Today we're joined by Swedish audio production studio Sinephony to talk about the 2019 indie game 198X from Swedish game developer Hi-Bit Studios. The game is a love letter to gaming in the 80s where you play through 5 different games (beat-em-up, shmup, racing, action platformer, and RPG) merged with cinematic storytelling. It started as a Kickstarter project and is now available for Windows, Mac, Switch and PS4.

Sinephony is a multi-talented production team consisting of Daniel Rosenqvist and Anton Dromberg. They've worked on games like Planet Coaster, Elite Dangerous Horizons, commercials and even a few anime projects. Between the two of them, Anton and Daniel have a wealth of experience in audio production, composition and arrangement, live performance. Anton has been a member of the Swedish Jazz scene for years and has toured all over the world. Daniel studied composition under former Konami and Square Enix composer Kenichiro Fukui, and also has experience with field recording, sound effects and mixing.

The music of 198X is an exploration of the era and shows off Sinephony's versatility as a composition team; from atmospheric synth music, to over the top 80s indulgence, melded with some of the best parts of Eastern and Western VGM tradition. There's even a few tracks from VGM legend Yuzo Koshiro in the game! There are also several tracks contributed by composer U.F.L.

We hope you enjoy the music as much as we have, and stay tuned for our next episode where we bring back Sinephony to cover the laid back music of Airport CEO

 

All tracks composed by Daniel Rosenqvist and Anton Dromberg (Sinephony), except "Cave" composed by Yuzo Koshiro

Track List:

0:00:00 Welcome to Suburbia

0:14:10 Beating Heart - The Final Fight

0:24:40 Out of the Void - Intro

0:27:46 Out of the Void - Stage 1-1

0:36:35 Out of the Void - Stage Boss

0:39:55 The Runaway - Intro + Route 86

0:50:48 Shadowplay - Cave (composed by Yuzo Koshiro)

0:58:06 Kill Screen - Motherboard

1:01:10 Kill Screen - Motherboard (Unused)

1:07:13 The Game Was Not Over

1:08:09 ...It was Just the Beginning

Links to the music:

Iam8Bit (vinyl)

Spotify

Apple Music