Tag: Windows

#WeeklyGameMusic: Peper Steak (OFF)

Posted on by Taro Omiya

We’ve highlighted Mortis Ghost’s OFF in the #WeeklyGameMusic before…over five years ago. Since I consider that a long enough time to return back to the topic, let’s talk about the most memorable track in the game, Peper Steak by Alias Conrad Coldwood. It’s perhaps the most bizarre JRPG battle music I’ve heard to date.

OFF is a freeware RPG Maker game that takes the popular turn-based JRPG narrative and completely deconstructs it. The nefarious plot starts with you, the “puppeteer,” to take control of the Batter and “purify” the world. After all, if the game tells you specters are evil, then surely eradicating them is the right thing to do, right? So begins the Batter and your journey as you explore a universe composed of four basic elements: metal, meat, gas, and plastic. With it to (not) assist you are some of the most pathetic and scared NPCs to grace text on-screen, as you and the Batter takes down each guardian of this universe.

OFF uses a time-based battle system where the party attacks after their cooldown time is over, obviously taking inspirations from older Final Fantasy games. Since enemies can attack your party while you are making decisions, naturally, the game encourages you to make quick decisions. Otherwise, the usual RPG Maker fare applies: exploration is largely grid based in a stark, minimalist world. Objectives frequently involve the usual RPG tropes, including finding keys, trading items, entering codes, etc. Oddly enough, the game does feature an overworld…but mysteriously, is only one screen large. While purely there for aesthetics case, it does make the player start to question the intentions of Batter’s journey…

OFF is a free PC game that was originally written in French. A translated version is freely available at Starmen.net.

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

Posted on by Taro Omiya

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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#WeeklyGameMusic: Discothéque Rouge, After Hours (Monaco: What’s Yours Is Mine)

Posted on by Taro Omiya

Need a little more chiptune in your life? The absolutely talented Chipzel has you covered with this week’s #WeeklyGameMusic. Her remix of Discothéque Rouge, After Hours, from Pocketwatch Games’s multiplayer heist game, Monaco: What’s Yours Is Mine is some of the tastiest gems out their to savior. Enjoy it…while it lasts…

They can’t keep us locked in! Monaco: What’s Yours Is Mine begins with a group of criminals breaking out of prison, and sneaking out. The triumph is short-lived, however, when the company realizes they’re penniless and wanted. After much deliberation, the party comes to a decision: escape to Monaco, by every means possible. Thus begins their long journey of gathering more criminal connections to assist their freedom.

Monaco: What’s Yours Is Mine is an award-winning cooperative heist game. You and three other skilled thieves infiltrate heavily guarded buildings to — what else? — steal everything valuable. The innovation kicks in when every player realizes they’ll need to share information between each other as they deal with each character’s limited vision and hyper-specialized abilities. It’s pretty normal for something to go wrong during the heist: alarms triggering, guards taking notice, etc. After all, much of the fun is trying to figure out how to deal with the escalating situation amongst your group of friends.

Monaco: What’s Yours Is Mine is released on Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, Xbox 360, and Nintendo Switch. It’s also available on Steam.

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#WeeklyGameMusic: Curiosity (Frog Fractions)

Posted on by Taro Omiya

How do you compose an intelligent-sounding music for a comedy game that’s anything but? Indie game studio, Twinbeard might have an answer for you in this week’s #WeeklyGameMusic with Curiosity, composed by…Twinbeard. Let’s pretend to be smart by listening to this calming music from the parody edutainment Flash game, Frog Fractions, where it recounts the completely ridiculous “history” of boxing.

Hmm, how to describe Frog Fractions? Well, as one would expect, it features a frog, and a bunch of “fractional” insects trying to eat at its precious apples. By clicking on the insects, the frog will slurp it up, keeping the apples preserved. The frog earns points when it collects an apple that has dropped from a tree. Later, an upgrade allows the frog to swim right and left across the pond, as well as quite oddly, down. Swimming down will̷͇̈́.̵̢̉.̶̦͌.̶̣̀ḋ̷̘ő̷̤ ̶͈̐ṡ̸̭o̴̭͂m̷̜͝e̸͙͋t̸̮̃h̵̬̍ǐ̶̤n̵̠͆g̴̢̒.̵̪̽

Frog Fractions is available for free on PC via Steam.

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#WeeklyGameMusic: Time Unfolds (Arrangement 1) (Birthdays the Beginning)

Posted on by Taro Omiya

Allow time to fly by in this week’s #WeeklyGameMusic with the relaxing track, Time Unfolds (Arrangement 1) by Takayuki Nakamura. It’s the most common song that plays while playing TOYBOX Inc. & Arc System Works’ sandbox game, Birthdays the Beginning: a bizarre simulation about birthing new animals and species through terraforming. The music matches nicely to the mellow theme of the game that, quite frankly, is a lot more complex than the cutesy-graphics imply.

Like many highly-customizable games, Birthday the Beginnings have a story and creative mode. The narrative for the former stars an unnamed protagonist, who comes upon what seems like a mysterious treasure map. Curiosity gets the better of them, and they decides to follow its directions into a mysterious cave. When our hero delves too far into it, they seemingly get teleported into a new dimension where they can fly over a blank cube, and get pestered by an annoying Navi-like character explaining the rules. Our lead plants the “seed of life” handed to them onto the cube and starts terraforming in hopes of finding an escape from this dimension.

Birthday the Beginnings is essentially a simulation of evolution. Building mountains or digging valleys affects both the temperature of the new terrain, and the overall temperature of the cube. Balancing this aspect is critical to deliberately unlock more creatures, as older ones may need to die off. Aside from simply changing the land’s elevation, items are provided to augment the landscape slightly, including seeds of water and life to make waterfalls and new species accordingly.

Birthday the Beginnings was released on Steam for PC and Playstation 4. It’s sequel, Happy Birthdays, is seemingly only released in Japan for the Nintendo Switch.

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#WeeklyGameMusic: Opala (Two Worlds)

Posted on by Taro Omiya

Sometimes, this #WeeklyGameMusic post series likes to look into tracks from unexpected places. Take, for example, Two Worlds by Reality Pump: a game touted as the Oblivion/Skyrim-killer…then fall into complete obscurity as rapidly as it came in. It once returned back to fame in 2016’s Summer Games Done Quick…where a speedrunner beats it in less than 3 minutes. Well, surprise, surprise, the game has a really beautiful soundtrack! Opala, in particular is a stand-out composition from Harold Faltemeyer.

(Psst! You can buy the soundtrack on iTunes! music.apple.com/at/album/two-worlds/699269326)

Two Worlds opens with the hero’s sister getting kidnapped and held for ransom. It turns out the kidnappers are planning nefariously to unseal Aziraal, the god of fire, from its tomb. It’s up to you to rescue your beloved family member…by taking on a huge number of quests factions give you.

As one would expect of a game dubbed Oblivion-killer, Two Worlds is an open-world WRPG. Customization and freedom is the key goal of the game, as the hero’s individual attributes and skills can be incremented per level-up in any way the player pleases. Naturally, the player can gain favors from the game’s 7 factions by taking on quests each one gives, thus changing their alliances. And of course, if you really want to, you can outright kill villagers if you so desire. Normally a bad choice, but said mechanic can be taken advantage of…such as the aforementioned 3-minute-long speed run.

Two Worlds was released on Xbox 360 and PC. A sequel for the game was released as well, this time on Xbox 360, Playstation 3, PC, and Mac OSX.

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