Pixelated Audio

Six more tracks that we love but didn't quite fit anywhere else. As always we hope you enjoy!

Track List:

0:00:00 Dunk Shot (Arcade) - Toast! by unknown composer

0:07:18 Syd Mead's Terraforming (TG-CD) - Stage 1 by Katsuhiro Hayashi

0:14:16 Soldam (GB) - Theme of Sekiero

Gameboy conversion by unknown, original arcade version by Atsuyoshi Isemura and Yasuyuki Suzuki

0:21:54 Gurumin: A Monstrous Adventure (WIN, PSP, 3DS) - Sight of Silence

by Falcom Sound Team jdk, likely Takahide Murayama

0:30:51 Kid Chameleon (GEN) - Fantasy Area

by Mark Miller and his production company Neuromantic Productions

0:37:12 Vlad Tepes Dracula (PC) - Track 5 by Carl Hansson

We've got a great show today with Dan Hess, the composer behind Pilotwings 64! It was released as a launch title for the N64 in 1996 by Paradigm Simulation and is the second in the series (Pilotwings, Pilotwings 64, Pilotwings Resort). Pilotwings 64 continues the tradition of a lightweight flight sim where you use a variety of flight tools like a hang glider, jet pack, gyrocopter to complete simple objectives, or just fly around more casually.

 

Dan Hess is a composer, performer and sound designer with over 30 years experience. In addition to his work on Pilotwings 64, Dan wrote the music for F1 World Grand Prix for N64. During the development of Pilotwings, Dan was the in-house composer for Paradigm Simulations / Entertainment. Dan plays a mean keyboard and has been performing since he was a teen, with the likes of Second Self and Skeleton Crew. Dan continues to work in tech, and is engaged in a number of side projects like recreating a lot of the Pilotwings 64 soundtrack for donors to his Patreon. Over the course of the show, Dan also shares a number of tracks related to his time in VGM, some of which he uploads to YouTube.

Also guest hosting with us is Ian Cowell, a guitarist and VGM musician who grew up with the N64 and loved Pilotwings 64 enough to put out a cover of Birdman, which we use to close out the show. If you enjoy his track, check out the rest of his recently released album Exceptional Goblins, with features a total of 12 awesome and laid back VGM tracks from the popular to the obscure. Those with a good memory will recall Ian also joined us at MAGWest 2018.

We had a fantastic time with both of our guests, and even though we like all of the shows we put out, this one might be one of our favorites already. We hope you enjoy it and all of the music as much as we do.

All tracks composed by Dan Hess unless otherwise stated

Track List:

0:00:00 Opening

based on music from the original Pilotwings, composed by Soyo Oka

0:00:36 (Bedding) Title Demo

0:06:22 (Bedding) Jumble Hopper

0:12:48 (Bedding) Earned a Badge

0:14:42 Game Menu

0:21:33 Mission Menu

0:30:10 Hang Glider

0:37:50 Cannonball

0:43:12 Rocket Belt

0:45:38 Rocketpack Inspiration

0:49:57 Opening from Pilotwings SNES by Soyo Oka

0:52:24 Birdman - feat. Zac Zinger (excerpt) by The 8-Bit Big Band

From "Album 3 - Backwards Compatible"

0:54:08 Gyrocopter

1:01:54 Sky Diving

1:06:16 Track 18 - From F-1 World Grand Prix

1:10:02 Track 6 (bass test) - From F-1 World Grand Prix

1:11:41 Synth 2 M2

1:12:54 Synth 1 M3

Unused alternate tracks intended for Spy Hunter (PS2) by Dan Hess

1:20:07 Birdman

1:32:22 Replay

1:40:28 Birdman Returns - rearrangement by Dan Hess

1:47:27 Bravissimo!

1:54:42 Ca-Caw, Brah by Ian Cowell

Cover of Birdman from the album "Exceptional Goblins"

LINKS

Dan Hess

Patreon - If he raises enough, he'll redo all of Pilotwings!

YouTube - has some of the tracks supplied by Dan

Ian Cowell

Exceptional Goblins - Album by Ian Cowell

listening party for the album

Other links

Album 3 - Backwards Compatible - The 8-Bit Big Band, band leader Charlie Rosen

Resampled Pilotwings 64 OST - by L. Spiro (upscaled samples)

Artist Panel: Dan Hess, Ian Cowell, Alpha Chrome Yayo  (alternate link) - Nightride.FM

Wired article about Magic Edge from 1995

Personal account of Magic Edge's financial problems + a few photos

Bands mentioned

Dire Straits - Money for Nothing

Skeleton Crew - Dan's band beating Beyoncé on Star Search in 1992

Sly and the Family Stone

The Meters

The Wallflowers

The Rippingtons

George Benson

Kool & the Gang

Barry White

Vulfpeck, with Cory Wong

Snarky Puppy

Jacob Collier

Stevie Wonder (not mentioned but why not?)

In this installment of Pixelated Audio, we're talking about Crisis Wing, a retro-styled 90s shmup that draws inspiration from many classic shooters. We're joined by Finnish one-man indie games developer and composer, Pauli, aka pieslice of Pieslice Productions (@PiesliceP). It's a modern take on all of your favorite retro shooters, with all of the tough bosses, bullet patterns, and FM music you can handle. Crisis Wing was released on Steam in 2020 and published for most major consoles (Switch, PS4/PS5, Xbox S|X) in 2021 by indie specialist publisher eastasiasoft.

We go through pretty much the entire soundtrack with pieslice and cover his unique twist on his inspirations, which range from PC game music, the demoscene and of course plenty of shmups like Gradius, Star Soldier, and the harder edged FM sound of Toaplan games like Out Zone and Zero Wing. We talk about composition as well as indie game development challenges and more. If you like the game and music of Crisis Wing, stay tuned as Pieslice Productions has got a late 90s shmup (and music) in the works! As always, we hope you enjoy the music.

All tracks composed by pieslice unless otherwise stated

Track List:

0:00:00 Introduction

0:00:27 URF! (Level 1 BGM)

0:08:54 Low Orbit (Level 2 BGM)

0:17:12 Gratify (Level 3 BGM)

0:20:51 Boss

0:27:04 M.S.D (Level 4 BGM)

0:30:45 Sally (Level 5 BGM)

0:37:32 Unpleasant (Level 6 BGM)

0:41:05 Tailwind (Level 7 BGM)

0:46:40 Boss Rush

0:50:37 Last Boss

0:53:27 Caravan - arranged by pieslice

Based on the mod file below

0:55:32 "Shoot" by Maniac (excerpt from original mod file)

0:57:21 Sound Test

1:07:16 High Scores - arranged by pieslice

Based on the mod file "Love is Hard" by unknown composer

We're back to livestream for virtual MAGWest 2021, this time with composer and returning friend of the show, Chase Bethea! We talk with Chase about his music from games both released and upcoming, his process, as well as a short interactive audio demo, and some Q&A from the live chat.

 

Chase Bethea is a Composer & Technical Audio Designer that has received many accolades throughout his career. In 2016, Chase was nominated for Artists of the Year – Independent Composer by VGMO in the entire industry. In 2021, he won Best Original Soundtrack for the game AGROUND, from the NYX Game Awards. He has been a guest speaker at over 20 conferences/events such as PAX, GameSound Con, ADC, Berklee College of Music and Interactive Music Symposium. He has also appeared on other prominent game music podcasts like Level with Emily Reese and Sound of Play.

You can find more about Chase at his website chasebethea.com, purchase his music on Bandcamp, find him on Spotify or on social media @chasebethea

 

Track List:

00:00 Evaluations - Stardander (Win, Linux)

04:23 Battle 3v3 - Questlike Pocket (Android)

09:33 Challenge Accepted - Reclaim Earth (Win, Mac, Linux)

19:56 King's Port - Potions Please [interactive demo] (Android)

27:08 Wild Encounter - Aground (PS4, XB1, SWI, WIN, Mac, Linux)

36:35 Tater Bop - Jagaimo (TBD)

42:18 Trouble & Mystery - Stardander (Win, Linux)

46:54 Techtonic Showdown - "Project Bushido" (TBD)

58:51 Nexus Stratagem - Space Marmalade (Win)

LINKS

Episode live stream on Youtube

chasebethea.com [Bandcamp]

How to build a mini foley stage - article by Chase

Game pages

Stardander (demo) - full release Fall 2022

Questlike Pocket

Reclaim Earth

Potions Please

Aground

Jagaimo

Space Marmalade

Other links

teoria.com - music theory web resource

Elias software - middleware used for game audio

Today we're talking about an old school dungeon crawler RPG called Advanced Fantasian. The game was released by Xtalsoft in 1988 for the PC-88 and Sharp X1 in 1989. Xtalsoft was a small RPG-focused developer that eventually merged with T&E Soft, a topic we covered last episode. The composers Chihiro Fujioka and Yumi Satake (nee Kinoshita) did a great job with the soundtrack and more than that they're both interesting people with a long history in game development going to the present day.

Advanced Fantasian is a dungeon crawler RPG based heavily on Wizardry and by proxy, Dungeons & Dragons. You take a fixed class (but customizable) party of 5 characters through various dungeons, walking around in 1st person Wizardry style until combat commences in a top down grid where characters move independently. We spend most of our time listening to the OPNA version of the soundtrack from the PC-88 with a short sample from the X1 version. As always, we hope you enjoy the music as much as we do!

All tracks using the YM2608 (OPNA) chip unless otherwise stated

Composers: Chihiro Fujioka and Yumi Satake

Track List:

0:00:00 Holy Legend (Opening Version)

0:05:40 Encounter

0:09:09 Quest

0:13:34 Chaser

0:16:22 Main Menu - Pebble Beach Golf Links (SNES) - by Yumi Satake

0:19:11 Chaser (excerpt from Sharp X1)

0:23:05 Dirty Cave

0:30:20 Omens

0:33:56 Black Knight

0:36:38 Ruin

0:42:38 Curst Valley

0:46:49 Bad Sigh

0:57:00 Finale

0:59:25 Ending

1:04:25 Wisdom

LINKS

Advanced Fantasian manual for the wonderful character art

We're back with an episode covering Greatest Driver, a 2D Formula 1 racer for the MSX2 released in 1988. The game was produced by T&E Soft, a developer and publisher primarily known for golf games in the 90s, Red Alarm for the Virtual Boy and the Hydlide series. Composers Kazunori Hasegawa and Shigeru Tomita bring us some fun jams, especially the intro and ending tunes. Most of the music is using the OPLL / YM2413 FM chip with a few brief detours into other areas. It's a short show and we hope you enjoy the music!

All tracks using the YM2413 chip unless otherwise stated

Composers: Kazunori Hasegawa and Shigeru Tomita

Track List:

00:06 Opening Theme

05:27 Opening Theme (PSG)

11:03 Mode Select

13:07 Course Overview

13:50 Tuning Mode

19:30 Race Theme (PSG + OPLL) - from Greatest Driver 2D Special

21:25 Victory

24:39 Staff Roll

Special thanks to GTheGuardian for the rips of both the PSG and FM versions on VGMRips!

Today's source of great music is the Pac-Man Championship Edition series. This is an audio companion to HG101's Top47k Games: Episode 420 where we were invited to review Pac-Man CE DX+ with Xerxes and Bobinator!

Bandai Namco's Pac-Man has been a mainstay for over 40 years and this is Pac-Man with a twist. You have your ghosts, your pellets and your maze, but now the maze is split in half and it's a frantic time attack with some excellent tunes to support up to 10 minutes of play at a time. The original Championship Edition launched in 2007, CE DX in 2010, the CE DX+ DLC in 2013, and the NES remake in 2020. We don't cover CE 2 from 2016 but check that one out for some great music as well. The tunes are long and dance-y and we hope you enjoy them!

Composer for M2 not confirmed, but credits for the sound team are: Tatsuhiko Kasuga, Sakuoki Kudo

Track List:

00:04 Entrance (DX) - Taku Inoue

04:32 PAC RAINBOW (DX) - Akitaka Tohyama

13:08 PAC MAN CE BGM (CE) - Junko Ozawa

29:39 PAC AVENUE (DX) - Taku Inoue

41:08 PAC STEP (DX+) - Taku Inoue

51:34 Normal Mode (CE NES) - M2 Sound Team

58:36 Extra Mode (CE NES) - M2 Sound Team

1:03:26 Results Screen (CE NES) - M2 Sound Team

We're taking you out to the ball game in this short and fun episode covering music from 3 Sega System 16 baseball games: Major League, Super League and Excite League. It's late 80s baseball from Japanese arcades, so it's 2D sprites, digitized samples and YM2151 FM patches all the way down. No composers confirmed but Tohru Nakabayashi, Hiroshi Kawaguchi and Katsuhiro Hayashi are the prime suspects. We hope you enjoy the music!

Composers unknown but suspected to be: Tohru Nakabayashi, Hiroshi Kawaguchi and/or Katsuhiro Hayashi

Track List:

00:00 Select Level (Excite League)

04:24 Offense (Major League)

07:45 Pennant Race (Super League)

10:31 Japan Series (Super League)

15:24 World Series (Super League)

19:38 Pennant Race (Excite League)

21:44 Select Level (comparing Super League & Excite League)

22:47 Japan Series (Excite League)

25:24 Dream Game (Excite League)

31:57 Game Over (Excite League)

Special thanks to Sonic of 8! and HarmoDevil for the rips of all three games on VGMRips

F-1 Super Battle is a racing game from 1994 for Jaleco's Mega System 32 arcade board. It's notable features are that it still features sprite graphics fairly late for an arcade game, and the upright arcade cabinet is a somewhat unusual egg shape. No composer information in this mini episode, but that doesn't mean we can't enjoy the music!

Special thanks to GTheGuardian for the original rip on VGMRips

Check out the weird egg shaped arcade cabinet at arcade-museum.com

Composer unknown

Track List:

00:05 Course Selection

00:28 Name Entry, Ranking (Background)

06:25 Attract Mode

14:07 Unknown BGM 1

17:59 Final Lap

20:51 Game Over

Street Cleaner: The Video Game released for PC and Switch in 2021 is a classic 2D side-scroller inspired by NES action games like Ninja Gaiden, Castlevania and Sunsoft's Batman. It was developed by Creaky Lantern Games, an indie game studio run by Jesse Bishop and Brooks Bishop (no relation). It is a very real game based on the fictional Street Cleaner 80s revenge film(s) on which Jesse based his artist name. In the game you take the role of Jack Slade whose mission is to clean up the mean streets of San Diego with your trusty bat and gun.

Today's guest is Jesse, better known as Street Cleaner, a synthwave artist and video game music composer. Jesse has been producing synthwave for over a decade and in recent years his work has appeared in a number of games. Some of his projects include Wasteland 3, Hypergun, Exception and he recently had a track on Chex Quest HD! We had an absolute blast talking with Jesse about the game, the Street Cleaner project, Creaky Lantern Games, and life in general. As always, we hope you enjoy the show as much as we did!

Track List

All tracks composed by Jesse Bishop aka Street Cleaner unless otherwise stated

0:00:00 Stage 1 - Decaying City

0:09:32 Stage 1 - Boss Fight

0:16:12 Stage 2 - Courser

0:29:32 Stage 2 - Full Throttle

0:44:03 Full Throttle (studio arranged version)

0:51:20 Dark Pursuit

Excerpt from the album Payback

0:59:52 Stage 3 - Revenger

1:03:03 Stage 3 - Turbo Drive (excerpt)

1:07:48 Untitled Spy Hunter track (PA Exclusive!)

from an unreleased game concept by Creaky Lantern

1:16:17 Stage 5 - The Anvil

1:19:07 Stage 6 - An Unexamined Life

1:26:55 Terror Influx (feat. Aubrey Hodges)

Excerpt from the album EDGE

1:32:50 Stage 7 - Kindling of a Flame

1:35:22 Stage 7 - Filling of a Vessel

1:44:00 Stage X - End Theme

Links below

Street Cleaner: The Video Game

Switch, Steam

Street Cleaner music

Street Cleaner: The Game OST

EDGE

Payback

Revenger

Creaky Lantern Games

A Question of Character - Jack Slade - from our good friend Norm @NORMALLYRETRO!