January 22, 2020

DGC Ep 195: Bonus Interview with Kirk Hamilton

1 hour 31 minutes

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we welcome Kirk Hamilton, composer, podcaster, and retired writer/editor to the podcast to talk about music composition, working with licenses and licensed music, the way music and play work on our brains, and a host of other topics. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Podcast breakdown: 0:16 Interview 1:10:31 Break 1:11:00 Next game, announcement, etc.

Issues covered: Kirk's early writings, using your ear training, picking up a saxophone, Brett's saxophone solo, getting a broad mandate, modeling on NPR podcasts, geeking out about NPR podcast intros, aerophone, jingles as condensed composition, working with synthesizers, programmer art for the theme, remembering the old themes, the hard work of working with composers as a non-musician, talking about intangibles, level reviews and music, working on established IPs, breaking the music, repeating music in older games, composing for player actions, iMUSE and music blending in between states, game audio with multiple sound cards, preserving game audio, CD-ROM game audio/Redbook audio, the excellent audio and voice department of LucasArts, the many cool influences of Peter McConnell, artists at play, the evolution of the human brain, playing with your prey, the mix of lyrics and music and story and game play, the need for technical understanding in game composers, writing for an environment, adding data to music tracks, scheduling audio to play at the exact right moment, building a dynamic game play system and finding a way for music to match that, how Zelda music has changed over time, being aware of the creative vision of the game, Japanese game development, the mismatch of the opening vs the play of a game reflected in its music, feeling the play, the Tomb Raider menu music, Lara Croft in media vs Lara Croft in the game, the loneliness and promise of the menu music, the exploration of Tomb Raider vs the pulp of Raiders, licensing music, matching a soundtrack to the game's moment, using the right soundtrack that reflects the music, dropping in some Miles Davis or Sonny Rollins, Brett overshares his saxophone history, Kirk's projects, feedback about how we should set up each episode, going from game/book club vs discussing and analyzing games, what's next, Tim's big adventure.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Gamer Melodico, Kotaku, Strong Songs, Kotaku Splitscreen, Maddy Myers, Jason Schreier, Red Dead Redemption, Aaron Evers, NPR, RadioLab, Fresh Air, This American Life, Morning Edition, All Things Considered, World Saxophone Quartet, Matthew Burns, JukeDeck, Slate Culture GabFest, Succession, Nicholas Britell, Star Wars, Tomb Raider, Halo, Jason Graves, Republic Commando, Jesse Harlin, John Williams, David Collins, Ludwig Göransson, MIDI, Michelle Hinners, iMUSE, LucasArts, Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge, Dark Forces, Nintendo, GameBoy, The Secret of Monkey Island, Michael Land, MYST, Curse of Monkey Island, Grim Fandango, Full Throttle, George Lucas, Peter McConnell, Psychonauts, Double Fine Entertainment, Metallica, ProTools, David Byrne, How Music Works, Austin Wintory, Journey, That Game Company, Flower, Uncharted, Zelda (series), Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past, Koji Kondo, Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Manaka Kataoka, Crypt of the Necrodancer, Cadence of Hyrule, Danny Baranowsky, Super Meat Boy, Mario (series), Super Mario Sunshine, Super Mario Odyssey, UFO: Enemy Unknown/X-COM, John Broomhall, Timothy Michael Wynn, The Avengers, Morgan Grey, Indiana Jones, Crystal Dynamics, GTA (series), UbiSoft, Watch Dogs, Martin Scorcese, Birth of the Cool, Miles Davis, Saint Thomas, Sonny Rollins, The Lost Boys, Phillip from Copenhagen, Pokemon, World of Warcraft, Kingdom Hearts, Shenmue, Eternal Darkness, Rebel FM, DDR, Civilization III, SimCity, Sid Meier, Alpha Centauri.