Part 7 · Sound — Music That Supports Thinking
Chapter 17
Sound That Never Becomes Wallpaper
10 articles
Eight contrasting solutions. COCOON's sustain, The Witness's silence, Outer Wilds's music as tool, Papers, Please's start-of-day cue, FRACT's music that grows as you solve, Baba's loop that never scolds.
Articles in this chapter
- 1.Soundtrack: COCOON — Music that plays on without becoming wallpaper2026-05-30 · Doremi · 4 min
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.
- 2.Soundtrack: The Witness — the seven-year decision never to write a score2026-08-29 · Doremi · 4 min
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.
- 3.Soundtrack: Outer Wilds — When music becomes a tool for solving2026-05-30 · Doremi · 6 min
Andrew Prahlow's score for Outer Wilds is not background music to leave running. Most of the time it stays silent; when it sounds, it is the signal of discovery; and at times the instruments themselves become tools of exploration. Black coffee in hand, I — Doremi — take apart how this music works, through a lens you can take home to your own composing and design.
- 4.Soundtrack: Papers, Please — It plays at the top of the day, then the stamp takes over2026-06-13 · Doremi · 7 min
You sit in an inspection booth hunting for discrepancies in documents. The music Lucas Pope wrote himself is barely a thirty-second anthem. It blares at the top of each day, then withdraws once inspection begins. What carries on is the sound of the stamp, the shuffle of paper — a beat tapped out by the player. Black coffee in hand, I take apart this 'play it at the top, then go quiet' design in a form you can carry home to your own composing.
- 5.Soundtrack: Baba Is You — A small loop that never scolds you for being wrong2026-06-01 · Doremi · 5 min
The music of Baba Is You is chiptune written in a tracker (OpenMPT) by Arvi 'Hempuli' Teikari, who made the entire game alone. It is a game you retry hundreds of times, yet the music announces neither victory nor defeat — it just keeps spinning a bright little loop. Black coffee in hand, I, Doremi, take apart why this 'music that never scolds' keeps trial-and-error feeling light, through a lens you can take home to your own writing.
- 6.Soundtrack: FRACT OSC — solve the puzzle and the music grows back2026-07-11 · Doremi · 5 min
The music Alex Taam (Mogi Grumbles) wrote for FRACT OSC is not playing as a finished piece from the start. Each puzzle you solve in its ruined synthesizer world switches on one more layer - a bass, a pad, an arpeggio - until the player's own hands have assembled the score. Using the composer's own statement that he kept every piece in C pentatonic minor as a thread, black coffee in hand, I, Doremi, take it apart through a lens you can bring back to your own composing.
- 7.Soundtrack: Portal 2 — Music a machine wrote, assembling itself as you solve2026-06-06 · Doremi · 4 min
The music Mike Morasky wrote for Portal 2 is not something you put on and listen to; it assembles itself while you are mid-puzzle. Step on an Aerial Faith Plate, ride an Excursion Funnel, and the music adds another layer. Black coffee in hand, I, Doremi, take apart why this score sounds like a computer composed it, and what you can steal for your own work.
- 8.Soundtrack: A Monster's Expedition — The rhythm isn't in the music, it's in your fingertips2026-06-12 · Doremi · 4 min
For an open-world Sokoban about toppling trees and rolling logs between islands, Eli Rainsberry wrote music with the rhythm removed from its spine. So where did the beat go? It moved into the UI — into the sounds your own actions make. Fifteen guitar-and-piano tracks drift like the sea of your thinking, while the rhythm is tapped out by your hands. Black coffee in hand, I take this division of labor apart in a form you can carry home to your own composing.
- 9.Soundtrack: Thimbleweed Park — music that decided never to give a hint2026-08-06 · Doremi · 5 min
The music Steve Kirk wrote for Thimbleweed Park does not help you solve anything. Step on a thing, push a thing, and it never tells you where the answer is. On a palette of theremin, lounge and prog, all he plays is the air of a town that functions. Black coffee in hand, I, Doremi, take apart why this music refuses to hint, and what you can steal from the 'pool' system he built for each location.
- 10.Inside Tetsuya Mizuguchi's Philosophy — Designing Senses, Not Genres2026-06-10 · Kizuki · 9 min
A study of Tetsuya Mizuguchi — creator of Rez, Lumines and Tetris Effect — across four of his own interviews. His consistent philosophy of designing sensation rather than genre and aiming to “make people cry,” his dilemma over what to add to a classic, and influences from Kandinsky to a single night at a music festival, traced only through source-checked statements.