Again, you can find Mike's score in a couple different places: rorasuketo.win, Bandcamp, and Apple Music.
I know you primarily as a music guy, but you are also quite the coder and have made your own games. What’s something a game designer might want that would make a coder’s life miserable? Give me some advice.
You’ve written a LOT, from chiptune to all manner of rock to contemporary classical. What opportunity did you see in Rorasuketo? What itch did you hope to scratch?
MC: Making
music is an impulse that I can only ignore for so long. Any new project
is an opportunity to satisfy that impulse. I made a soundtrack for a
non-existent (and was never meant to exist) game a long time ago, so I'd
had some experience with scoring another medium, but it had been a long
time, so I was primed to try it again. I had never used soundfonts to
make an entire album before, either, so the SNES-era theme of Rorasuketo
was perfect to inspire me to use SNES soundfonts for the soundtrack.
We worked together on a game back in 2014 that was unfortunately scrapped. And Rorasuketo has gone through some pretty big dry spells. But you were “all in” on those projects, from what I can tell. Both scores have 25+ tracks. If someone approached you right now about scoring a game in progress, would you approach it differently? It’s got to be at least a little discouraging to see a project dry up.
MC: I
would approach an existing game differently than a new one, much like I
approach existing code projects differently than ones I start fresh.
There is an initial process of observing, absorbing, and understanding
the existing infrastructure so that I could somewhat describe it to
someone else. Conventions are important to keep so that my contribution
"fits in" with what has come before. That being said, once I get past
that stage my own style will eventually start to seep in until the
resulting soup is some mixture of existing stuff and my new stuff. The
only downside of this is that I probably won't try as hard to experiment
since my energy will be split between that and simply retaining the
existing structure.
Okay, so I really like working on SNES-inspired graphics because of the color and pixel limitations. What musical limitations, if any, spark creativity for you?
MC: The
games I did in Pico-8 also allowed for sound and music creation using a
built-in tracker, which uses simple waveforms (and a noise channel) to
produce its audio, so I'm familiar with such aural limitations.
Restrictions in art are great, because they not only focus your palette
but challenge you to do more with less. Also, video game soundtracks in
my childhood eventually became my current "classic rock". The generation
before me hears stuff from the 60s and 70s as "classic", and I hear the
80s and 90s as "classic" in the same way. I played many video games as a
kid (and still do!), and so Koji Kondo and Nobuo Uematsu are just as
influential as anything Michael Jackson or Pearl Jam may have released.
Can you list all of the game soundfonts you used for Rorasuketo? For posterity.
MC: I
never made a list of them before, and this required me to use a hex
editor on the original Logic Pro project files (because I didn't want to
have to open 20+ projects), but here ya go:
01 Main Theme - Chrono Trigger, Earthbound, Lufia, Secret of Mana, Simcity, Tales of Phantasia
02 Apartment, Calm - Tales of Phantasia
03 Apartment, Busy - FF4, FF6, FFMQ, Illusion of Gaia, Super Mario RPG
04 Rest - Donkey Kong Country, FF5
05 Main Street USA - Chrono Trigger, Earthbound, FF4, FF5, Lufia, Secret of Mana
06 Roller Derby 1 - Battletoads, FF4, Final Fight, Mega Man X2
07 Lala Theme - Donkey Kong Country, Earthbound, FF5, FF6
08 Intrigue - Chrono Trigger, Doom, Donkey Kong Country, Dracula X
09 Rumble Battle - Battletoads, FF4, Romancing SaGa
10 Clinic, Story - Chrono Trigger, Earthbound, F-Zero, FF6, FFMQ, Starfox
11 Roller Derby 2 - Battletoads, FF4, Secret of Mana
12 Lost - Chrono Trigger, FF5, Secret of Evermore
13 Main Street New York - Earthbound, Final Fight, Lufia, Romancing SaGa, Secret of Mana
14 Ponder - FF4
15 Suspicion - FF4, Secret of Evermore
16 Skate Sisters - Battletoads, Clayfighter, F-Zero, FF4, Starfox
17 Roller Derby 3 - Battletoads, FF4, Secret of Mana
18 Clinic, Quiet - Battletoads, Chrono Trigger, Earthbound, FF4, Secret of Evermore
19 Roller Derby 4 - Battletoads, FF4, Romancing SaGa
20 Main Street Texas - Chrono Trigger, Illusion of Gaia, Mystical Ninja, Sunset Riders
21 Coast Slumming - Battletoads, Doom, FF4, FFMQ, Romancing SaGa
22 The Stars/Las Estrellas - Donkey Kong Country, Earthbound, Secret of Evermore, Simcity
23 Skating Rink - Battletoads, F-Zero, FF4, Final Fight, Starfox
24 Grace - FF4
You’re going to put together a band to cover the Rorasuketo soundtrack and you can have any musicians you want, alive or dead. Who’s in?
MC: Drums: Neil Peart
Rhythm Guitar: Eddie van Halen
Lead Guitar: Joe Satriani
Bass: Jaco Pastorius
Vox(?): Freddie Mercury
You perform with a band called Fly Like Venus, and I also know you’ve written your own songs with lyrics. If you were going to put lyrics to any Rorasuketo track, which one might it be, and what would the lyrics be about?
MC: I
feel like one of the slow songs, like Lost (迷う) or Ponder (思案), would
work best. Unlike songs I've written with words, which is still uncommon
for me, I heard the melodies for these tracks in my head clearly, but
never any lyrics. All I know is they would be sung by a Japanese female
in the Japanese language, so I wouldn't know what was being sung, anyway
;P
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