Pixelated Audio

In early 1996, Squaresoft released Treasure Conflix and three other exclusive titles for the Satellaview Broadcast Satellite system, an add-on for the Super Famicom. The soundtrack was written by longtime composer Junya Nakano. The game is an aerial combat and RPG hybrid where you split your time between fighting other airships in real time and traveling to small caves and towns to find upgrades for your airship. It remains untranslated but it isn't some long lost classic; the gameplay is serviceable and it can be beaten in just under 2 hours.

The Satellaview games do mark an interesting period of experimentation for Squaresoft. They sit between the earlier success of landmark RPGs like Final Fantasy IV, VI and Chrono Trigger and before the transition into the PS1 generation with games like Final Fantasy VII and Parasite Eve. Some of you might recognize Square's more notable Satellaview game Radical Dreamers which became the basis for Chrono Cross.

Composer and arranger Junya Nakano started his career at Konami in 1992. After that he moved on to Square from 1995-2009 and continues to work as a freelancer. As lead composer he's written the music for Threads of Fate and Final Fantasy IV: The After Years. More frequently he's been a co-composer and has worked on games like X-Men arcade and Tobal No. 1, as well as regular collaborations with Masashi Hamauzu on projects like Front Mission: Gun Hazard, Final Fantasy X, XIII, and the X/X-2 remasters.

Link

Bandcamp

Junya Nakano artist profile on VGMOnline

All tracks composed by Junya Nakano

Track List:

00:00 Title

05:40 Introduction

14:00 World Map

15:23 Battlefield

21:40 Town

26:58 Auction

28:30 Doom Triangle

31:40 Ending

35:00 Staff Roll

The most interesting thing about Aworg: Hero in the Sky is that it was released on Sega Meganet, an early online service and precursor to the Sega Channel. Released in 1991 by Sega, Aworg is a short and fairly unremarkable action game where you traverse a maze in a robotic suit that can fly around, dash, and push enemies away with its jet stream. The game is short, and can be beaten in about 20 minutes with practice.

The music is credited to "Bambi" whose real name is unknown, but they were most likely a member of Sega's in-house sound team. It largely features early 90s piano house styled tunes and is more groove than anything, but catchy nonetheless. Enjoy what is perhaps our shortest episode ever.

Composed by "Bambi" (real credit unknown)

Track List:

00:00 Title

04:10 How to Play

09:21 BGM

15:02 Boss

17:50 Ending Theme

Nothing beats Go on the go, and that's exactly what you get with 1500DS Spirits Volume 10: Igo! Game developer and cosmetics company Tasuke put out a number of these budget titles for the DS and DSiWare around 2007-2008, consisting mostly of board and card games. They're similar to the more well known D3 "Simple" series of budget titles. Igo is the 10th and final game in the 1500DS Spirits series, released in May of 2008.

We weren't able to find a composer for the game but it's another short episode with a nifty traditional Japanese soundtrack. Sit back and enjoy, and share your favorite Go strategies.

Composer unknown

Track List:

00:00 BGM1 / Title theme

07:57 BGM2

14:14 Rules

20:50 Mission

28:00 Puzzle

In the late 90s, programmable robot toys were becoming popular and WonderBorg was no exception. Released by Bandai in 2000 for the WonderSwan and later for the PC, WonderBorg was a kit that included a programmable beetle robot and a application called Robot Works which allowed you to send basic commands to it.

The WonderBorg featured a number of sensors to give it some awareness of the world and it was capable of some moderately sophisticated conditional programming. It featured a simple code-free graphical condition builder and a few different modes like training, and even a Tamagotchi style "pet" mode in the Japanese release.

Sadly we couldn't find the composer of the music to give them proper credit but kick back and listen to some crunchy percussion and dance beats in this short episode. We hope you like it.

Composer unknown

Track List:

0:00:00 Track 1 - Title

0:07:10 Track 3 - Training

0:09:40 Track 5 - Map Theme 1

0:17:22 Track 6 - Map Theme 2?

0:23:35 Track 7 - Map Theme 3?

0:30:35 Track 9 - Map Won

In 1995, the movie Waterworld was released and the real world was changed forever. As we pass the 25th anniversary, we attempt to rehabilitate the reputation of a perfectly competent mid 90s action film and then "dive" into the music of the many licensed cash-in games that followed the film's release.

The bulk of the Waterworld games were fittingly developed and/or published in 1995 by Ocean Software for the SNES, Virtual Boy, and Game Boy. They're a series of action games featuring a combination of swimming, platforming and boat combat stages. We also cover the unreleased Mega Drive port (based on the SNES) and briefly touch on the oddball PC Waterworld, a real-time strategy game published by Interplay in 1997. After we recorded the show we realized we missed a Waterworld pinball game, so apologies if you're sad that we left it out!

Each version features a different composer, and the music ranges from bad to excellent with no real correlation to gameplay quality. Join us as we go through 5 releases of the game, with a heavier emphasis on the SNES, VB, and MD versions.

Special thanks to Scooblee for ripping the Mega Drive version of the music on Project2612 earlier this year.

Track List:

0:00:00 Map (SNES)

0:04:26 Mission Theme 1

0:17:32 Diving

0:29:39 Attack 1

0:36:52 Misson Theme 3

0:43:10 Title (VB)

0:55:01 Gameplay

1:01:00 Track 1 (GB)

1:05:53 Title (PC)

1:10:25 Titles (MD)

1:17:18 Game Lost

1:20:45 In Atoll

1:28:45 Shop 1

Waterworld

Super Nintendo (1995) Composed by Dean Evans

Virtual Boy (1995) Composed by Dean Evans, Rearranged by Jonathan Dunn

Gameboy (1995) Composed by David "Uncle Art" Lowe

DOS / PC (1997) Composed by Richard Band

Mega Drive (Unreleased - 1995) Composed by Jason Page

Aqua Kitty is an indie game success story. Developed by Tikipod and initially released in 2012 as a Playstation Mobile game, it saw continued releases with new features and improvements up to its most recent release on Switch in 2018, and it remains a blast to play today. We're very lucky to be joined by the game's composer, Mark Day (aka Electric Cafe) to talk about the music for Aqua Kitty in its various incarnations, as well as several other projects he's worked on.

The game is a tough as nails underwater arcade style horizontal shooter where you defend milk mining kittens from being abducted from waves of robotic fish. It borrows some of the best elements from games like Defender and R-Type and combined with the catchy soundtrack makes for an addictive experience that encourages "just one more game".

Developer Tikipod is an indie game studio started in 2009 by artist and designer Dugan Jackson. They specialize in modernized classic arcade style games with Dugan's beautiful pixel art. Their other games Rock Boshers and Iron Crypticle are top down 8-way directional games like Gauntlet and Robotron and are both great fun to play. They've also contributed dev work to other game studios like Curve's Stealth Inc, JAW Games Gravity Crash and Gravity Crash Ultra, and Omnisystems' Eufloria, among other projects.

Mark Day is a UK based composer also known by his production company name Electric Cafe. Mark's work on Aqua Kitty infuses chip sound reminiscent of the C64 and Amiga with modern styles and production for a pumping energetic soundtrack to keep you going throughout the frantic action. His new tracks for Aqua Kitty UDX in 2016 add flavor to the game while remaining true to its original spirit. Electric Cafe has been producing music for games and TV for over a decade, including music for popular British TV shows like "BBCs - The Apprentice" and "Top Gear" as well as games like Rock Boshers, Crazy Comets and Diner Dash.

In the later part of the show we talk with Mark and play music from several of his other projects, like his "imaginary RPG" album Shadow Spirits co-written with Cody Carpenter (son of the famous director John Carpenter), his ongoing remake of Double Dragon on the Amiga, and upcoming games Neopolis and the recently announced Aqua Kitty 2. As we often say on the show, let's take a listen to a wide range of music by Mark Day.

 

All tracks composed by Mark Day (Electric Cafe) unless otherwise stated

Track List:

0:00:00 Aqua Kitty - Aqua Kitty Theme

0:09:50 Aqua Kitty - Buttermilk Bay

0:20:05 Aqua Kitty - Creamy Cove

0:31:54 Aqua Kitty - Kitty Rock

0:40:39 Rock Boshers - Rock Boshers Theme

0:49:29 Aqua Kitty UDX - In The Hunt

0:55:48 Aqua Kitty UDX - Roll Tide

1:02:48 Shadow Spirits Vol. 1 - Victory Road

Composed by Mark Day and Cody Carpenter

1:14:42 Double Dragon (Amiga remake) - Industrial

Composed by Kazunaka Yamane

Remixed by Mark Day and Cody Carpenter

1:23:00 Neopolis - Teaser / Trailer

1:32:25 Aqua Kitty 2 - Stage 1

 

Links to the music:

Electric Cafe music (Bandcamp)

Shadow Spirits Vol. 1 (Bandcamp)

Composed by Mark Day and Cody Carpenter

 

Other links

Tikipod website

Aqua Kitty UDX

Articles by Tikipod lead designer and artist Dugan Jackson

A short history of Aqua Kitty

Creating the artwork for Aqua Kitty

Neopolis - Upcoming game with music by Mark Day

In 1996, Sony opened the floodgates to indie console game development on the Playstation 1 through their Net Yaroze platform. Over the next several years, short games and demos of all kinds were created and distributed with game magazines on demo discs, including the focus of today's episode.

Hover Racing was created by a small team of university students led by designer Tomokazu Sato and primary composer Hiroaki Ohmori between April and November of 1997, a concise but polished clone of futuristic racing games like F-Zero X and Wipeout. The core gameplay consists of 3 Grand Prix with 3 tracks each, as well your usual practice and time attack modes. Like many games of the genre, you race at high speeds through sharp turns, boost pads, jumps and harsh terrain, all at a beautiful 60fps. Overall it's an impressive package from a team of novice indie game developers.

The core of the soundtrack was composed by Hiroaki Ohmori and features breezy tunes from popular electronic genres of the day; piano house, drum and bass, and techno. Ohmori went on to compose professionally for a few years, but lately seems to be more of a hobbyist musician. The second composer Tohru Kawakami contributed one joint track, but unfortunately we couldn't find any other info about him.

Join us as we discuss this unique moment in indie game dev history, and cover the music of Hover Racing.

Massive thanks to our friend electricboogaloo for show notes and research contributions as well as hardware recordings of all the music!

 

All tracks except Freezing Moment composed by Hiroaki Ohmori

* Freezing Moment composed by Hiroaki Ohmori and Tohru Kawakami

Track List:

0:00:00 A North Breeze

0:10:06 Laser Wind

0:15:58 Drop to the Sky

0:26:32 Mysterious Wave

0:38:51 Freezing Moment*

0:45:58 Groove On Night

All music was recorded using a model SCPH-1001 Playstation.

Hiroaki Ohmori's music (aka FlickerTone): Sound on the innerplanet (Apple Music)

Game download link

We're joined once again by Swedish audio production team Sinephony, this time listening to the mellow jams from the 2017 game Airport CEO. The game is a tycoon and management sim from Swedish game developer Apoapsis Studios where you act as CEO of your own airport, in the tradition of games like Transport Tycoon and Sim Coaster. Airport CEO is currently available on Windows and Mac.

Sinephony is a multi-talented production team consisting of Daniel Rosenqvist and Anton Dromberg. They've worked on games like 198X, 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, and 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 Airport CEO is a stunning collection of breezy and jazzy tunes. It's full of amazing live performances including Anton on keys & synth and Daniel on bass & synth, and we hope you enjoy the music.

 

All tracks composed by Daniel Rosenqvist and Anton Dromberg (Sinephony)

Track List:

0:00:00 Like a CEO

0:18:35 JFK Cadence

0:35:40 Airport Elevator Pitch

0:54:55 Aerodynamics

 

Links to the music:

Bandcamp

Spotify

 

Performers on the recording:

Violin/viola: Isabelle Andö

Cello: Erik Hamrefors

Percussion: Mischa Grind

Guitar: Simon Löfstedt

Bass/synth: Daniel Rosenqvist

Keyboard/synth/piano: Anton Dromberg

Double bass: Samuel Löfdahl

Trumpet: Calle Stenman

Trombone: Hampus T. Adami

Saxophone/clarinet: Robert Nevén

Post production by Willem Bleeker of Baggpipe Studios

Other links

Making of Airport CEO video

Terraformers - an upcoming project with the music of Sinephony

Platina Jazz - Rasmus Faber's anime cover group

Monkey Kong - the early VGM band from Anton and Daniel

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

Pixelated Audio is 6 years old! A lot has changed over that time, but the one constant is our love for game music of all kinds. Our theme today is a bit silly; games that are the 6th in a series (or at least have the number 6 in the title). We stretch the theme pretty far and come up with some fun tunes that we hope you'll enjoy.

Thanks to all of our listeners. We hope to keep doing what we love, listening to and sharing great game music.

Track List:

0:00:00 Rance VI: Zesu Houkai - Battle (WIN) by Dragon Attack!

0:08:00 Mega Man X6 - Commander Yammark (PS1) by Naoto Tanaka

0:16:35 100 Yen Disk 6 - THE LAST DAY (PC88) by Kamitama

0:26:15 Wizardy VI: Bane of the Cosmic Forge - Bane of the Cosmic Forge (SNES) by Kentaro Haneda

0:33:10 Hokuto no Ken 6: Gekitou Denshouken Haou heno michi - Falco's Theme (SNES) by Tomohisa Mitsuyasu (?)

0:39:38 Tantei Jinguuji Saburo: Yume no Owari ni - Silent Shadow (PS1) by Seiichi "ATOMIC" Hamada

0:50:02 Kenka Banchou 6: Soul & Blood - Battle Boss (3DS) by Salamander Factory

0:55:39 Leisure Suit Larry 6: Shape Up or Slip Out! - La Costa Lotta (DOS) by Dan Kehler