I have a very peculiar relationship with the soundtracks of my games, and I decided to write a blog post about it.

I will start by my final conclusion, which is: one of the most exciting and satisfying moments of game making for me is listening to a song and thinking "that would sound amazing in my game".

Needless to say, most (if not all) of the tracks I use are commercial/without permission (judge me if you want). Not a huge problem because all my games are freeware. I know there are plenty of free for use tracks around. But finding a track that clicks for me is incredibly rare. If I limit my sources like that, I would probably have to give up on expecting the feeling of "that's it!”

I started THERAPIST: Mind Manager with the intention of making it commercial and I was going to hire composers. Until then, I decided to put some placeholder music. I went for Sim City 2000 OST which I love, and I somehow felt matched the vibe of the game. It sounded so perfect that it became of one (but not the only) the reasons I decided to make the game free. They set the perfect atmosphere for the game, and I'm really happy with it.

But there were only 3 tracks I used. They could get repetitive after a while. I needed more.

I spent a few weeks searching YouTube for something, until I finally found one that was ok. Not amazing, but at least compatible with the game.

But I still wanted one more. "Find another BGM track" has been in my Game To Do List for a couple of months now. And I've been searching actively. Doing a bunch of searches on YouTube, trying many different keywords. Thinking of commercial songs I like and what they would sound like in instrumental version. Trying to remember old videogames and their soundtracks. Paying attention to the tunes of those lo-fi long videos I listen to while working. My radar has been set to it for a long time. Yet, I haven't found anything that remotely resembles the mood I'm aiming for and matches the rest of the soundtrack. It's too specific, almost impossible.

Last week I started watching this anime called Parasyte: The Maxim. It's a good anime. Anime usually have good music, though I wasn't attentive to it at first. But then, there was this tune. It sounded kinda good. "Would it fit my game?” I started paying more attention to it. To a degree I couldn't pay attention to the dialogs when it was playing. Yes, it sounds perfect. I need it.

Being too good to be true, I couldn't find that track online. I searched the anime's soundtrack, and all my results showed the official OST with 19 tracks officially released on the album. It was not there. It seemed like all music from the anime was there, except the one I wanted. And it was one that played all the time. Why? Not fair.

But I'm Googler lv. 5, so I searched harder. After three days, I finally found it.
It does match the game perfectly. Finding it feels like such a victory that it made me pumped to work on the game harder and just happier overall. <3

So that's it. Just wanted to share a bit of unexpected quirks of game design. And this might be one of my favorites. If I told the story behind every track I chose for every game, I could write a book.