don't need to have any
01:01:28
Speaker
knowledge of how to make music because God knows I don't. But it's really cool to see what he goes into and how some things were done. Just cool. Check it out. No, that's entirely fair. I'm going to thank everybody for sticking around for this extra long episode. I assume after the edit, which as we mentioned, Dave has this week, it's going to be three hours. So really an endurance run from you guys, even more so than from us for the recording.
01:01:56
Speaker
But thank you guys for sticking around. As Dave said, please send in your favorite tracks. We'd love to listen to them. If you want to send those in, you could do so at soapstonepodcast.gmail.com. Or if you want to share your favorite gaming music with the rest of the world who are all following us on our Facebook page, you could do so at facebook.com slash soapstonepodcast. And as always, we'll see you in the next one. Have a good night.
01:02:51
Speaker
you