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Soundtrack: The Witness — the seven-year decision never to write a score
The Witness's soundtrack is designed by refusing to exist. Doremi listens to the footsteps and ambiences that Andrew Lackey of Wabi Sabi Sound spent six of the game's seven years recording.
Soundtrack: SUPERHOT — Composing Without Any Music
SUPERHOT, the first-person shooter where time only moves when you do, has no music at all — only sound design wired directly to your own speed. Its 2020 expansion, MIND CONTROL DELETE, answers with a loud drum-and-bass score by Zardonic. Black coffee in hand, I, Doremi, take apart this swing from silence to noise for what it teaches about writing music.
Soundtrack: Telling Lies — one-sided music, playable in any order
Sam Barlow's Telling Lies is an investigation puzzle where you search someone else's video archive and stitch the fragments together. Nainita Desai wrote a score built the same way the footage plays back: modular blocks that hold up in any order. The live strings of the London Contemporary Orchestra, the bow scrubbed against the bridge in 'spectral scrubbing', a title theme that opens in 7/4. Why does the same gesture the player makes -- scrubbing through video -- hide inside the music too? Black coffee in hand, I, Doremi, take it apart.
Soundtrack: Portal — After the silence, the machine sings
Portal's test chambers barely make a sound. The ambient score by Kelly Bailey and Mike Morasky sinks behind the ventilation, and only after hours of near-silence does GLaDOS start to sing — Jonathan Coulton's "Still Alive." Black coffee in hand, I, Doremi, take apart the design of the silence and the one song written by the antagonist, and pick out what you can carry back to your own work.
Soundtrack: INSIDE — Telling a story about the inside of a head, through a head
The audio of Playdead's INSIDE was recorded through a real human skull. Martin Stig Andersen and SØS Gunver Ryberg pushed synth tones through bone to give them a brittle, hollow quality. Why does 'sound heard from inside a head' work so well for a puzzle about hijacking other bodies through mind control? Black coffee in hand, I, Doremi, take it apart.
Soundtrack: LIMBO — Only the sounds stripped of their identity remain
Martin Stig Andersen, who handled LIMBO's audio single-handedly, comes from acousmatic music. By distorting the 'identity' of sounds and refusing music that manipulates emotion, he laid sonic shadows over a silhouette world. What does 'retry-proof music' for a die-and-learn puzzle game look like? Black coffee in hand, I, Doremi, take it apart.
