2.5D Archives - Taro Omiya

Regulars of #WeeklyGameMusic know I often find some rather obscure game music pretty often. Here’s one from a little-known sandbox game called Create, developed by EA Bright Light. That’s right, we’re checking out Electronic Arts game music this week! Ian Livingstone’s piece, Skate Park Shuffle, is a bit corporate at the beginning, but soon mellows out to a rather calming (and more interesting) conclusion.

A bit like the The Incredible Machine, the most game-like aspect of Create involves the player to use the items and tools available in the pre-made levels to push, nudge, and navigate an object from point A to point B. Much of these levels take place in the 2D plane to provide a simpler interface, though lanes of depth can be added like LittleBigPlanet. And of course, much like LittleBigPlanet, Create allowed players to create and share levels online, though as of this writing, the servers has long been shut down.

Create was released on PlayStation 3, Wii, Xbox 360, PC, and Mac. As far as this writer can tell, there does not appear to be a way to purchase the game online easily, but the official game page is available here: ea.com/games/create

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You’d think a jazzy composition wouldn’t work too well on a game that requires paying close attention to the music’s rhythm, but the auto-runner Bit.Trip Presents…Runner2: Future Legend of Rhythm Alien (phew!), developed by Choice Provisions, throws away all common sense and just makes it happen. Whetfahrt Cheesefunk, composed by Matthew Harwood, takes a nice, soft swinging beat, and crescendos it to a deliciously chaotic composition. An interesting decision for a game that demands every single fiber of the player’s attention, lest they get hit, and be forced to replay from the beginning of the level.

The game’s album is available on Bandcamp, by the way: choiceprovisions.bandcamp.com/track/whetfahrt-cheesefunk

Runner2 is a bizarre side-story the happens between two Bit.Trip series entries, Runner and Fate. In short, series villain Mingrawn Timbletot fires a laser at Commander Video, thus whisking him away into a new dimension…the 3D realm! Tired plot point aside, this leaves Commander Video doing what he already does best in Bit.Trip Runner: keep running right in hopes of finding an exit out of this world.

While an auto-runner in the same vain as Canabult, Runner2 has multiple levels with a clear ending, collectibles, and even boss battles. Naturally as the music would imply, the audio design is the primary highlight of Runner2, making it a stand-out among other games in the same genre. Obstacles and collectibles are deliberately placed to create a sense of rhythm and memorization one would expect from music games. On top of this, each successful action is awarded with a note that, stung together, creates a procedurally generated music matching with the composition already playing in the background. In essence, the player gets to feel like they’re composing music.

Runner2 is available on Windows, OS X, and Linux via Steam; Playstation Vita, 3, and 4; iOS, Xbox 360, and finally, Wii U.

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Tag: 2.5D

#WeeklyGameMusic: Skate Park Shuffle (Create)

#WeeklyGameMusic: Whetfahrt Cheesefunk (Bit.Trip Presents…Runner2: Future Legend of Rhythm Alien)