In early 1996, Squaresoft released Treasure Conflix and three other exclusive titles for the Satellaview Broadcast Satellite system, an add-on for the Super Famicom. The soundtrack was written by longtime composer Junya Nakano. The game is an aerial combat and RPG hybrid where you split your time between fighting other airships in real time and traveling to small caves and towns to find upgrades for your airship. It remains untranslated but it isn't some long lost classic; the gameplay is servic...
Dec 07, 2020•37 min
The most interesting thing about Aworg: Hero in the Sky is that it was released on Sega Meganet, an early online service and precursor to the Sega Channel. Released in 1991 by Sega, Aworg is a short and fairly unremarkable action game where you traverse a maze in a robotic suit that can fly around, dash, and push enemies away with its jet stream. The game is short, and can be beaten in about 20 minutes with practice. The music is credited to "Bambi" whose real name is unknown, but they were most...
Nov 30, 2020•19 min
Nothing beats Go on the go, and that's exactly what you get with 1500DS Spirits Volume 10: Igo! Game developer and cosmetics company Tasuke put out a number of these budget titles for the DS and DSiWare around 2007-2008, consisting mostly of board and card games. They're similar to the more well known D3 "Simple" series of budget titles. Igo is the 10th and final game in the 1500DS Spirits series, released in May of 2008. We weren't able to find a composer for the game but it's another short epi...
Nov 23, 2020•30 min
In the late 90s, programmable robot toys were becoming popular and WonderBorg was no exception. Released by Bandai in 2000 for the WonderSwan and later for the PC, WonderBorg was a kit that included a programmable beetle robot and a application called Robot Works which allowed you to send basic commands to it. The WonderBorg featured a number of sensors to give it some awareness of the world and it was capable of some moderately sophisticated conditional programming. It featured a simple code-fr...
Oct 17, 2020•32 min
In 1995, the movie Waterworld was released and the real world was changed forever. As we pass the 25th anniversary, we attempt to rehabilitate the reputation of a perfectly competent mid 90s action film and then "dive" into the music of the many licensed cash-in games that followed the film's release. The bulk of the Waterworld games were fittingly developed and/or published in 1995 by Ocean Software for the SNES, Virtual Boy, and Game Boy. They're a series of action games featuring a combinatio...
Sep 17, 2020•1 hr 31 min
Aqua Kitty is an indie game success story. Developed by Tikipod and initially released in 2012 as a Playstation Mobile game, it saw continued releases with new features and improvements up to its most recent release on Switch in 2018, and it remains a blast to play today. We're very lucky to be joined by the game's composer, Mark Day (aka Electric Cafe) to talk about the music for Aqua Kitty in its various incarnations, as well as several other projects he's worked on. The game is a tough as nai...
Aug 24, 2020•1 hr 37 min
In 1996, Sony opened the floodgates to indie console game development on the Playstation 1 through their Net Yaroze platform. Over the next several years, short games and demos of all kinds were created and distributed with game magazines on demo discs, including the focus of today's episode. Hover Racing was created by a small team of university students led by designer Tomokazu Sato and primary composer Hiroaki Ohmori between April and November of 1997, a concise but polished clone of futurist...
Aug 10, 2020•49 min
We're joined once again by Swedish audio production team Sinephony, this time listening to the mellow jams from the 2017 game Airport CEO. The game is a tycoon and management sim from Swedish game developer Apoapsis Studios where you act as CEO of your own airport, in the tradition of games like Transport Tycoon and Sim Coaster. Airport CEO is currently available on Windows and Mac. Sinephony is a multi-talented production team consisting of Daniel Rosenqvist and Anton Dromberg. They've worked o...
Jul 23, 2020•1 hr 1 min
Today we're joined by Swedish audio production studio Sinephony to talk about the 2019 indie game 198X from Swedish game developer Hi-Bit Studios. The game is a love letter to gaming in the 80s where you play through 5 different games (beat-em-up, shmup, racing, action platformer, and RPG) merged with cinematic storytelling. It started as a Kickstarter project and is now available for Windows, Mac, Switch and PS4. Sinephony is a multi-talented production team consisting of Daniel Rosenqvist and ...
Jul 16, 2020•1 hr 15 min
Pixelated Audio is 6 years old! A lot has changed over that time, but the one constant is our love for game music of all kinds. Our theme today is a bit silly; games that are the 6th in a series (or at least have the number 6 in the title). We stretch the theme pretty far and come up with some fun tunes that we hope you'll enjoy. Thanks to all of our listeners. We hope to keep doing what we love, listening to and sharing great game music. Track List: 0:00:00 Rance VI: Zesu Houkai - Battle (WIN) ...
Jul 03, 2020•1 hr 4 min•Ep. 130
KGB or Conspiracy is a 1992 game developed by Cryo Interactive Entertainment and published by Virgin Games for DOS and Amiga. KGB is a 1st person point and click adventure where you play as Maksim Rukov, an agent transferred to Department P and ordered to investigate possible corruption in the KGB after a former agent turns up dead. It's a challenging race against time that takes places in the gloomy final days of the Soviet Union. The core soundtrack for DOS was composed by Stéphane Picq, with ...
Jun 16, 2020•1 hr 32 min
Today we're covering Psycho World, released for the MSX in 1988 and localized as Psychic World for the Sega Master System and Game Gear in 1991. The original MSX release was developed and published by Hertz, a short-lived Japanese game developer that also worked on number of ports with their final game being Vay for the Mega CD. The SMS and Game Gear ports of Psychic World were done through a partnership with SIMS and published by Sega. Psycho World is an action platformer with a unique if somew...
May 28, 2020•1 hr 1 min
We once again return to the earliest days of game sound and music and trace the evolution from 1977 through 1984 in this historically focused episode. We go from the arcade boom, to early home consoles and computers, to the video game crash, and end just before the rise of the NES. The show is a much deeper dive on historical context, although we cover a lot more music in the second half. We were very pleased to collaborate with special guests Alex Smith and Jeff Daum of They Create Worlds, a po...
Apr 06, 2020•1 hr 54 min
What does it feel like to soar through the skies in a hot air balloon? Kaze no Notam on the Sony Playstation attempts to answer that question. Released September 1997 by the mid-sized Japanese developer Artdink, Kaze no Notam is an easygoing flight sim in the vein of Pilotwings with some light objectives, although it's more tech demo than game. The composer for the game is Ryuuji Nishida who also worked on a number of projects for Artdink like 'No One Can Stop Mr. Domino', Zeus II Carnage Heart,...
Mar 02, 2020•1 hr 26 min
Harald Hårdtand: Kampen om de rene tænder (or Harold Hardtooth in The Fight for Clean Teeth) or simply "Colgate" for short, is an advergame platformer released in 1992 for the C64, Amiga and DOS. The game was developed by SilverRock Productions, a Copenhagen-based Danish company founded in 1988 and renamed in 1992 to Interactive Television Entertainment (ITE), best known for developing and producing the Hugo the Troll media franchise. The soundtrack is short and sweet with only 3 tracks, or 4 if...
Feb 13, 2020•32 min
Alex the Allegator 4 (aka Alex 4) is a freeware platformer released for PC, Mac, Linux and BeOS in 2003 by Free Lunch Design. Free Lunch Design was a small indie developer based in Gothenburg, Sweden, best known for their game Icy Tower. The company was started in 1998 by Johan Peitz with the goal of creating fun, high quality games with a focus on gameplay. We're excited to have the composer for the game Anders Svensson calling in from Sweden. Anders spent the early 2000s writing music for indi...
Jan 29, 2020•1 hr 2 min
Pixelated Audio reflects back on 2019 and welcomes in a new decade with a selection of tracks from a variety of systems. Here's to a lots more great game music! Track List: 0:00:00 God of the Four Winds - The Legend of Xanadu (PCE-CD) - Falcom Sound Team jdk 0:06:31 Title - Yuu Yuu Hakusho-Bakutou Ankoku Bujutsu Kai (FC) - SWITCH-E 0:12:42 Stage 2-4 - God of Thunder (DOS) - Roy Davis 0:20:15 Deliverance - Assassin's Creed III Liberation (VITA) - Winifred Phillips 0:29:39 BGM 3 - Magical Drop (GB...
Jan 17, 2020•1 hr 1 min
Panzer Dragoon Saga or Azel has been on the Pixelated Audio radar for some time and we couldn't be happier that it's finally here. The stars aligned and with the help of Alex Aniel of Brave Wave Productions, Saori Kobayashi became the first confirmed Japanese guest to come to MAGWest 3 in California. We had the chance to interview her in-person, see her talk about her career and hear her splendid live concert featuring Stemage on guitar, Ronin Op F on violin and Michelle Dreyband on vocals. The ...
Dec 17, 2019•2 hr 10 min
MAGWest 2019 came and went in San Jose, California and what a ride it was! We cap off another jam-packed weekend with a panel featuring a very special guest; chibi-tech! Chibi-tech is a world-renowned chiptune artist that is originally from the Bay Area. She now lives in Japan and works as an in-house composer and sound engineer for M2, the company responsible for stellar ports like the Sega Ages and Sega 3D Classics games. Join us as we chat with the talented and versatile chibi-tech about her ...
Oct 18, 2019•1 hr 21 min
Pixelated Audio is excited to bring Megan McDuffee into the studio to chat with us about her work for the recently released River City Girls! River City Girls is a classic action beat-em-up with light RPG elements, building on the long legacy of the River City (or Kunio-Kun) games started by Technos in the 1980s. It was released September 5th, 2019 for the Nintendo Switch, PS4, Xbox One and Steam and developed by WayForward Technologies with oversight and some publishing handled by Arc System Wo...
Oct 01, 2019•1 hr 38 min
EVE burst error is an adult-oriented visual novel originally released for the PC-98 in 1995 by C's Ware with additional ports to Saturn and Windows. In EVE you follow the interconnected stories of Marina and Kojiroh as they avoid death and danger at every turn in order to discover the truth behind their respective missions. Combine the powerhouse compositional forces of Ryu Umemoto and Ryu Takami with the storytelling finesse of Hiroyuki Kanno (lead designer of YU-NO) and you get a recipe for a ...
Sep 04, 2019•1 hr 41 min
What could be better than more sports games? Celebrity tie-in sports games! We dug deep in the archives (and the bargain bins) and found some wonderful and obscure games with celebrity athletes representing sports from snooker to soccer (or football for those outside the US). Whether you like sports or not, we hope you enjoy this varied selection of tunes in our latest expansion pack! Track List: 0:00:00 "All_Comp" (title theme) Miyazato San Kyoudai Naizou - Sega Golf Club (PS3) - Unknown 0:07:3...
Aug 06, 2019•1 hr 24 min
Basted (バステッド) is a Japanese exclusive PC-Engine CD game released in 1994 developed and published by NEC Avenue. The game is a very lightweight action RPG. Over the course of its rather short 3 hour playtime, you'll see over 30 minutes of beautiful (and sometimes risque) cutscenes from AIC Spirits with the voice acting and music handled by 81 Produce. The game uses redbook audio almost exclusively so prepare for CD audio spanning a wide range of genres from rock, dance, to honky tonk and beyond....
Jul 09, 2019•58 min
Inspired by our talk at the Library of Congress, we have a shorter show covering the music of Gyruss over about 25 years of releases. Gyruss was originally developed by Konami in 1983 with ports developed and published by many companies over its history. We even find the game showing up in a few unexpected places. The original theme is based on J.S. Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor which is a fairly well known organ piece in the classical repertoire. You'll hear a few different takes on the B...
Jun 21, 2019•42 min
Today we're joined by long time listener and friend to the show Norm as we cover the classic soundtrack of Quartet. Originally developed and published by Sega in 1986, Quartet is a futuristic 4-player arcade platformer with elements borrowed from Gauntlet. Quartet only saw one major wave of releases in arcades and home consoles plus a Sega Ages rerelease, but it maintains a dedicated fanbase and the music composed by Katsuhiro Hayashi plays a big role. Katsuhiro Hayashi, a.k.a. "Funky K.H" is a ...
Jun 07, 2019•1 hr 31 min
After a long break we're back with another Music Disk volume for more FM synth. This episode's music comes from a disk titled Imagical Musion Depot Vol. 3 by the group Active Gamers, led by NT-3 for the PC-8801. The disk was released in 1996 and uses PMD ver3.9 (by KAJA). Get ready for another round of mostly originals from a slew of different musicians in a range of styles. Imagical Musion Depot Vol. 3 Composed by: NT-3, Monden, Amakko 2go, OSATOH, MKR, SHYNER, JNY, yon, Stradivarius, Masaya Sa...
May 21, 2019•56 min
After the Library of Congress we're kicking off a new short episode format and making a return to the wellspring of great VGM with another sports title. This time we're listening to the music of tennis game Rackets & Rivals released on the NES in 1993 only in... Europe? Developed and published by Konami or more accurately their European subsidiary Palcom, Rackets & Rivals is an unremarkable late-era NES game with a brief but excellent soundtrack worthy of some attention. The range of Kon...
May 09, 2019•31 min
We're back from the Library of Congress and what a rare honor it was to be included in their inaugural weekend long event celebrating the music of games. Our talk, which you'll hear today, covered the early history of video game audio with a few detours into film and pop culture for context. In addition to our talk, we also got to speak on a panel discussion alongside composer Austin Wintory (Journey) and game designer Rami Ismail (Nuclear Throne) for the world premiere of Austin's interactive p...
May 01, 2019•1 hr 17 min
We're back from our break with a new episode, and this time we have an expansion pack with the many supportive friends and family members that joined us in Washington DC. On the show we have Bryan, Gene and his wife representing Pixelated Audio, Ed and family members Logan and Myla of the VGMBassy, and Emily of Sound Test Roulette. Each person picked a song that holds a special place in their heart as we reminisce on our time over the weekend. Though they couldn't be with us for the recording, w...
Apr 12, 2019•1 hr 13 min
Gabriel Knight was developed and published by Sierra On-Line on December 17, 1993 for DOS/Windows/Macintosh. Join Gabriel, a bookstore owner, would-be author, and a man with a love for the ladies as he follows the "Voodoo Murders". With the help of his trusty assistant Grace and longtime friend Detective Mosely, what starts off as searching for inspiration for a novel ends up uncovering ties to New Orleans' voodoo past, the present day criminal underworld and his own tangled family history. The ...
Mar 07, 2019•1 hr 52 min
