Latest / OverClocked ReMix Podcast / August 2026

Transcript

August 2026 · OverClocked ReMix Podcast

• 1:02
  SPEAKER_02: Swing in the trees, cross the sky.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_02: Crashing on the shape.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_02: Spring into sea.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_01: Hello, and welcome to the Overclock Remix Podcast.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_01: This is episode number 22, covering the month of August 2026.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_01: My name is Zach, and I cannot separate the onset of all with the feeling of, oh no, it's time to go back to school.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_01: I haven't been a student in 10 years.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_01: And yet here we are.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_01: Suddenly, my parents were driving by the video game rental store way more frequently.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_01: And at least one of the ones in the area had a copy of what was then known as Final Fantasy III, but of course what we know now as Final Fantasy VI.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_01: I never had enough time to actually the game.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_01: But someone definitely did on that rental copy.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_01: One of the times I rented it, one of the same files was at the tower.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_01: Man.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_01: Oh man.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_01: I I to this day no idea how they had the time to get that car in rental weekend.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_01: Because this was years before Springer running especially running archives and spent a ton of money in the price of games back then.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_01: That may have been more economical than actually buying a company to find one to buy.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_01: Anyway, our intro music this month was under cerulean skies by Earth Kid and Helmet from Corona Cross.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_01: Let's jump into some news.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know how I didn't hear about this one during the development, but Brad Burr, aka Prophetic Music, and Drop the whole album on us out of nowhere.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_01: And it is a theme near and near to my heart.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_01: This is a genre that I myself play a lot of.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_01: I played several roguelike games on the album.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if it was a roguelike game in my sound.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_01: I participate in a yearly game jam where you try to make a roguelike in a week and I don't know what to do again for about a decade.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_01: So that was Cosmic Placidity by DJ JD from Lufia 2 and Very Jack.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_01: This song reminds me uh there's an electronica artist named Soros, who did a dolphin themed album called, and I'm going to butcher this pronunciation as the Latin name for the bottom of the dolphin today.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_01: And this album was about 15 years ago.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_01: That I will admit I only listened to because it reminded me of that of the Dolphin.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_01: Of course I did.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_01: And that is appropriate because in the game the source material does play underwater.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_01: After that we had Panic After Disney Golden Force by Zach Harris from the United States.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm just gonna read some from the next episode of Vega.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_01: Anyway, it was crunch time in a panic.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_01: I conjured this track up at the last minute for this album.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_01: I like to imagine a horde of zombies storming onto a Disney Golden Force during a huge tournament and chaos into it.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_01: And by the end of it, there is a taking out zombies and getting a hold in one at the same time.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_01: Glorious.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_01: Something like that.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_01: This is a trade that we talked about.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_01: And listening to this on my own.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_01: I have to say, I think I might be in a jerk.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_01: Let me remind you, the original source material is like what did you say in the show?
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_01: I only talk about it like every episode.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_01: I actually have a soft spot for pretty much all organisation.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_01: This track is a triumph.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_01: I haven't talked about my musical talent much because I basically have none.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_01: But one of my aspirations is to learn to play the organ.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_01: And if I ever manage it, I would love to play this piece.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_01: I played only four.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_01: And now I'm digging into the music and I'm adding the other ones to my team, which list this is gonna cost me some money.
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_01: I just need to hold out for the next team sale.
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_01: False Ale can't be that far away, right?
• 51:42
  SPEAKER_01: That was Oceans of the Stars by Prophetic Music from Astria Six Sided Oracles.
• 51:48
  SPEAKER_01: This is a more melancholy piece than the last one, and both the content of the song and the overall palette and vibe and instrumentation remind me of Etrian Odyssey.
• 51:58
  SPEAKER_01: I hope Prophetic takes being compared to Yuzo Koshiro as the compliment that I need it to be.
• 52:05
  SPEAKER_01: Oh no.
• 52:06
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, this one's currently on sale on DOG.
• 52:08
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I might be spending some money right now.
• 52:11
  SPEAKER_01: After that, Thrill of the Ascent by Prophetic Music from Dungeon of the Endless.
• 52:17
  SPEAKER_01: I'm safe for a bit.
• 52:19
  SPEAKER_01: This is a game that I already own on Steam.
• 52:22
  SPEAKER_01: Although I have to admit this one didn't particularly grab me.
• 52:25
  SPEAKER_01: The track absolutely does though.
• 52:27
  SPEAKER_01: Really sounds like dungeon music to me.
• 52:30
  SPEAKER_01: Evoking both the aforementioned Etrion Odyssey games and the dungeon theme from specifically Final Fantasy V.
• 52:37
  SPEAKER_01: Finally, for new music this month, Death of the Void by Prophetic Music from Deep Sky Derelics.
• 52:45
  SPEAKER_01: Oh lord.
• 52:46
  SPEAKER_01: As I write this, this one is on a deep sale.
• 52:52
  SPEAKER_01: As deep as the sky.
• 52:54
  SPEAKER_01: 85% off on God.
• 52:56
  SPEAKER_01: My cursor is hovering over the buy now button.
• 53:00
  SPEAKER_01: This one has more crunch to it.
• 53:03
  SPEAKER_01: I gotta ask Prophetic about his FM synth approach.
• 53:06
  SPEAKER_01: It kinda reminds me of Echo the Dolphin, honestly.
• 53:09
  SPEAKER_01: I love me some Echo the Dolphin.
• 53:11
  SPEAKER_01: But that's it for new music.
• 53:13
  SPEAKER_01: Let's move on to a segment.
• 53:16
  SPEAKER_01: Alright, we are here with Prophetic Music to talk about uh this new album, Fall and Rise.
• 53:23
  SPEAKER_01: But first I have a question for you.
• 53:26
  SPEAKER_01: Uh how did you get involved with OCR to begin with?
• 53:30
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 53:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so I was this would have been 2004.
• 53:36
  SPEAKER_00: 2003, 2004.
• 53:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um one of the guys that was in band with me, he was actually a couple years younger than I was, um, but lived pretty close to me.
• 53:44
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I was over at his house and we were goofing around.
• 53:47
  SPEAKER_00: He was on like a goofing around on a keyboard, and I think I brought my bass over because that just happened to be the instrument that I was excited about at that point.
• 53:54
  SPEAKER_00: And we were fooling around with something.
• 53:55
  SPEAKER_00: He was like, Oh, I gotta show you this music.
• 53:57
  SPEAKER_00: This is from You're the Man Now, dog.
• 54:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so we like watched a bunch of dumb videos because I didn't have internet at my house at the time, and so I had never seen anything like this.
• 54:07
  SPEAKER_00: And then he showed me some other stuff that was from he's like, check out this video game music from OC Remix, from overclocked remix.
• 54:16
  SPEAKER_00: I think he called it overcooked remix the first time he did it.
• 54:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so we but we we listened to a couple of those and I thought that they were cool.
• 54:23
  SPEAKER_00: But I didn't have internet at my house, so every time I wanted a post, it was either through dial up um or it was while I was at school.
• 54:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I believe that's where I actually registered my account for the first time.
• 54:34
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I think it was actually a day before my birthday.
• 54:37
  SPEAKER_00: So it would have been April 15th, 2004.
• 54:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um when I when I registered, I was it was the day before my 18th birthday.
• 54:46
  SPEAKER_00: And uh that's when I started posting.
• 54:49
  SPEAKER_00: I had the dumbest name that you've ever heard of at the time, and then I got it changed, and it was profit for a while, and then I changed it to prophetic music after a while after that, because that's what artists do, they change their names constantly.
• 55:02
  SPEAKER_00: But uh but yeah.
• 55:04
  SPEAKER_00: So that's where I came from.
• 55:06
  SPEAKER_00: Uh because uh 15-year-old kid in band next to me wanted to show me some cool stuff.
• 55:11
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, that's like courageous story for the people I've talked to so far.
• 55:17
  SPEAKER_01: Uh a lot of people I've talked to have been like, oh yeah, you know, some friend at school showed it to me, and I had to download songs on dial up, and yeah, I I lived that too.
• 55:26
  SPEAKER_01: There was definitely times where it's like, ooh, this one's four megabytes, and I know my mom has a phone call.
• 55:33
  SPEAKER_01: Oh gosh.
• 55:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I definitely used to bring uh I had a uh uh one of those like external hard drives that you have to like plug in, and I would bring it to the library because I didn't have internet at home, and I would plug in because they had a T1 connection, and I would just download everything as fast as possible.
• 55:51
  SPEAKER_00: I would just just go down the front page and grab every single song.
• 55:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um I remember the last track that I downloaded over dial up.
• 55:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um and uh, you know, this was still a long time ago.
• 56:02
  SPEAKER_00: And uh so I was listen I I would all excited, it was a Final Fantasy VII track that I won't name.
• 56:07
  SPEAKER_00: I downloaded it and I it had just been posted and I listened to it and I was like, this sucks.
• 56:13
  SPEAKER_00: And it had taken me like an hour to download.
• 56:16
  SPEAKER_00: So I never did that again.
• 56:19
  SPEAKER_00: I only ever went and did it when I could do it fast, and then I didn't I didn't feel like I had spent a whole bunch of my my time currency on on uh on a song that I didn't wind up liking.
• 56:30
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, gosh, I definitely remember you know, when you download a file uh over dial up, like you could go browse some website, but that would slow down your download, right?
• 56:41
  SPEAKER_01: You don't want to do anything.
• 56:43
  SPEAKER_01: You just couldn't do anything.
• 56:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you just couldn't do anything.
• 56:45
  SPEAKER_00: I would just like sit there and watch the little thing iterate up very slowly.
• 56:48
  SPEAKER_00: That's all I would do.
• 56:49
  SPEAKER_00: So you'd sit there for like an hour.
• 56:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I would uh read a book or maybe play Game Boy.
• 56:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but you know, I couldn't leave the computer because then my parents would assume, oh, Zach's not online anymore, I can use the phone.
• 57:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so uh old people problems, I guess.
• 57:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I it's it's crazy imagining that it's literally more than half my life ago that I was some of the technological things that we ran into and how fast that changed.
• 57:16
  SPEAKER_00: You know, once I got to a certain age and I could just buy my own stuff, it was like, oh wow, everything's all of a sudden a lot different.
• 57:21
  SPEAKER_00: No, I made just as bad of decisions with my time and with my money.
• 57:25
  SPEAKER_00: But oh yeah, more of it to spend.
• 57:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um so you definitely uh in the the uh release notes for this album, you talk a bit about where the album came from and what inspired it.
• 57:40
  SPEAKER_01: But uh I don't think all of my listeners will have read those release notes.
• 57:45
  SPEAKER_01: So would you uh care to talk a little bit about that for the people?
• 57:49
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 57:50
  SPEAKER_00: So I've always liked the idea of um albums with themes.
• 57:55
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and I don't really know where that came from.
• 57:58
  SPEAKER_00: I think I just like the being a classical musician, there's often a lot of layers when you you know you listen to something and it's some violin screeching something, and you're like, okay, that sounds like you know, something's broken.
• 58:08
  SPEAKER_00: But inevitably there's some very interesting, diverse reason why the violin is doing that.
• 58:12
  SPEAKER_00: And when you learn that, it helps you appreciate it more.
• 58:14
  SPEAKER_00: So I've I've always liked having kind of that handle to grab onto with music.
• 58:19
  SPEAKER_00: Where it's like, oh, the person's trying to do this thing.
• 58:21
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe they're succeeding, maybe they're not.
• 58:23
  SPEAKER_00: But having that idea that kind of gets me a little bit in the artist's mindset for like why they did a thing.
• 58:29
  SPEAKER_00: So I um when I did when I picked up the Link's Awakening project and helped get that through to completion, we we had a uh theme with it that I had kind of inherited, and I liked that a lot.
• 58:40
  SPEAKER_00: And when we did the Chrono Trigger project, uh that was also we had some themes where we we grouped the songs based on um kind of like their vibe, which ones were more upbeat and which ones were more down tempo.
• 58:54
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I'm gonna interrupt you for just a second.
• 58:56
  SPEAKER_01: Which Chrono Trigger album project was this?
• 58:59
  SPEAKER_00: Chrono Cross.
• 59:00
  SPEAKER_00: Sorry, I if I say Chrono Trigger, that's my mistake.
• 59:02
  SPEAKER_00: Chrono Cross.
• 59:03
  SPEAKER_01: Chrono Cross.
• 59:04
  SPEAKER_01: Ah yeah, I can totally see that then.
• 59:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 59:06
  SPEAKER_00: We had the the one disc was frozen and the one disc was flame.
• 59:09
  SPEAKER_00: Like that was that was the idea behind it.
• 59:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um so I I was into that already and I already had kind of liked that.
• 59:14
  SPEAKER_00: And so I had had some ideas for themes for albums kind of bouncing around in my head that I just you know, I had like a stickies note thing on my uh on my desktop, and every so every time I booted my computer, I'd see it.
• 59:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so that kind of helped me get in the mindset of yeah, I'm gonna do some creation that's specifically for a thing.
• 59:33
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and I don't usually do that.
• 59:34
  SPEAKER_00: I usually just am like somebody asked me to do a to play on something or somebody asked me to put something together, and so I put it together.
• 59:40
  SPEAKER_00: Like I I I respond to external stimulus.
• 59:42
  SPEAKER_00: So this was kind of unique in that regard where it was something that I was coming from inside where I was like, I want to do this, as opposed to somebody saying you should do this.
• 59:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um and so I bounced around.
• 59:50
  SPEAKER_00: I was thinking about doing just like turn-based tactics games, because I really like turn-based tactics games.
• 59:56
  SPEAKER_00: I was thinking about taking a quote and like turning it every word or every phrase from the quote into a song.
• 1:00:03
  SPEAKER_00: Like I was kind of playing with some different ideas.
• 1:00:05
  SPEAKER_00: And uh and then eventually I settled on roguelikes uh and roguelike games.
• 1:00:10
  SPEAKER_00: Because I really like them.
• 1:00:11
  SPEAKER_00: I play a lot of them.
• 1:00:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um and actually the first song I had the one that had kind of gotten me in the mood for that one was Slay the Spire.
• 1:00:17
  SPEAKER_00: I did a Slay the Spire arrangement just because it was cool.
• 1:00:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and that wound up going on on time shift.
• 1:00:22
  SPEAKER_00: And so I was like, oh, I could do a whole bunch of these if I wanted to.
• 1:00:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um, because there's a whole bunch of them that I've played that have cool soundtracks.
• 1:00:28
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and so that's kind of where the idea for this came from.
• 1:00:31
  SPEAKER_00: And and originally it was literally just deck builders.
• 1:00:34
  SPEAKER_00: Like it was Slay the Spire and Monster Train and Nowhere Profit and stuff like that.
• 1:00:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I realized I wanted to get some other ones in there, like games like Inkbound, um, which have uh a very different kind of vibe to it.
• 1:00:47
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Dome Keeper is another one that's got a different vibe to it.
• 1:00:50
  SPEAKER_00: So like I wanted to get some of these other ones in there as well.
• 1:00:52
  SPEAKER_00: But that's kind of where it started.
• 1:00:54
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, yeah, I did notice it was heavy on the deck builders, and I just sort of assumed that's because, you know, that that is kind of a uh genre that's been growing in popularity the last few years.
• 1:01:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um yeah, uh interesting that the the theme sort of uh shifted over time.
• 1:01:09
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so uh I I am interested in uh how you selected which games and songs you wanted to cover.
• 1:01:18
  SPEAKER_01: Did you like start with the game and then pick which track you want to decover from it?
• 1:01:23
  SPEAKER_01: Or do you like this song is great?
• 1:01:26
  SPEAKER_01: I recover this song.
• 1:01:28
  SPEAKER_01: That's a good question.
• 1:01:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um Yeah, I'm I'm not a person who usually listens to a song and is like, oh, I have to remix that song.
• 1:01:37
  SPEAKER_00: Usually it's like I like this game and I want people to listen to the music for this game, and so I choose it that way.
• 1:01:43
  SPEAKER_00: For example, I really like Hades, um, and that was a really fun game when I played it.
• 1:01:48
  SPEAKER_00: I spent a lot of time, it was really cool.
• 1:01:50
  SPEAKER_00: My kids enjoyed watching me play it as well.
• 1:01:52
  SPEAKER_00: They were like really into seeing all of the the action and everything.
• 1:01:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so the music is really happened.
• 1:01:58
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, I would listen to the soundtrack quite a bit because Darren Corb's music is amazing.
• 1:02:02
  SPEAKER_00: And uh but it was one of those things where I was like, you know what, I'm just gonna pick a thing because they were all kind of interesting, but um one of the things I appreciate about his music is that often there's not a particularly strong melody that you're gonna grab onto.
• 1:02:19
  SPEAKER_00: Certainly there are some strong melodies.
• 1:02:20
  SPEAKER_00: You listen to the the pyre soundtrack, and there's some on there that are just you can't stop singing because the melodies are so good.
• 1:02:26
  SPEAKER_00: But overall, he does a really good job of capturing like a vibe or a feel.
• 1:02:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and the the all of the tracks on the Hades soundtrack are really good at that.
• 1:02:35
  SPEAKER_00: But the one in particular that jumped out for me was the death theme.
• 1:02:38
  SPEAKER_00: Mostly because I heard it a lot, because I'm terrible at those games.
• 1:02:41
  SPEAKER_00: But um also just a because it was a really great um it's it's very catchy, it's very immediate.
• 1:02:48
  SPEAKER_00: No, I did modify it to make it fit into like Western music theory.
• 1:02:53
  SPEAKER_00: But um the the vibe and the idea of it was something that I really thought was a good thing to grab onto.
• 1:02:59
  SPEAKER_00: Similarly with some of the other games, like um like Wild Frost soundtrack is really great, but at the same time, it's one of those things where um the nobody's ever heard of it.
• 1:03:11
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 1:03:11
  SPEAKER_00: Like it it's not a super duper active popular game, even though it's a really fun game.
• 1:03:16
  SPEAKER_00: And so I wanted to highlight both that Paul Zimmerman did a really great job with the OST in general, but also just it's a fun game, and my hope is that people are gonna hear the music and be like, oh, this is kind of upbeat and catchy, and they're gonna listen to the music and be like, wow, this music's really upbeat and catchy and interesting too, and then want to go play the game.
• 1:03:33
  SPEAKER_00: So, like that's kind of more where I pick from.
• 1:03:36
  SPEAKER_00: I I pick stuff where I'm like, I want to highlight the game in general, um, rather than like, oh, this one track just blew my mind.
• 1:03:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, I I I have to let you know, um, it worked.
• 1:03:47
  SPEAKER_01: Uh as I was listening to the album, I purchased at least two games.
• 1:03:54
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, you have been damaging to my wallet, sir.
• 1:03:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um, sorry.
• 1:04:01
  SPEAKER_01: So uh I will say, so out of the um ten different games featured on the album, I have only played four of them.
• 1:04:12
  SPEAKER_01: And it coincidentally happens to be the first four Hades Faster Than Light, uh, Monster Train, and Dungeon of the Endless.
• 1:04:19
  SPEAKER_01: So of the six that I haven't played, is there one in particular that you'd be like, go play this now?
• 1:04:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so I'm just gonna talk about all of them because they're all interesting and different.
• 1:04:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um Yeah, there's uh there is quite some variety.
• 1:04:33
  SPEAKER_00: Uh yeah, I'll I'll pick one and then I'll go from there and say, okay, but but here's some here's some more options.
• 1:04:39
  SPEAKER_00: If I have to pick one, I would say that Dome Keeper is a very unique experience.
• 1:04:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um the soundtrack's really interesting.
• 1:04:49
  SPEAKER_00: It's all this like atomic age style kind of buzzes and bleeps and bloops sounds.
• 1:04:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um there's there's virtually no percussion in it.
• 1:04:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um it completely ignores traditional song format of like verse chorus concepts or anything like that.
• 1:05:05
  SPEAKER_00: It ignores um time signatures half the time.
• 1:05:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um and uh and it just kind of wheedles along and noodles along because that's very much how the game plays.
• 1:05:15
  SPEAKER_00: The gameplay obviously influenced the the soundtrack.
• 1:05:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and it's it's this alternating style of the game is has this alternating gameplay where you just kind of like meander through these mines that you're digging yourself, and you find stuff as you dig, and that's interesting.
• 1:05:31
  SPEAKER_00: There's all these little weird like background little things that are happening that make it surprisingly cozy, even though it's a very lonely game.
• 1:05:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um and then you go through all this, and then all of a sudden it gets to the nighttime, and monsters attack your dome.
• 1:05:44
  SPEAKER_00: And so you're defending them off, and you're you might be defending them off with like a little machine gun or something.
• 1:05:49
  SPEAKER_00: One of the domes has a literal sword mounted on it that you just swing around, and then you can shoot the sword.
• 1:05:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um and you can have like rocket launchers and things that uh defend against rock.
• 1:06:00
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's crazy.
• 1:06:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's and it comes out of nowhere, and then it's like, oh, all right, back to the mine.
• 1:06:05
  SPEAKER_00: The the the players yearn for the mines.
• 1:06:09
  SPEAKER_00: So it's just so unique and different.
• 1:06:11
  SPEAKER_00: And they've done a whole lot to make it really interesting and give it a lot more replayability than a game so with such a tight core loop should have.
• 1:06:21
  SPEAKER_00: So I I think it's really cool.
• 1:06:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um, of the other ones that are on there, Deep Sky Derel X is really interesting.
• 1:06:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's kind of a cross between Darkest Dungeon and um uh and let's see, Void Bastards and Slay the Spire in that it uses the card-based combat that Slay the Spire kind of perfected.
• 1:06:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but it's got this really goofy, like uh you you you go through dudes on your team pretty often.
• 1:06:48
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and then you also kind of have this like uh very unique, spacey, like futuristic, but not very futuristic style to it.
• 1:06:57
  SPEAKER_00: And there's some some eldritch-y elements to it, not really eldritch, but kind of weird elements to it as well, that kind of give it some really unique flavor.
• 1:07:04
  SPEAKER_00: And it's cheap and it comes with the soundtrack.
• 1:07:06
  SPEAKER_00: So like that was one of the reasons that's how it got in here.
• 1:07:09
  SPEAKER_00: I had played it and I was looking for another song to include in the soundtrack because I didn't quite have as many as I or to include in the album, because it didn't have as many as I wanted.
• 1:07:17
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I was literally just looking through my soundtracks on Steam to see what I had, and I was like, oh, I just never redeemed this soundtrack, but I got it when I bought the game, and so I did, and it's a really fun soundtrack, it's got a bunch of goofiness to it.
• 1:07:29
  SPEAKER_00: So that was really fun.
• 1:07:30
  SPEAKER_01: Uh one of the games I bought after listening to the uh album because uh I looked and when I was listening, it was on sale for like four dollars on Gog.
• 1:07:40
  SPEAKER_01: Uh incredible bar.
• 1:07:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's worth four dollars.
• 1:07:43
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah.
• 1:07:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's worth like a lot more than four dollars.
• 1:07:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um, the next one on there was Inkbound.
• 1:07:49
  SPEAKER_00: Inkbound's great in that it's another run-based game that's also composed by Jordan Chin, similar to Monster Train.
• 1:07:56
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the soundtrack is a really clear evolution of his style, which is really fun to hear.
• 1:08:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and that one's cool because uh it's I wouldn't really call it an action game 100%.
• 1:08:07
  SPEAKER_00: You've got like abilities that you can activate, but it is free form and free move.
• 1:08:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it hasn't done commercially as well as maybe it could have, but I really enjoyed it.
• 1:08:17
  SPEAKER_00: I probably put 50 or 60 hours into it.
• 1:08:19
  SPEAKER_00: And the co-op play, especially, is very fun.
• 1:08:21
  SPEAKER_00: You can make some really fun builds working together with other people.
• 1:08:24
  SPEAKER_00: So I definitely recommend that.
• 1:08:25
  SPEAKER_00: It goes on sale for peanuts all the time, and it's very enjoyable.
• 1:08:29
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, 50 and 60 hours is you know, that's like the length of a of a solid RPG.
• 1:08:34
  SPEAKER_01: Like that's that's good bang for your buck there.
• 1:08:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and it was it was early access.
• 1:08:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I think it was$25 when somebody bought it for me so we could play it together.
• 1:08:44
  SPEAKER_00: And it was great.
• 1:08:45
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's worth, it's absolutely worth$25, even with it being a game that they've said, you know, we're sorry, we're not gonna continue to develop this.
• 1:08:52
  SPEAKER_00: Past they did a release and did like a first season, but they're not gonna add new content.
• 1:08:55
  SPEAKER_00: But it's still fun.
• 1:08:56
  SPEAKER_00: There's more than enough content there to be able to find enjoyable stuff.
• 1:09:00
  SPEAKER_00: So that one was really cool.
• 1:09:01
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I talked about Wild Frost already a little bit.
• 1:09:04
  SPEAKER_00: Wild Frost is really cutesy, uh, and uh looks like baby's first uh lane-based deck builder until you play it and you get your pants beat off.
• 1:09:14
  SPEAKER_00: That game can be so hard.
• 1:09:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and the overall gameplay loop of beating it and then having to face uh yourself the next run is a really clever idea.
• 1:09:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's very fun, and then there's like a final, final boss that's exceedingly difficult.
• 1:09:31
  SPEAKER_00: So I I really like that one.
• 1:09:33
  SPEAKER_00: It is tough as nails.
• 1:09:35
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you have to be very creative with how to approach it.
• 1:09:37
  SPEAKER_00: So that one's fun.
• 1:09:38
  SPEAKER_00: I already talked about Dome Keeper.
• 1:09:40
  SPEAKER_00: And then the last one was Estrea, Six Sided Oracles.
• 1:09:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's a a deck builder, but your deck is dice.
• 1:09:46
  SPEAKER_00: You're you're drafting dice, which is really interesting, and you're improving dice over time.
• 1:09:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's great, it's such a cool idea.
• 1:09:52
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, I played a couple of games like that, but not this one.
• 1:09:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um, Dicey Dungeons and Slice and Dice.
• 1:09:58
  SPEAKER_01: Have you played either of those?
• 1:10:00
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I've seen Dicey Dungeons.
• 1:10:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's on like my to buy list.
• 1:10:04
  SPEAKER_00: I just haven't gotten around to getting it yet.
• 1:10:05
  SPEAKER_00: I haven't heard of Slice and Dice yet.
• 1:10:07
  SPEAKER_01: I I was curious how the how the gameplay compared because like, I mean, you know, I play a lot of board games, so I'm always on the lookout for interesting things you can do with dice.
• 1:10:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it was um Astray is really cool.
• 1:10:18
  SPEAKER_00: It it borrows the Slay the Spire map um kind of definition where you're like able to move around and get through things.
• 1:10:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um there's a bunch of customization of the dice during the run and ways that you have to deal with stuff.
• 1:10:30
  SPEAKER_00: There's a unique push-pull mechanic with um how you take damage and how you heal damage, where if you have some more damage on your characters, they can do more things, but they might be more in danger.
• 1:10:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um so that's really cool.
• 1:10:43
  SPEAKER_00: And it comes with six characters that all have unique abilities and unique concepts.
• 1:10:46
  SPEAKER_00: There's there's an almost overwhelming amount of features that you can you could just play one or two of the characters and get absolutely get your money's worth out of it.
• 1:10:54
  SPEAKER_00: And there's six.
• 1:10:55
  SPEAKER_00: So it is if if you don't like dice because you don't like the inherent randomness of it, it might not be up your alley, but it is a really cool game, and it's another one that has some it goes to some really cool places that you might not expect.
• 1:11:06
  SPEAKER_00: So that that was another one, and the soundtrack is absolutely gorgeous.
• 1:11:10
  SPEAKER_00: It was it's a couple of people that work together on it, and it's this super lush, beautiful orchestrated sound.
• 1:11:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's very, very interesting.
• 1:11:18
  SPEAKER_01: I uh that's uh the other one that I purchased uh as I was listening to the album, because again, oh, this is currently on sale on Gog.
• 1:11:25
  SPEAKER_01: This is a sign.
• 1:11:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um yeah, that one's fantastic.
• 1:11:29
  SPEAKER_01: I I'm generally impressed with most roguelikes how much content they pack in.
• 1:11:34
  SPEAKER_01: Like most roguelikes truly feel like, oh, this could just be my one game for the next five years if I wanted it to be.
• 1:11:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I well, part of it is because when you when replayability is the most important thing, like the whole point of these games is that you want to do them again.
• 1:11:52
  SPEAKER_00: You can't just do it.
• 1:11:53
  SPEAKER_00: So you they they design in these bite-sized chunks, so like Slate Despier does this really well, each battle takes like a minute or two, so you can sit down and get meaningful progression in 10 minutes between things.
• 1:12:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then also if repla if replayability is the thing that the genre requires, your core loop of whatever it is better be pretty darn good in order for it to make it at all.
• 1:12:16
  SPEAKER_00: And inevitably, for all the ones that I've listed on this that that I've played here, all of them have something really unique and interesting and clever with their loop that makes it something I want to go back to.
• 1:12:27
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I've put several probably probably close to a thousand hours into Slay the Spire games between one and two.
• 1:12:35
  SPEAKER_00: Monster Hunter, or sorry, Monster Train is another one that I've spent several hundred hours in because there's so much flexibility and uniqueness to the games.
• 1:12:45
  SPEAKER_01: Like FTL, like how many uh uh uh yeah, I mean everyone knows the Slay the Spire games, so I'm not gonna glaze them too much, but uh Monster Train is a masterpiece that I think, you know, it's decently popular, but I think still not enough people have played it.
• 1:13:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and it's a it's another good example of the second um game essentially being better in every way than the first, in that they just give you more of what you want, and they don't get in their way doing it.
• 1:13:11
  SPEAKER_00: So, really another really impressive example.
• 1:13:13
  SPEAKER_01: I have not played the second one yet, and um gosh, Faster Than Light is uh I I played a lot of that when I was in grad school, and uh I remember I sold a friend on the game because I sort of described it.
• 1:13:28
  SPEAKER_01: I I've never played another game like this, but it's sort of like it plays the way that Star Trek watches, right?
• 1:13:35
  SPEAKER_01: Like you are worried about the interior of the spaceship and your crew members more than you are about like the stuff that's happening in space.
• 1:13:45
  SPEAKER_01: It's uh fantastic game.
• 1:13:46
  SPEAKER_01: I I love FTL.
• 1:13:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I will say, uh, you know, just because it's been like the surprise out of nowhere hit uh that everyone has been talking about for the last year or so, uh, why know Ballatro?
• 1:13:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um I like Ballatro.
• 1:14:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um I played a whole bunch of it right when uh actually when it showed up on Game Pass.
• 1:14:07
  SPEAKER_00: I had Game Pass at the time, and so I started playing it and played an enormous amount of it in a very short period of time.
• 1:14:14
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's just such a unique, different, weird game.
• 1:14:16
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and I really appreciate how tight the loop is in that you can play it and you're done with a run in like 20 or 30 minutes.
• 1:14:23
  SPEAKER_00: Like it does not take long to plow through it and get as far as you're gonna go.
• 1:14:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but for whatever reason that one just didn't quite catch me as much.
• 1:14:31
  SPEAKER_00: I think because there isn't really a clearly there there can be, but there isn't always a clearly defined endpoint for each run.
• 1:14:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um like you can get to the point where it's like, alright, I've unlocked this thing and and then you just keep going.
• 1:14:44
  SPEAKER_00: But because you keep going, I think for whatever reason that that just was never something that quite grabbed me.
• 1:14:50
  SPEAKER_00: The the OST isn't that isn't the soundtrack like one or two songs as well?
• 1:14:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think it's just like one song the whole time.
• 1:14:55
  SPEAKER_01: One very long, very groovy song.
• 1:14:58
  SPEAKER_01: But um Yeah.
• 1:15:00
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I think because of that, that one song just does lodge itself in your brain.
• 1:15:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, oh, it absolutely does.
• 1:15:06
  SPEAKER_00: But for whatever reason, um, maybe I was playing something else at the time and so I didn't like lock into that one.
• 1:15:11
  SPEAKER_00: It just wasn't one that I was like, oh yeah, this is one I need to get in here.
• 1:15:14
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm certainly not against doing something in the future.
• 1:15:17
  SPEAKER_00: And the the oh that one song is a really clever, cool one.
• 1:15:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's in like, I think it's at seven, like it's got some really funky stuff about it that is a little surprising, and it's and it manages to stay surprising after 50 hours, which is pretty impressive.
• 1:15:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's it's uh I was really impressed how like you sort of don't even realize it's the same song the whole time.
• 1:15:38
  SPEAKER_01: Uh you know, it's it's sort of like the opposite of bubble bobble, where like you're gonna get real tired of that 40 seconds of music real quick.
• 1:15:48
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:15:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so it's uh let's pivot to the music a little.
• 1:15:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um I was really impressed with the sound palette of uh this album.
• 1:15:57
  SPEAKER_01: Uh in particular, uh a lot of the the sounds you use remind me of like PC98 FM Synth, like you'd hear in the Etrian Odyssey games if you ever played those.
• 1:16:08
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 1:16:09
  SPEAKER_01: So I I was curious, like what what was your approach to synth choices uh for this album?
• 1:16:16
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 1:16:16
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm certainly not the kind of guy who's like amazing at being able to go out and craft whatever sound, exactly the right sound for a specific use or something like that.
• 1:16:27
  SPEAKER_00: But one thing I do feel I do pretty well is ideating what I want and then finding some way to get there.
• 1:16:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um I'm like I said, I may not be able to go and create some unique thing, but when I start working, usually my big thing is I need to find a bass sound.
• 1:16:41
  SPEAKER_00: If I can find a bass sound that happens to be the right one and, you know, like activates the monkey brain or something like that, then then I know that I can, I already know what the rest of the song is gonna sound like.
• 1:16:52
  SPEAKER_00: And it's just a matter of going and getting those sticks to prop up the house.
• 1:16:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so a lot of what I did was I kind of started with the idea of okay, every song is gonna have, you know, like side chain bass, just about every song is gonna have some sort of beat that's gonna be pretty consistent, not necessarily four in the floor, but because I think don't keep it in five.
• 1:17:11
  SPEAKER_00: But like make leaning and leaning into like a like kind of a standard um kick snare kick snare pattern intentionally, so that the other things that are going on are what makes the music, and I'm not super duper playing with all of the other percussions that I I do a lot of I used to do a lot of rock music, and so I would focus a lot on um oh I gotta make sure the drums are doing all these cool things and this and that and the other thing.
• 1:17:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I I specifically wanted to get away from that because as I've kind of developed this more synth wavy sound and listen to a lot more like chill step and all this other stuff, I've definitely started leaning towards um kind of this more the the this very like um base forward, synthwave chill feel, but still a lot of like like a lot of pressure and and movement in it sound.
• 1:18:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I've really kind of gotten into that.
• 1:18:03
  SPEAKER_00: And so I really tried to focus on it.
• 1:18:05
  SPEAKER_00: And the other big thing I tried to focus on was space.
• 1:18:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um I didn't want everything to be um big oofy washes of everything.
• 1:18:13
  SPEAKER_00: No, I I did some more of that with the Estrella track as an intentional contrast.
• 1:18:17
  SPEAKER_00: But like most of the songs, a big thing that I'm focusing on is like you know, it's every note isn't sustained all the way to the next one.
• 1:18:24
  SPEAKER_00: There's there's space in every piece.
• 1:18:26
  SPEAKER_00: And the more that you if you seek out if you if you intentionally listen and are like, oh, I want to listen for the holes, that's the stuff where I was really trying to kind of link.
• 1:18:36
  SPEAKER_00: So then that meant that when I was looking at the synths that I was using, I was definitely doing a ton of envelope work to make sure that whatever it was wasn't where it wasn't supposed to be.
• 1:18:47
  SPEAKER_00: That came out kind of dumb.
• 1:18:48
  SPEAKER_00: To make sure that I was only making sounds in the very specific um places where I needed it, and that there was a lot of space around those notes.
• 1:18:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you see that, for example, when kind of the big hit happens about two-thirds of the way through the Hades track, and you know, the the lead has a big stutter on it, and everything, but everything's got a ton of stutter on it.
• 1:19:11
  SPEAKER_00: So there's a ton of space going on in there.
• 1:19:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you see that in um the track uh for nowhere profit, where there's basically every element isn't sustained.
• 1:19:23
  SPEAKER_00: There's there's very few truly sustained elements within the entire thing.
• 1:19:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you see that in the um Dungeon of the Endless track, where there's these big like fat stabs of sound, and then there's just everything else drops out, and there's just like some drum, like some booms in the drum or something like that.
• 1:19:41
  SPEAKER_00: Like I intentionally was trying to find a ton of space wherever I could.
• 1:19:45
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it makes it feel like a dungeon, right?
• 1:19:47
  SPEAKER_01: Like it it yeah, it it sort of gives it a uh like a resonance.
• 1:19:52
  SPEAKER_01: Like uh, you know, it space is the right word for it.
• 1:19:55
  SPEAKER_01: It it really does feel open.
• 1:19:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um I felt like your your um uh deep sky derelicts track also did a fantastic job of that.
• 1:20:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that one's uh that one was particularly fun because like when that first chorus, like the melody first hits and that the background thinse, it's this big pulsing thing, but there's so much like the everything's actually really short.
• 1:20:18
  SPEAKER_00: And then I have a big hard cut in some of the volume, so you get the snares and stuff in there.
• 1:20:21
  SPEAKER_00: Like there's some really weird kind of like sound effect y things going on in there.
• 1:20:26
  SPEAKER_00: That's way more sound design than I normally would do.
• 1:20:29
  SPEAKER_00: I'm usually really straightforward with my this kind of stuff.
• 1:20:31
  SPEAKER_00: So that one in particular was really fun to kind of explore some different effects, like this the stutter symbol where I'm literally just cutting the symbol length hard by itself.
• 1:20:41
  SPEAKER_00: So stuff like that is you know, I I had never really experimented with that stuff, and so it was cool to be able to just like a lot of it was just like, I wonder what happens if I do this.
• 1:20:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I would listen and be like, oh, yeah, that was that was what I was looking for.
• 1:20:52
  SPEAKER_00: I just didn't know it yet.
• 1:20:54
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so you mentioned that you were a uh band kid and uh you know you sort of uh came from more of a classical music background.
• 1:21:03
  SPEAKER_01: How did you get into this more electronic, synth wavy type sound?
• 1:21:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so um one of the things that's this is a great question.
• 1:21:11
  SPEAKER_00: One of the things uh I'll point out is that I'm a classical saxophonist.
• 1:21:15
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I have a couple degrees in it.
• 1:21:17
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know why I got a couple degrees.
• 1:21:18
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody wants to listen to classical saxophone.
• 1:21:20
  SPEAKER_00: I don't even want to listen to it, and I have the degrees in it.
• 1:21:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but one of the things that's really unique about classical saxophone repertoire is that um more so than most of the other major instruments, there is a huge amount of really weird electronic influences on classical saxophone literature.
• 1:21:41
  SPEAKER_00: And there's a couple different composers that really kind of led the way there.
• 1:21:44
  SPEAKER_00: One of the big ones is Jakob Derveltous, who is a he's also known as Jacob TV.
• 1:21:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um he does a ton of stuff with um, he calls it tape or he calls it boombox.
• 1:21:53
  SPEAKER_00: He's got one that's for tenor sax one in boombox.
• 1:21:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um called Gravity.
• 1:21:58
  SPEAKER_01: I have to look this up.
• 1:21:59
  SPEAKER_01: That sounds amazing.
• 1:22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but he did, I actually did a uh lecture recital on it when I was in college.
• 1:22:04
  SPEAKER_00: I love this stuff.
• 1:22:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but because there's a ton of influence of music concrete in general, so just like found instruments and uh intentionally manipulated elements in the saxphone repertoire, that kind of already prepped me for like, you know, I'm if when I'm going out and composing, you'd think that somebody who went through all this classical stuff would be writing for orchestra and stuff.
• 1:22:25
  SPEAKER_00: But a sax phone note doesn't really show up in the orchestra very often, at least the stuff that the orchestras I was around was playing.
• 1:22:30
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I've only played with an orchestra once or twice.
• 1:22:33
  SPEAKER_00: So it was one of those situations where it's like I was already looking and listening to weird stuff, and I got it more into electronic music when I was um in college because I was thinking it made me look like a rebel, even though it was more just that I liked the beat and it was fun.
• 1:22:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um but then as I got into more in composing and stuff like that, I found that it actually was really hard for me to I my natural voice isn't with my saxophone.
• 1:22:56
  SPEAKER_00: Like it doesn't that's not how I write or how I hear things.
• 1:22:59
  SPEAKER_00: And so I kind of meandered around and did a bunch of different stuff until I found this kind of the the the pulsing beat and the energy and this like quiet but still intense and urgent feel that a lot of Synthwave has has really been what I've uh the the feel that you get from like the Hades track, that's what I that's the that when I think of my musical voice, that's the kind of sound I want to make.
• 1:23:25
  SPEAKER_00: That kind of it doesn't have to be super big, although it can be big.
• 1:23:28
  SPEAKER_00: But you have this this this consistent driving force that's going on, and you've got this really like um meaty bass line that you can grab onto that's that's you know handing off with the kick.
• 1:23:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um but all that to say, experimenting with a lot of weird music, experimenting with weird music in college, not other things, uh was definitely the thing that kind of got me open to a lot of other ideas.
• 1:23:55
  SPEAKER_01: So um as a you know, I I've dabbled in music, but uh as a non-musician, uh I one thing I'm always curious with is the the songwriting and arrangement process because it seems incredibly varied.
• 1:24:10
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you you look at um uh I know the band The Deer Hunter, they largely compose albums on the piano and then figure out how do you make all the instruments, you know, uh how do you how do you bring bring out all the instruments that play in the band out of that thing that was composed on the piano?
• 1:24:29
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and then you have people like Jake Kaufman who just like opens up a uh you know NES sound chip tracker and goes nuts.
• 1:24:38
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so uh where do you lie uh in in in the uh the songwriting slash arrangement process?
• 1:24:45
  SPEAKER_01: What what's your approach in general?
• 1:24:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um uh coming from uh again a classical background, I formally trained in music theory.
• 1:24:52
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so I definitely just hearing it is usually enough for me to be like, oh, I see what the chords are doing, and I see what I see where these pieces are going, I see why this particular bit sounds good here and goes into this.
• 1:25:04
  SPEAKER_00: So like I I have the ear training to be able to do that, especially because saxophone is we're not all good at jazz, but we have to play it either way.
• 1:25:11
  SPEAKER_00: So you you get a lot more ear training than than a lot of other uh instruments do just off the off the cuff.
• 1:25:17
  SPEAKER_00: And uh so I'll always have an idea when I listen to a song.
• 1:25:21
  SPEAKER_00: I'll be like, oh I can hear that I can grab this here and I can use that there.
• 1:25:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um let's just pick a random one of this as an example.
• 1:25:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um why don't I use um the monster train track, uh crossing the sticks.
• 1:25:38
  SPEAKER_00: So at this point, uh this song is really pretty straightforward.
• 1:25:42
  SPEAKER_00: It has this one main melody line, and then there is a like a like it's like an A B format.
• 1:25:48
  SPEAKER_00: So um it starts out with the da.
• 1:25:53
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a great singer, you can tell.
• 1:25:55
  SPEAKER_00: And then it goes to like a rising section, as like a B section, and then there's a bridge, and that's all it is.
• 1:26:03
  SPEAKER_00: And the bridge is there's not really anything going on in there, it's just kind of wrapping it around to get back to the original piece.
• 1:26:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so uh I think I wrote it down as being broadly AA B B.
• 1:26:14
  SPEAKER_00: They're pretty, it's not exactly AA and it's not exactly B B, but it's pretty close in terms of format.
• 1:26:18
  SPEAKER_00: So basically it's a section, it repeats, and then it's a different section, it repeats.
• 1:26:22
  SPEAKER_00: So that was pretty easy because I only really had two pieces, right?
• 1:26:25
  SPEAKER_00: Like I didn't have that much to work with.
• 1:26:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and that one in particular, I liked the overall flow of the melody itself.
• 1:26:33
  SPEAKER_00: Jordan Chin writes great melodies.
• 1:26:35
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I think every single one of his things is highly singable and very approachable, which is one of the things I really like about his music.
• 1:26:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so it was really with that, I knew I was just gonna be, at least once, I was just gonna go through it in order because I was gonna do the A section and be done with it.
• 1:26:52
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna do the B section and then have some sort of a turnaround.
• 1:26:55
  SPEAKER_00: And then from there it was figuring, okay, how do I want to mix this up?
• 1:26:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um I often look at altering chord structures and mixing them up.
• 1:27:03
  SPEAKER_00: I think, I think every single track on this album, I do the melody line with an altered set of chords at least once.
• 1:27:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I don't know if Deep Sky Derelict I do that.
• 1:27:13
  SPEAKER_00: It might only be one other section that I do that.
• 1:27:15
  SPEAKER_00: But um, but that's definitely a uh a compositional technique I use on basically every remix I've ever done because it's a really easy way to get cool variations of stuff.
• 1:27:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um, if you've got a melody line and it's a great melody line, great, you're already halfway there.
• 1:27:29
  SPEAKER_00: All you need to do is make the other stuff fit with it and rehashing some new chords underneath it, and then making up a counter melody or a harmony line over top of it, and you have a very different track from what you started with.
• 1:27:42
  SPEAKER_00: So with this one, all I really did was um then take a couple of the little motivic concepts of the da da da, like that little starting piece, and just layer it in in a couple other places, and I was two thirds of the way done with the song at that point.
• 1:27:56
  SPEAKER_00: So then it was really just figuring out how to handle the bridge.
• 1:28:00
  SPEAKER_00: Section and the track came together in like no time.
• 1:28:04
  SPEAKER_00: I want to say that this one was took me like an hour to get all my instruments kind of picked and the melody mapped out.
• 1:28:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to say it took me three or four hours and I was done with the arrangement.
• 1:28:15
  SPEAKER_03: Man.
• 1:28:16
  SPEAKER_00: It just it just flew.
• 1:28:18
  SPEAKER_00: I I am in general a very fast arranger, but this one came together particularly fast.
• 1:28:22
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 1:28:23
  SPEAKER_01: So um bringing it back to games, um, I'm curious.
• 1:28:28
  SPEAKER_01: Uh is there a roguelike that you're playing currently?
• 1:28:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'm playing two of them.
• 1:28:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um so I am continuing to enjoy Slay of the Spire 2.
• 1:28:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I particularly enjoy the multiplayer aspect to it.
• 1:28:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um I'm looking forward to more content when it comes out in full.
• 1:28:46
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not playing it very much right now because I've kind of maxed out all of the characters, and I'm really just playing it when I get a chance to play it with other people or if I do it daily.
• 1:28:54
  SPEAKER_00: My kids like to watch that one uh or try it themselves, so there's been times we've done that.
• 1:28:59
  SPEAKER_00: The other one I'm playing, which is really cool, is called Aethermancer.
• 1:29:03
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, it's made by the same company that did Monster Sanctuary, I believe, which was a uh side-scrolling light platformer monster man monster game, like what you know, like you maintain a roster of monsters like Pokemon.
• 1:29:16
  SPEAKER_01: Sure, yeah, yeah.
• 1:29:16
  SPEAKER_00: And you level them up and give them all abilities.
• 1:29:18
  SPEAKER_00: Another really clever one, super cool and unique.
• 1:29:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um uh not the greatest game ever, but really fun and does a lot of things really right.
• 1:29:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um and this game, Aether Mancer, is fantastic.
• 1:29:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's uh it's a run-based game.
• 1:29:34
  SPEAKER_00: You get a cadre of a couple of monsters, and you're leveling them up over time and making them better and uh exploring a world.
• 1:29:43
  SPEAKER_00: There's there's some uh like instancing elements to it and some very clever um strategy behind it, and a really interesting, varied group of monsters that you can play with and cool systems to interact with.
• 1:29:58
  SPEAKER_00: I really enjoy it.
• 1:29:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's another one I put like it's an early access, put like 50 hours into the game, and I keep coming back to it, even though there's nothing left for me to unlock because it's still very fun to just play the game.
• 1:30:10
  SPEAKER_01: I will be adding that to my wish list.
• 1:30:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's fantastic.
• 1:30:14
  SPEAKER_00: I can't say enough good things about it.
• 1:30:16
  SPEAKER_00: The soundtrack's really great.
• 1:30:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um, the gameplay is beautiful, the game looks great.
• 1:30:22
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, it runs really well in the Steam Deck, which is why I have it.
• 1:30:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but it is uh it's just uh it's a joy to play, and they keep rolling out more cool features.
• 1:30:30
  SPEAKER_01: So uh I've been playing a lot of uh Tangledep recently.
• 1:30:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I'm I've had it in here forever, and I just have never taken the time to actually learn it to play it, and I keep meaning to.
• 1:30:42
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but everybody has says that it's amazing, and I keep seeing it on like internet lists of top X games in this style, so I need to play it.
• 1:30:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:30:50
  SPEAKER_01: You're aware who the developer is, right?
• 1:30:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, that's how I got that's why I originally bought it.
• 1:30:54
  SPEAKER_00: And then I'll I played it for like 20 minutes and it didn't grab me, and then it just has languished in my library for like years.
• 1:31:00
  SPEAKER_00: So I just need to go back and say I'm gonna spend a couple hours on it and just get into it.
• 1:31:04
  SPEAKER_01: I you know, Tangled, I I play it in spurts, right?
• 1:31:08
  SPEAKER_01: I'll feverishly play it a couple hours a day for several days, and then I'll leave it alone for weeks, and then I'll, you know.
• 1:31:14
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so it comes in waves, but I'm I'm very much looking forward to the sequel whenever that comes out.
• 1:31:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um I love the soundtrack on it.
• 1:31:22
  SPEAKER_01: Very uh like sort of secret of mana inspired.
• 1:31:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um yeah, uh do you have any uh other than the early access games, uh do you have any uh roguelikes upcoming that you're uh looking forward to?
• 1:31:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um I'm not much of a upcoming game.
• 1:31:38
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna go get that game in person.
• 1:31:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um because I have too many games and not enough time to play them to begin with.
• 1:31:46
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm uh it's it's only for like a franchise major game is coming out, and so therefore I'm looking forward to it type of a situation.
• 1:31:54
  SPEAKER_00: But I think the last game, I'll put it to you this way, I think the last game that I bought like the day it came out was Baldur's Gate 3, and that's because it was Baldur's Gate 3.
• 1:32:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, how could you not?
• 1:32:04
  SPEAKER_00: Like uh so I'm I'm not the kind of person who's like, oh, this I I I don't follow gaming news pretty intentionally because so many of these things sound super cool and then they turn into vapor or something and I've got enough disappointments.
• 1:32:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:32:19
  SPEAKER_00: I don't need more stuff to mess with it, you know?
• 1:32:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I I tend to um uh I'm involved in the roguelike development community myself.
• 1:32:27
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so I yeah, I um there's a uh game jam called the seven day roguelik uh that's been going on yearly for a while now, but I've been doing it for a decade.
• 1:32:40
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so I yeah, so I uh and I'm currently working on a roguelike, I'll have to edit this out, but um yeah, I'm j I've been trying to follow game news less closely because like I don't have the time.
• 1:32:50
  SPEAKER_01: Uh given how many games I already have that I'm definitely not gonna ever finish.
• 1:32:55
  SPEAKER_01: Like, why should I be spending more money on these new games?
• 1:32:58
  SPEAKER_01: But roguelikes, I do try to like just because I'm interested in them professionally, I try to to keep my eye on them.
• 1:33:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I get it.
• 1:33:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um cool.
• 1:33:08
  SPEAKER_01: Uh that's really all the questions I had.
• 1:33:11
  SPEAKER_01: Uh it's been wonderful chatting with you.
• 1:33:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um I'm gonna do the courteous podcast host thing and ask, do you have anything that you want to plug?
• 1:33:21
  SPEAKER_01: Any like uh recent projects other than Fall and Rise or upcoming projects that you want to hike people up on or anything like that?
• 1:33:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um I do have uh uh a track I recently submitted to OCR that I'm super excited about, but it's not like some super duper project or like big thing that's coming out or anything.
• 1:33:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's just something that I thought was really cool and it was fun to be able to do.
• 1:33:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um so I would say no, I don't have any like major things that I'm like super hyped about right now.
• 1:33:49
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I always look forward to a new prophetic music track.
• 1:33:52
  SPEAKER_00: This one's gonna be interesting.
• 1:33:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um I asked eleven other people to contribute music to a remix blind.
• 1:34:02
  SPEAKER_00: I did not tell them the song, I gave them chords and time signatures and just told them to record whatever.
• 1:34:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um, that's a fascinating approach.
• 1:34:11
  SPEAKER_00: Uh yeah, it was something I saw on Facebook that unlike a real and I thought it was really cool.
• 1:34:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I was so of course I instead of doing four people like they did in the real, I chose a total of twelve people.
• 1:34:20
  SPEAKER_00: And once I went over and uh this one's actually for another Darren Corb song.
• 1:34:25
  SPEAKER_00: Uh once I got all the parts back, I made the arrangement and then contacted one of the musicians and that was had already contributed and said, Okay, this is what the song is.
• 1:34:34
  SPEAKER_00: Record melody here and record harmony here, and we're gonna make a thing out of it.
• 1:34:37
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, nobody had any idea what anybody else was gonna do.
• 1:34:41
  SPEAKER_00: I used everything I was given, which bit me a little bit because somebody quoted one of my judges' decisions in one of the in one of the sound effects that they submitted.
• 1:34:50
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and it was a good one too.
• 1:34:52
  SPEAKER_00: And uh and there's uh a whole bunch of just weirdness that I wound up having to combine and make work, and it it turned out, in my opinion, to be pretty good.
• 1:35:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um so I'm I'm really excited about it, but it's absolutely one of those things where um it's not like for some big project or something, it was just people submitted stuff, and then I mashed all the Lego blocks together until I got something that looked like a song.
• 1:35:16
  SPEAKER_01: So it sounds a little avant-garde, but I dig that, so I'm really looking forward to this.
• 1:35:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's not uh it just sounds like a pop, not pop, it just sounds like a like a like a song.
• 1:35:26
  SPEAKER_00: You you wouldn't know you you truly would because the melody line, you know, I didn't have to like splice together the melody line from like commercials or something.
• 1:35:34
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's since the melody and the harmony are intentional, you can't tell that everything else wasn't.
• 1:35:39
  SPEAKER_01: Oh fascinating.
• 1:35:40
  SPEAKER_01: I'm really looking forward to this.
• 1:35:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, you can keep track of it in the judging queue.
• 1:35:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's in there right now, I think.
• 1:35:46
  SPEAKER_00: So I will keep my eye on it.
• 1:35:48
  SPEAKER_01: Well, thank you again for your time.
• 1:35:50
  SPEAKER_01: This has been a fantastic chat.
• 1:35:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'm uh was really happy to be able to contribute.
• 1:35:55
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks so much for having me.
• 1:36:25
  SPEAKER_01: Exciting month, we don't always get a new surprise album.
• 1:36:29
  SPEAKER_01: If you want to talk about it, you should join the conversation.
• 1:36:33
  SPEAKER_01: We've been talking on the OCR Discord about how Fall and Rise is making us open up our wallets because how many cool games it showcases.
• 1:36:41
  SPEAKER_01: You can find a link to the Discord and the forums, both on the website, OCRemix.org.
• 1:36:47
  SPEAKER_01: Also on that main page is a link to the Patreon, which helps keep all these amazing remixes online.
• 1:36:54
  SPEAKER_01: And if you want to donate to the podcast specifically, you can do so at the podcast homepage.
• 1:37:00
  SPEAKER_01: Overclock remixpodcast.buzzsprout.com.
• 1:37:05
  SPEAKER_01: The podcast promise is that any money above and beyond podcast expenses goes straight to OCR itself.
• 1:37:12
  SPEAKER_01: Last but not least, we always close out the podcast with a random track selected from the remixed roulette section of the main page.
• 1:37:20
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna roll a six-eyed die and let's see what we get.
• 1:37:24
  SPEAKER_01: That's a three, so that's Notes from a Small Island by JJT from Chrono Trigger.
• 1:37:31
  SPEAKER_01: Alright, have a good one, and I'll catch you later.