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Soundtrack: Day of the Tentacle Remastered — one mansion, scored by three composers across three centuries
Day of the Tentacle is a time-travel adventure where three heroes solve one puzzle across the past, present, and future of a single mansion. The score splits the same way — Bajakian scored the past, McConnell the present, Land the future — and LucasArts' adaptive music system iMUSE lets it shift smoothly, scene by scene. Over black coffee, I trace how the same trick that turns wine into vinegar for the puzzle happens to the music too.
Soundtrack: Return to Monkey Island — the notes a skull sings open the map
Ron Gilbert's pirate comedy came full circle after thirty years, and the composers who invented iMuse itself — Michael Land, Peter McConnell, and Clint Bajakian — came back with it. From the specific notes hidden inside a skull-striking map puzzle to the way melodies change their breathing every time you walk through a door, I, Doremi, trace the design through verified interviews and credits, black coffee in hand.
Soundtrack: Grim Fandango Remastered — the first big-band beat in the land of the dead
Peter McConnell's score paints the dead's four-year journey in film-noir big-band jazz, Mexican folk music, and orchestra. How does iMUSE, its dynamic music system, mesh with the time of an adventure where you get stuck and return to the same room? I write it in my own words, as a piece about design you can carry home.
Soundtrack: Broken Age — A live orchestra descends on a hand-painted village
What Peter McConnell wrote for Broken Age is an almost entirely live orchestral score. The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and a small ensemble breathe in a way no sample can. Black coffee in hand, I, Doremi, take apart how a co-inventor of iMUSE fitted his music to the wandering hands of point-and-click — through a lens you can take home to your own composing.
