Making Game Music From Scratch

I needed background music for ClassicRPG, the little Zelda-style game I’ve been building (the old top-down kind, not Ocarina of Time), and I couldn’t write any. Also, hunting for music online makes me sad.

That’s not quite fair. I could open FL Studio and put notes on a grid. What I couldn’t do was put notes on a grid on purpose. I felt confused. I had some memory of how to read Tuba sheet music from high school, and I like to learn. So I buckled down and cracked open some articles/books. Here’s what stuck out to me, and the first iteration of my process since I plan on doing this more for other games.

First, here’s what I ended up with:

The Overworld

This is the overworld theme. I wanted something reminiscent of the Hyrule Field themes from Zelda, and I like to think I got fairly close. It’s a march. The melody turned out somewhat more frantic than I intended. Next time I’m going to try to slow down and leave notes alone to carry their weight more.

The Cave

This track was much more experimental. I wanted it to feel like the cave themes in Mario or Pokemon, with an unobtrusive, bass-y groove. I layered some plink-y synths on top to give it the “drip drip” you might expect to find in a cave, along with some garbled jump-scares that hopefully sound like something spooky making noises in the dark. When showing this to friends, I actually got some compliments, which surprised me a little.

Why Chiptunes?

Chiptunes are neat. They’re tiny synths that work as entire instruments on little game consoles. They have technical limitations that force composers to keep things simple, and those restrictions simplified the learning experience for me. Plus, ClassicRPG was made in a pretty chunky pixel art style, so it fit.

The Process

After my adventure, I can say that the process is still pretty simple. Pick a key (in both cases C Major here for simplicity), pick a chord progression, then place notes on key that match the current chord in the progression until you stop wincing. It’s fun, and it definitely pushed me over the Dunning-Kruger curve. I remember going for walks after spending hours fiddling with one track, while listening to legendary composers like Koji Kondo tear my ego apart with a masterful key switch.

So Now What?

Now, with ClassicRPG waiting in the wings for a final release as a demo, and a new project coming soon, I’m excited to pick this up again. I’d like to try some new keys (or maybe attempt a masterful key-switch myself). Music and SFX are such a big part of my personal experience with games, and they don’t get much attention at my job. I was glad to slow down and give it some attention myself.