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Related essays
Soundtrack: Mini Metro — the chords a subway map plays back
The music of the transit puzzle Mini Metro is a generative system in which every line you draw reshapes the harmony itself. Composer Disasterpeace (Rich Vreeland) spent ninety percent of production coding rather than writing notes, and gave each city its own harmonic character. Doremi reads, from a composer's chair, a score that keeps sounding between congestion and breathing room.
Soundtrack: Creaks — A 'living' score that is born anew every time
For Amanita Design's Creaks, Joe Acheson wrote a 'living soundtrack' of more than a hundred pieces that branch generatively. Return to the same room and it never plays the same way twice, and when a solution is near an instrument quietly joins in to nudge you forward. In a mansion with no dialogue and no on-screen text, the music becomes your only companion. Black coffee in hand, I, Doremi, take it apart through the lens of writing your own music.
Soundtrack: Antichamber — Music that grows a layer the deeper you go
The music Siddhartha Barnhoorn wrote for Antichamber is neither a loop nor silence. Thin layers crossfade and stack, never repeating the same combination twice, thickening as you push further in: a living ambient bed. Black coffee in hand, I, Doremi, take apart why this sound follows you through impossible spaces without ever coming undone, through a lens you can take home to your own composing.
Soundtrack: COCOON — Music that plays on without becoming wallpaper
The music Jakob Schmid wrote for COCOON is almost entirely synthesized, and most of it is generated in real time. It is neither a looped bed nor a vow of silence, but a third path. Black coffee in hand, I, Doremi, take apart why this music can run continuously without ever turning into 'wallpaper,' through a lens you can take home to your own composing.
