TAG
#ambient
0 篇评论 · 34 篇随笔
相关随笔
Soundtrack: TOEM — written 90 percent pretty, 10 percent playful, for a game about walking
TOEM is an observation-and-exploration puzzle game where you walk a black-and-white, papercraft-like town taking photographs. Composed by Jamal Green and Launchable Socks (Joost Kraaijenbrink), the score is checked against a Game Developer interview: deliberate silence and ambient sound placed between tracks, and a stated "90 percent pretty, 10 percent cute" philosophy. Doremi listens for how the camera's unhurried pace and the music's unhurried pace line up.
Soundtrack: Quern - Undying Thoughts — a score that doesn't rush you, so it can protect your long thinking
Quern - Undying Thoughts is a Myst-like puzzle game built around studying mechanisms and reusing the same tools with new meanings. Composed by Marcell Kerepesi, its official soundtrack runs 38 tracks over roughly 115 minutes. Doremi checks reviews that praise its unrushed, meditative score, and listens for why it never steps on the machinery sounds that are themselves the puzzle clues, and how its tempo balances against a puzzle design built on returning again and again.
Soundtrack: Infinifactory — the factory sound that never rushes you, no matter how many rebuilds it takes
Infinifactory is Zachtronics' puzzle game where an abducted human builds factory lines for unseen aliens. The score is by Matthew S Burns, the same composer behind EXAPUNKS and SHENZHEN I/O. Scoring only happens after you run your build, and the loops sit at an unhurried 67–98 BPM. I, Doremi, take apart what a composer can learn from a soundtrack built never to rush you.
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: Terra Nil — music written for an ending, on a wasteland
The music of Terra Nil was written by French ambient composer Meydän. Its track titles trace the game's own arc — purify, plant, leave — and this "0 BPM" score, unusually, even writes itself an ending. Black coffee in hand, I, Doremi, dig out what a composer can steal from it.
Soundtrack: The Vanishing of Ethan Carter — chords with the third removed, built to make you walk
For a mystery you wander with no map and no HUD, Mikolai Stroinski wrote a score of fourths and fifths that never commit to major or minor, seeding a solo-piano theme, Ethan's Theme, through the rest of the album in disguise. Doremi, coffee in hand, takes apart the hidden link between a game built from scattered memories you must reorder and a score built from a single theme's fragments you can't quite name.
Soundtrack: Firmament — the memory of one synth, filling a rusted planet
Maclaine Diemer chose the same synthesizer Myst's composer Robyn Miller once played, and carried that sonic memory forward into a new generation. Including the story of how he first met Firmament as a single Kickstarter backer and later became its composer, I, Doremi, take apart the 'almost entirely synth, with two or three exceptions' score of this single-tool first-person puzzler — with a black coffee in hand, through a lens you can carry home to your own composing.
Soundtrack: Dorfromantik — a breath of sound that never keeps score
For Dorfromantik, a game about nothing more than laying hexagonal tiles, Laryssa Okada and Pygoscelis (with Only Sound) laid down a carpet of sound that never announces a win or a loss. No fanfare rings out for points, no tension spikes at a perfect fit. Roughly counting the BPM, black coffee in hand, I, Doremi, trace this design of 'never sounding off' back through the label credits and developer background.
Soundtrack: Monument Valley — An accompaniment, not a guide
The music Stafford Bawler, Obfusc and Grigori wrote for ustwo games' optical-illusion puzzle Monument Valley never pushes to the front with melody. What accompanies the short journey of rotating isometric monuments into paths is soft-edged ambient and a single chord that rings each time you turn a column. Black coffee in hand, I, Doremi, take it apart through one lens: how does music that stays pure accompaniment become something you can touch?
Soundtrack: Myst — the presence that flowed into an island that had decided against music
Cyan's Robyn Miller first intended to put no music in Myst at all, believing it would get in the way of the puzzles. But a few tests showed that sound did help 'the mood of the places' — and so roughly forty minutes of music, written on a single synth across two weeks of evenings, later flowed into the island. Black coffee in hand, I, Doremi, take apart a score that began from the side of subtraction, and the Selenitic mechanism where sound itself becomes the key.
Soundtrack: Timelie — Rewindable music, built for scrubbing time
A girl and a black cat escape by scrubbing time itself back and forth like a media player. Under that board you hear piano, a music box, and — sounds sampled from an array of clocks. Pongsathorn Posayanonth and Aun Jessada wove 'the sound of time' into the score. Black coffee in hand, I take apart music written on the assumption that the player will constantly rewind, in a form you can carry home to your own work.
Taiji 的原声带 — 在沉默的系谱里，偏偏选择继续鸣响
Taiji 是《The Witness》的直系后代。但本家舍弃音乐、把赌注押在环境音上，这座岛却选择了持续铺陈永不停歇的氛围音。作曲是开发者本人 Matthew VanDevander，再由 Grzegorz Bednorz 重新编织成一张有限的专辑。端着一杯黑咖啡，我 Doremi 来拆解“继续鸣响”这个选择为何与观察类解谜如此契合——拆到可以带回自己的作曲里的程度。
Soundtrack: Etherborn — gravity changes direction, but the music never falls over
Walk onto a curved surface and only your own gravity flips — Etherborn's puzzles are quiet and never rush you. As a voiceless, translucent being you gather orbs of light and climb Escher-like abstract architecture. Inside that inorganic geometry, the one thing that sounds with body heat is Gabriel Garrido García's music: a string quartet, clarinet, bassoon, and soprano recorded live in Barcelona. Exactly seven years after its release today, I, Doremi, take apart the sound of this small gem over a black coffee.
Soundtrack: Riven — On an island where you stand still, the music refuses to conclude
Cyan's Robyn Miller returned after 27 years to re-voice, for the 2024 remake, the music he first wrote for Riven. On an island you can wander freely, the score is not allowed to swell — and in a puzzle-adventure of observation and note-taking, water and machinery, not melody, take the lead. Black coffee in hand, I, Doremi, take it apart.
Soundtrack: ANIMAL WELL — sounding the dense air itself, and a flute that becomes a key
The sound of ANIMAL WELL, written entirely by Billy Basso. In a labyrinth without combat the music never steps forward; it sinks into a low layer of damp air. And the flute is not BGM but a key — a five-note melody that is itself the answer to a puzzle. Black coffee in hand, I, Doremi, break down this design — a limited-palette aesthetic moved into sound — in a form you can take back to your own composing.
Soundtrack: SHENZHEN I/O — music that names your concentration in its titles
SHENZHEN I/O is a programming puzzle where you write terse assembly for a fictional Shenzhen manufacturer. Matthew S Burns, who wrote its story and art, wrote the music too. The nine track titles — 'Enthusiasm,' 'Concentration,' 'Patience' — name not the scenery but the stations of the solver's mind. Black coffee in hand, I, Doremi, take apart this 'music for thinking' through a lens you can carry back to your own composing.
Soundtrack: FRACT OSC — solve the puzzle and the music grows back
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.
The Gardens Between 的原声音乐——即便倒流时间，声音也绝不倒退
Tim Shiel 为 The Gardens Between 所写的音乐，尽管这是一款可以把时间前后倒流的游戏，音乐本身却绝不会被逆向播放。我 Doremi 端着一杯黑咖啡，从可以带回自己创作中的视角出发，拆解为什么“即便倒流也不会倒退的声音”对这款记忆解谜游戏如此奏效。
Soundtrack: IMMORTALITY — recording a theme together with its dark underside
You chase a vanished actor through her unreleased films by scrubbing footage — and for Sam Barlow / Half Mermaid's live-action mystery IMMORTALITY, Nainita Desai wrote three orchestral themes, one for each of the three films. What is really interesting is that each theme carries shadows: a 'subverted' version and a 'supernatural' version, and which one sounds is switched by the metadata of the footage you are on. I, Doremi, black coffee in hand, take apart this design of building a theme together with its twin underside, in a form you can carry home to your own composing.
Soundtrack: Viewfinder — music that breathes with the hand that places a photo
Take a photograph, paste it into the world, and the two-dimensional image becomes solid — the music Aether (Jason Taylor) wrote for Sad Owl Studios' Viewfinder is downtempo that keeps company with this strange act without ever rushing it. The track names split into Lounge and Domain, mapping the very skeleton of the game. Including the fact that the composer is legally blind and builds by ear, I, Doremi, take it apart, black coffee in hand, through a lens you can carry home to your own composing.
Superliminal原声带——让人安心的声音最可疑
醒来发现自己在梦境疗愈项目的候诊室里。Matt Christensen为Superliminal创作的是钢琴家John Reeves演奏的休息区爵士乐，宛如酒店大厅里飘荡的旋律。舒适感既是武器，也是最大的misdirection——就像这款视角改变物体大小的第一人称解谜游戏本身一样。手握黑咖啡，我Doremi从作曲可以借鉴的角度，将这张专辑拆解分析。
Soundtrack: TUNIC — Music that turns like the pages of a manual
The 60 tracks Terence Lee (Lifeformed) and Janice Kwan wrote for TUNIC lean on the memory of retro game music without hiding inside the quotation. Built from samples of stray cats and summer wind recorded in the alleys of Taipei, it lives between the artificial and the organic. Black coffee in hand, I, Doremi, take apart how this game of gathering fragments to read a world meshes with its music, through a lens you can carry back to your own composing.
Soundtrack: Opus Magnum — A loop that never insists, beside an optimization that never ends
For Zachtronics' alchemy puzzle Opus Magnum, Matthew S Burns wrote both the story and the music. Seamlessly looping machines, and a lounge-style loop that hides its own seams. Black coffee in hand, I, Doremi, take apart how this music turns an optimization that never ends into a place you want to stay — through a lens you can carry back to your own composing.
Soundtrack: Obduction — Music that changes its timbre from world to world
Robyn Miller, who wrote the music for Myst and Riven, came back to Cyan's worlds after twenty years. The music of Obduction changes its very timbre each time a world changes. Including how he made it — looping footage of someone walking on his iPad and finding the themes on his piano — I, Doremi, take it apart with a black coffee in hand, through a lens you can carry home to your own composing.
The Swapper 原声带——从冰箱和录像带中诞生的宇宙
废弃的宇宙飞船。通过复制自身并交换操控权前进的 The Swapper，其音效由 Carlo Castellano 一人独力完成——音乐与音效概莫能外。飞船的轰鸣声来自插进冰箱里的麦克风，脚步声来自压碎旧 VHS 录像带的声音。将手工制作的世界与手工打造的音效叠加意味着什么？每间房间手续性响起的独特环境音设计，以及即兴诞生的《Recreation》。手捧黑咖啡，我 Doremi 来拆解这些无法捕捉拍点的声音。
Manifold Garden 原声带——落下再返回的音
选择重力，落到底部，从天花板重新出现的无限建筑。Laryssa Okada 为此写就的音乐，由没有终止的弦乐与合成垫音构成，与循环的空间有着相似的构造。我 Doremi 手捧黑咖啡，从可以带回自己作曲的视角，分解这明明在循环却听不出「重复感」的音。
FEZ 的原声音乐 — 将8比特带到现代的声音
Rich Vreeland（Disasterpeace）为 FEZ 创作的音乐，拥有芯片音乐的词汇，却以混响和比特破碎磨去棱角，将其带往新时代音乐的广阔空间。随高度和时间段变换形态的动态音效设计，以及在频谱图中隐藏图像的「音乐本身即是谜题」的机关。我 Doremi 手持黑咖啡，从可以带回曲子创作的视角来拆解它。
Antichamber 的原声 — 越往深处走，层数越多的声音
Siddhartha Barnhoorn 为 Antichamber 写的音乐既不是循环，也不是沉默。一层层单薄的音色交叉淡入、彼此叠加，从不重复同一种组合，越往深处走就越厚重，是一床活着的环境音乐。我 Doremi 端着黑咖啡，从你能带回自己创作的角度，拆解为什么这片声音能跟着你穿过不可能的空间却始终不散。
A Monster's Expedition 的原声 — 节奏不在曲子里,在你的指尖上
在这部推倒树木、滚动圆木、从岛到岛跨行的开放世界仓库番里,Eli Rainsberry 写下的音乐把节奏从脊柱里抽掉了。那么拍子去了哪里——搬进了 UI,也就是你的操作音里。十五首吉他与钢琴的曲子像思考的海一样漂浮,节奏由你的手敲出。黑咖啡在手,我把这套分工设计拆成你能带回自己创作的样子。
Blue Prince 的原声音乐 — 连音乐都被抽取的宅邸
Blue Prince 的音乐是荷兰二人组 Trigg & Gusset 的 dark jazz。几乎没有打击乐,探索大半无声,音乐只在特定房间立起。作曲家写草稿,开发者把它们『抽取』进宅邸。我 Doremi 端着黑咖啡,找找这套不响的设计里能偷走什么。
Gorogoa 的原声 — 拼贴每一次叠合,声音也叠合
Joel Corelitz 为 Gorogoa 写的音乐几乎不立旋律与和弦,只用织体放下「那个场所的情绪」。而且每一块拼贴各自绑着一小段曲子,带着叠加的规则相互组合——重排画面的谜题本身,也在声音里发生。黑咖啡在手,我 Doremi 把它的设计拆成你能带回自己创作的样子。
The Talos Principle 的原声 — 用一条持续音造出来的乐园
为 Serious Sam 写了十六年轰鸣音乐的 Croteam 作曲家 Damjan Mravunac,在这部哲学谜题里刻意放弃了节奏与旋律,铺下一条漫长的持续音。在圣歌飘荡的假乐园里,这音乐为何听十四小时也不腻?我 Doremi 端着黑咖啡,读一读这张双层结构的设计图。
Patrick's Parabox 的原声带 — 每多一个箱子,音就解开一些
Priscilla Snow 为递归仓库番 Patrick's Parabox 写的音乐,稳坐在电子音与氛围之间——既温和又带提问感的伴奏。每出现一种新机构,音色就更新一次,曲名几乎就是机制的名字。本文以可带回作曲的视角,拆解为什么这种音不会妨碍长考。
Lorelei and the Laser Eyes 的原声带 — 落在酒店黑暗里的钢琴
Simogo 那部难解的观察谜题《Lorelei and the Laser Eyes》。Daniel Olsén 等人写的音乐,以德彪西与萨蒂为底色,把钢琴放在中心,数字与原声彼此交融。本文以作曲视角,读它对长考有效的「音的摆位」与画面之间的隐性一致。
