Menu Music

The menu track called for something to get players ready for action- to jump into the combat of the game! The team pictured music that would give a militaristic feel to match the antibodies going into a firefight while also offering some of the main character’s (Iggy) personality. I chose an orchestral/synth hybrid style instrumentation, to achieve the vibe described above.

What we ended up with took influence from fun and light-hearted character themes, notably “Sora” from the Kingdom Hearts series. I took note of this track’s use of:

• a militaristic and rhythmic ostinato

• the mixolydian mode, in a manner that didn’t solely rely on the expected use of tension

For a deeper analysis into how I utilized the reference track, check out this video here.

Cutscene Music

For the cutscene music, I played the main melody from the menu track on a whistle and replaced the rest of the arrangement with some more groove based rhythmic synth patches. To me, the whistle gave something along the lines of what you might hear in one of those educational videos about wars before the 1900s. I found this to offer an interesting contrast to the synth based groove, the “inside the human body” environment and reference to modern medicine.

Now the cutscenes had ties to the musical identity of the game and gave a nice ambience for players to experience the narrative told through the dialogue.

Gameplay Music

Originally created as a demo track for the game Strange Stars by QuadraTron Games, once that game’s production was halted this track had no home. Interestingly enough, the high energy/tension vibe the team was looking for in the gameplay music for Cell Shocked was matched in this pre-existing track. That, coupled with the one week deadline from the jam, made repurposing the track an action that offered more time for production and feedback from the team.

This track took influence from Run & Gun games, notably Sonic the Hedgehog, allowing the fast paced and constant high tension elements to seep into this fully electronic track.