My friend Albert Schapiro showed me this great video about the video game industry. That inspired me to write this song. I’ve been listening a lot to Pogo lately, especially his amazing Joburg Jam. I’m used to writing songs and then sing them myself. Now I’m curious how you can manipulate audio to make music. I tried to use auto-tune at first but didn’t get the result I wanted. Instead I bought The Mouth from Native Instruments and experimented with that.
Here’s the result. I hope you enjoy it, and think twice before you start working in the video game industry ;)
You can download the song in the player on the right side.
Magicka just released new DLC by the name of ”Mea Culpa”. With it comes a song that I wrote.
Thanks to Shams Jorjani for letting me participate in such a fun project.
You can download the song in the player on the right side.
Lyrics
The Gamer
Hey there people I just bought your game
I wrote you a song since I don’t like to flame
I like all the features that Magicka has
Except for the bugs and the desktop crash
What is the deal with the vampire guy
And how come that when I play as yellow I die
I’d like to be able to play with my friends
This was my song and here’s where it ends
Vlad
My friend we did our best we should have tried a little harder
And I am not a vampire you can even ask my father
The yellow wizard always dies because he likes to play with fire
We know that you’ve been waiting long we know that your are tired
So here’s a freebie for your patience you can get it in an instant
You can use it to kill your friend with
Then revive him…
…and kill him again
Chords
G – Am
D – Am
C – E – Dm – Am
Am – E – Dm -Am
C – G – F – G
You have to figure out when to play what but it shouldn’t be that hard ;)
I had been thinking a long time about writing music about Bad Company 2. The process was slow until I asked Benjamin Stratton if he wanted to make a machinima for the song. I knew from his previous videos that he was a magician but I couldn’t even have wished for this. Besides being a devil in video editing he’s also a great guy to work with.
You can download the song using the player on the right side.
Lyrics
Intro
Sniper team
Sniper team
Does whatever a sniper team does
Do they charge
Do they attack
No they don’t they’re a sniper team
Verse 1
This is the story of the sniper team
They sit on hills and they don’t do a thing
They only worry ‘bout the ratio
I’m gonna get them and that’s for sure
Bridge 1
So when I hit them with my tracer dart I feel, alright
Wookie you can run but you can’t hide with that, red light
Chorus 1
I wanna shoot them with my shotgun
I want to kill them with a headshot
I wanna dress them in some C4
And push the button right on the spot
I wanna blow them up in pieces
And see that body fly through the sky
I wanna stab them with my knife now
I wanna see them die
Verse 2
So when you see a sniper sitting there
With his rifle and he just don’t care
Spawn engineer and you’ll be just fine
Creep up on the guy from behind
Bridge 2
Then you’ll hit him with your tracer dart and you’ll feel, alright
See the wookie running trying to hide with that, red light
Chorus 2
You got to shoot them with your shotgun
You got to kill them with a headshot
You got to dress them in some C4
And push the button right on the spot
You got to blow them up in pieces
And see that body fly through the sky
You got to stab them with your knife now
You got to see them die
Break
See the wookie, trying to run
I’m gonna get him, with my gun
He don’t help no, he’s no good
He don’t belong, in this neighbourhood
Jadestone recently released the game Harry Cannon’s Pipe Dreams on Kongregate. It features a song by me called ”The Ballad of Harry”. This is the promotion for the mobile game ”Dirk Dagger and the Nuclear Zeppelin”which will soon be released on Nokia’s N-gage.
To top it all of, YHTBTR is nominated for Innovation in the 2009 Independent Games festival. I really want to go to San Fransisco to attend the awards but I’m not sure I can. The tickets + expenses will surely amount to at least 1000 EUROS which is way over my budget. Oh well, you never know what might happen.
I read some comments about the nomination and realised that some people think YHTBTR don’t belong on the list. I can’t make you like the game and if you don’t, to be honest, I’m not going to lose sleep over it. But I want to make something clear which is obviously just a misunderstanding. People who think YHTBTR was something Kian and me threw together in a hurry need to think again. To get it in perspective, let me tell you about the text on the way to the boss. If you count the hours me and Kian talked about colors, placements, alternative ideas, testing it on people and so on, it amounts to at least ten. Do the math and you’ll understand how long it took to complete the full game.
Henrik Edlund from Swedish Game Awards was kind enough to inform me that The Next Great Game Gods can be seen in full at Gametrailers.com. This is part four and it uses Now You’re a Hero at 4:47.
The good people over at Swedish Game Awards asked me to make a jingle/soundlogo for their videos. Finally it’s done. Check it out here where it’s played before Kians speach about the process that led to You Have to Burn the Rope. Unfortunately only in swedish.
It feels like a long time ago Kian showed me the idea to You Have to Burn the Rope. I instantly loved it and asked if I could make the music. He’d already promised someone else to do it and wasn’t sure he needed me. Lucky for me he did.
Little did we know the success it was going to be. We’ve been trying to follow the journey of the game and people’s comments. Some people actually think that we had a plan. Believe me when I say, we had no idea! I was prepared to read many horrible comments about the music and then a couple of nice ones. That would have made my day. Now I’ve read so many positive comments that I’m actually starting to believe that I’ve accomplished something. I’m an artist, I’m supposed to have low self-esteem…
Even though we both enjoy the warm (mostly) welcome by the gaming community it’s also been overwhelming at times. Both me and Kian are happy that the worst part is over. Now we can concentrate on future projects. I can assure you that you haven’t heard the last of us yet. Both as partners in new games and on individual endeavours.
As the headline states, YHTBTR has reached one million plays. The credits song Now you’re a hero has been downloaded more than 11.000 times. And that’s only my statistics from Newgrounds and Reverbnation. I haven’t checked it on MySpace (and I’m not even sure there are any). I found the song uploaded on a couple of servers which is great, but I wish there was a Mochibot for music as well.
The game’s been reviewed a couple of times and got both good and bad critique. My favorite though is this one, by a 4 year old boy.
Am7………………….Dmaj7
you managed to kill that boss you see
BbM7………………….F
the Grinning Colossus
Am7……………………….Dmaj7
you’re the hero we all wish we could be
BbM7……………………… ………F
You made it through the tunnel
Am7…………………………..Dmaj7
then you grabbed that fire on the wall
BbM7…………………..F
you jumped up above him
Am7…………………………..Dmaj7
then you burned the rope and saved us all
BbM7 – F
Am7……………………Dmaj7
you burned the rope and saved us all
BbM7 – F
Am7……………………Dmaj7
you burned the rope and saved us
Chorus
A……………………G
Now you’re a hero
………………………..D…………………………A
you managed to beat the whole damn game
………………………………G
we’re happy you made it
………………………..D……………………………………A
but how are you gonna spend the rest of this day
E
maybe watch a video
…………………………………………….A
maybe press refresh and start again
Bridge
G…………A
Yes it’s over now
G……………A
we didn’t want to make a longer game
G……..A………………..E
this is it I swear it’s true
oh ohh
———————–
I’d like to add some trivia here.
You know the second time I sing ”You burned the rope and saved us all”, that’s when I start to play a string on my keyboard. There’s a construction site right next to my house where they’re building around the clock. This perticular night I was editing the song in Reason when I heard a high pitch tone coming streaming through the window. I thought ”hey, I have to have some strings somewhere in my song.”.
