Size of Life

The dynamic soundscape is delightful, as it subtly adds instruments and musical texture as you progress. And going back down the scale regresses it to simple again. Smoothly done.

It reminded me of Operation Neptune (1991): each level starts with just one channel, probably percussion, and as you progress through the rooms it adds and removes more channels or sometimes switches to a different section of music. It is unfortunately all sharp cuts, no attempts at smoothing or timing instrument entry and exit. A couple of samples: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0LNaatyoQk is an hour of gameplay revelling in “the dynamic and sometimes beautiful music of Operation Neptune” using a Roland MT-32 MIDI synthesiser; and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPxEdQ4wx9s&list=PL3FC048B13... is the PCM files used on some platforms (if you want to compare that track with the MT-32, it starts at 28 minutes).

Man I played Operation Neptune a lot when I was a kid. I wonder if it was the first game to do this style of adaptive music layering. It predates the iMUSE system used in LucasArts games like X-Wing and TIE Fighter.

For anyone curious, you can actually play it here: https://archive.org/details/msdos_Super_Solvers_Operation_Ne...

I absolutely loved that looping music track, please authors make it available.

The music was breathtaking here - I'd absolutely pay for a version of it. Really solidified the experience

I love how the music swells and becomes more intricate as life expands and grows more complicated.

From the author on twitter[1] "The background music is a cello performance by Iratxe Ibaibarriaga and composed by Aleix Ramon"

[1] https://x.com/nealagarwal/status/1998788695449808920

From the author on twitter[1] "The background music is a cello performance by Iratxe Ibaibarriaga and composed by Aleix Ramon" [1] https://x.com/nealagarwal/status/1998788695449808920

The arcade classic Space Invaders had a primitive soundscape in that every time the remaining invaders advance, it plays a short bass note. As fewer and fewer invaders remain, it takes less time for them to advance, and the note repeats faster and faster, it adds a remarkable amount of increasing tension as each level progresses.

So not exactly the same, but perhaps prototypical. I think Asteroids did as well.

Anyone find an actual link for the finished track? Credits are mentioned on his site and twitter but I didn't find it anywhere when searching for the artist names.

Interesting Space Invaders Trivia:

The game speeding up as invaders are eliminated was an unintended consequence of the hardware running full speed to draw all 55 invaders. As invaders are eliminated the draw calls finish faster and the game speeds up. There is no code in the game to throttle the speed. The 2 Mhz 8080 is always drawing full speed. It's delightfully serendipitous this happens to ramp up the difficulty as you near the end of each level in such a compellingly perfect way. (https://www.tomshardware.com/video-games/retro-gaming/space-...)

I've watched some interviews with the game's programmer Tomohiro Nishikado and, although translated (so subject to garbling), he seems to confirm this was a 'happy accident'. He indicates he set the max number of invaders based on what the hardware could draw but there was no intent to have the speed ramp up. Of course, he noticed that it did this during play testing but decided to keep it that way. Arguably, it's one of the most compelling aspects of the game. Modern emulators have to add code game-specific code to limit the speed or the game plays too fast. Leaving no CPU cycles unused is the sign of an elegant design.

Thank you for sharing this, I played Operation Neptune as a kid and never noticed the dynamic music!

This is something you do when scoring a game too, wonder if the author ever worked on game programming.

The rest of the author's website is a bunch of games, so I'd say so.

That reminds me of the music in the film "Inception", in which the extremely low-register bass-heavy music in the background of scenes from lower levels of dream-in-dream is actually the main score, played back dramatically (and semantically / thematically) slower and lower.

So I guess Operation Neptune was the inspiration for UFO 50s Porgy?

https://ufo50.miraheze.org/wiki/Porgy

Oh noes, I explored with sound off.

It truly is, thanks for pointing it out! I just went through the entire site 5 minutes ago and it didn’t occur to me to grab my headphones and turn sound on first.

Hi there, I'm the composer—I do! 99% of my work is making music and sound effects for games.

And you're right, the music following the player's actions is common in games; we call it "adaptive music.

Glad you enjoyed it! You can get the soundtrack on Bandcamp: https://aleixramon.bandcamp.com/album/size-of-life-original-...

Tomorrow it should also be on Spotify, Apple Music, etc.

Hi there, I'm the composer of the soundtrack—glad that you enjoyed the music.

The idea was to have a single instrument (a cello) that builds upon itself, like the cells in an organism. It starts with a very minimalistic loop, and new layers of music are progressively added as the organisms grow in size.

Thanks for sharing Operation Neptune! I didn't know about it, but it's a great example of early adaptive game music.