My friend Brandon Orselli asked me to do music for his gaming podcast. He wanted something that sounded like an anime theme. My binge-watching of anime opening themes from the 90′s and the 00′s revealed to me that there definitely is an “anime sound.” Basically, the composers of these themes imitate whatever American music is popular at the moment – rock, pop, grunge, heavy metal, piano ballads, rap-rock, etc. – but make it sound “hyper correct.” The voice-leading is perfect. The harmony is perfect. The rhythms are perfectly structured. The drumming is impeccable. The vocals are pristine. The lengths of phrases are perfectly balanced. In total, it pays homage to American music in a way that American music doesn’t even pay to itself. And on top of that, every last bit of rhythmic space is filled completely.

This last quality is the most curious. I can only speculate, but my guess is that this results from how generally minimalist Japanese art is compared to American / Western art. It’s almost as if given permission to fill in negative space, that sensibility goes whole hog.

So here’s me, an American, imitating Japanese composers imitating Americans. Oh, and all of this intent is squeezed into about 12 seconds.

Ok. Technically not a game, but a project related to games!

In May 2019 I participated in Purple Monkey Jam X, organized by Scott Doxey and his company Cantina. I ended up on a team with Brian Soulliard, programmer, and Henry Lutts, artist.

The theme of the game was “Two buttons.” My first thought was the one we eventually went with: one button executes commands and the second button rotates between command options. The rest of the design was collaborative. Our real secret weapons, however, were Brian’s level design and Henry’s UI design, as you’ll see below. For the music and sound effects, I wanted something childlike, quirky, and joyful with 8-bit and mechanical elements. This was the most fun I’ve had in a game jam in a long time and I am very grateful to have worked with these two highly talented individuals.

Beep Bot, a simple platformer featured an adorable robot and rotating controls.

I’m sure you’ve heard of thatgamecompany. I helped composer and thatgamecompany audio director Vincent Diamante with additional orchestrations and score preparation for their upcoming game Sky. Looking at some of the screen shots from that game, I was really excited to see how it came out.

I have a pencil-and-paper background: 20 years playing trumpet, Finale power user, Master’s degree from New England Conservatory – so this project was really up my alley. Orchestration and score prep are incredibly fun because realizing another composer’s intentions is a fascinating musical puzzle.

Here’s one of the tracks I for which I helped with.

Here’s what Vincent had to say:

“Jared’s a really cool composer that I’ve been running into for the last few years. He’s recently been helping me out this year with the stuff I’m doing for Sky, especially doing orchestration and score prep to replace my mockups with recordings. He’s actually been particularly great at showing me my options when we get to orchestration crossroads, but he can also just make things happen as needed.”

Thanks Vince. Read more about Sky:

Alpenwolf liked my work on Elveteka so they asked me to work on their next project, Divine Right. We’re converting the old 1979 board game by Glenn A. Rahman and Kenneth Rahman into an online multiplayer game, complete with AI! There’s a lot going on underneath the hood so all I can show for now is the title screen music.

What stands out here? The light shining down from the heavens through the tower, the statues staring down onto the monarch, the monarch looking up. He is aware of the historical moment, comparing himself to the great men of the past. The tower and the army – a marriage of martial and magical forces. Between the stone and the light, a sense of lightness and heaviness, all at once.

The lore: an ancient empire, the Scarlet Witch King, the Cataclysm, the fall of the Lloroi, barbarian tribes become kingdoms, the war for Minaria. The fall of the Lloroi sets up everything that follows – perfect for the title screen. I as wrote this piece I thought of light, stone, magic, war, and the fall of an ancient, powerful race:

I’ll update this post as we make progress.

I felt it was important to study game design in a formal setting, so I took a course on game development with Finnish company Alpenwolf. As part of the course I did the music and sound effects for Elveteka, an action game based on Karateka for Apple II.

Elveteka follows the Elven protagonist through several environments, each with its own music. At the end he battles orc warlord Gwarzul, who of course gets a heavy metal theme song. The game required a full sound track and was a lot of fun to make. Here’s a promo clip:

Here’s what producer Tief Blau had to say about me:

“Jared was a pleasure to work with. He was very reliable in getting the work done on time, flexible in responding to changes in design or direction, and capable of working independently without direct supervision.”

Play it here:

Here’s another game I did music and sound effects for as part of the Alpenwolf Devgame course. It was a lot of fun to make but we’re not releasing it. Nonetheless, it’s a great way to show how I write music for casual games.

In March 2017 I finished NBA Life for Hitcents.com, making hiphop tracks and sound effects. The NBA is a big brand so it was quite a load to carry. The goal: step into the mind of a high profile NBA athlete and give the player the opportunity to feel like a star. The art has a sort of “retro futurist” look with heavy fashion influence. From that jumping off point, I included several peacocking moments in the soundtrack. Think of a high status person who wears outlandish cloths and gets away with it because he has incredible self-confidence.

Working with Hitcents was a great experience and I’m looking forward to working with them again if the opportunity arises. Here is some gameplay video.

The game is no longer on the market, unfortunately, but my work was well received. Here’s what they had to say about working with me:

“Working with Jared was a joy. He could take a little direction and chase down and zero in on the right sound. Our team provided some visual mood boards and a few track samples and Jared ran with it from there. One thing I enjoyed in particular was his self-sufficiency. He did not require a lot of feedback to keep moving forward and he continued shaping the music and SFX, polishing them with each update. His expertise and attention to detail was a great value to our project. I would gladly collaborate Jared again, and recommend his talents and services to others.”

-Joe Tudor

Creative Director at Hitcents.com

My friend Robin and I collaborated on this game in early 2016. It’s a flappy bird-like with interactive music. I got to do some very cool things with FMOD!

The music oscillates between two basic themes, gameplay and death, and transitions on a dime between them. Over time the music moves between complex and simplicity. After death, when you resume playing, there is a send-off theme that randomizes each time. When you run out of jumps a hi-hat pattern plays softly.

Overall, it was a lot of fun. I’d like to do more projects like this: small games with outsized interactivity. I may have gone overboard with the interactive melodies – maybe it was a little bit too granular. Next time, I’ll look for smarter ways to make transition between the various phases of gameplay.

Finally, Shock Jocks is out!

Here’s how developer Michael Andryauskas describes it:

“Shock Jocks is a competitive fast-paced two player game played on the iPad. Players go head to head to force their opponent to lose control of the ball, causing them to sacrifice lives to keep playing until they have none to spare. Each player controls two sparks with their fingers, which can be placed and dragged anywhere on their side of the playfield. With those sparks, players create an electric stream that is used to deflect the ball to their opponent’s side of the field. However, the larger they make their stream when they hit the ball, the more energy they will be using, and they will have to recharge their energy more often. By being aware of the energy you and your opponent are using, you can best your rival in this electrifying e-sport.”

Here’s a gameplay trailier:

I love how the ball makes the grid ripple:

I had a lot of fun with the music and sound effects. I spent a lot of time listening to CBS and NBC football themes, borrowing certain harmonic and melodic devices for a sense of earnest heroicism, dressing them up with electronic, bitcrushed sounds to give a sense of the game taking place in a crackling, buzzing, Tronlike world.

The hardest part was understanding the tone of the game. There isn’t a storyline that says, “OK, now the player is happy, now the player is sad.” And there’s also the local multiplayer problem: when one player is winning, the other player is losing, but they are both hearing the same music and sounds. The best way to resolve this minor dilemna was to imagine two buddies sitting across from each other, having themselves a good time and congratulating each other’s play. So while one person may have just been scored on, he or she is happy their friend executed a challenging manuever or clever tactic. At that point the music is about having fun, friendship, and the joy of competition, and it basically writes itself.

In April of 2013 I participated in the QUILTBAG game jam at MIT and we produced a fun little unicorn jousting game. We decided to polish it up and release it for free on iPad and Android. I loved working with this team: Patrick Rodriguez doing game design, Brian Kokernak doing programming, and Mariah Almeida doing graphics. This Google Play review from user Matt Sample was very gratifying to me: “This app is a testament to my individual value. I was drinking and jousting with my boyfriend behind closed doors before, but now I know we are not alone. It gets better (ish). We’re here, we’re queer, let’s joust to it.”