Pixelated Audio

Pixelated Audio is back from another VGMCon in Minnesota, this time about space! Joining Gene once again from last year are Pernell from Rhythm and Pixels and Carlos from Heroes Three! We did a similar panel last year; we take a broad theme and make it educational, and then use it as an excuse to cram in all sorts of VGM examples. We had some tech issues and lost some of the recording but we were...

Our show takes us back in time to the pleasant summer vibes of Malibu Bikini Volleyball, a no-frill sports game released in 1993 for the underdog Atari Lynx handheld, developed by Hand Made Software and composed by Paul Tonge. Hand Made Software was a boutique first- (or second-) party game developer that produced original games exclusively for the Lynx and Jaguar from about 1990 to 1995, with a h...

Today, we're looking back at Astyanax, an action platformer released for arcade and NES in 1989 and a game we both grew up playing. Sometimes referred to as "The Lord of King" or "The Astyanax", the original arcade game was developed by Aicom and published by Jaleco, with the NES version developed and published by Jaleco. Both versions share some similarities, like fighting hordes of mythological...

In this installment of Pixelated Audio, we're taking a stroll through the soundtrack of Blades of Steel. Originally, Konami released this fact-action hockey game in the arcades in 1987 but it really gained popularity a year later when it was converted to the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1988. However, most of us (at least your hosts) tend to forget that two sequels were released: NHL Blades of...

With the holiday season upon us, Gene and several other friends visited Sacramento Gamers Expo where we met some awesome game developer legends like David Crane, Garry Kitchen and Ed Annunziata. Joining Gene is Michelle (the 'voice' of Sue Kasper), AJ of VGMPorium (also on our Persona show) and last but not least Brian Stewart, one of the biggest VGM fans you'll ever find. Join us as we look back...

Bryan and Gene are back for a relaxed holiday episode where we take a look back at some of the great music we heard in games in 2024. As usual it's an eclectic mix of genres and style, both in the games themselves and in the music. Tracklist 0:00:00 Title - Spilled Mushrooms (Playdate, 2024) by Philip Dexter and choosh 0:04:38 Jungle - Spilled Mushrooms (Playdate, 2024) by Philip Dexter and choosh...

Pixelated Audio is back from this year's Persona themed MAGWest. In honor of the theme we threw together a quick show about the music of the mainline Persona games from Persona 1-5 with a little bit of early Megami Tensei history. We're also joined by co-host and our good friend AJ aka "rayjkayj" of the VGMPorium podcast. It's a light show with fun musical examples spanning the decades of the Pers...

Sue Kasper, it's a name you might know by memory but if you grew up PC gaming in the 90s you're definitely familiar with her work. Sue was the lead composer on SimFarm and the international sensation SimCity 2000! Both games were developed by Maxis, a studio known for producing simulation games since the 80s including SimCity, The Sims, Spore and many others. Sue's eclectic tunes have been ingrain...

Pixelated Audio is back for the third annual Masters of VGM (@MastersofVGM), which happens every June. Various podcasts come together to highlight game composers with the theme this year focusing on the amazing women in the industry. We decided to take a more narrow focus on some of the lesser known composers at Capcom and picked 4 to talk about today going from the company's earliest days through...

Pixelated Audio is back from a wonderful weekend at VGMCon in Minnesota! Gene was slated to represent us but along the way drummed up a party including Pernell from Rhythm and Pixels, Carlos from Heroes Three, and Thomas Kresge head of the Game Brass (check out their new album Barrel Brassed)! When in Minnesota do as the Minnesotans do, as the saying goes. We had a fun time talking about all manne...

Kamen Rider Agito & Kuuga Wild Battle [仮面ライダーアギト＆クウガ ワイルドバトル] is a 2001 game for the Sega Pico developed by Arc System Works and published by Bandai. It is based on the Kamen Rider superhero license property which started in the 1970s. To keep it brief, the Sega Pico is less a console and more a children's toy. Imagine the guts of a Sega Genesis / Mega Drive (minus the FM) stuf...

Ultimate Brain Games is a board game collection released for PS1 in 2003 developed by cosmigo and published by Telegames. There's not much to say about the board games themselves; things like dominoes, chess, backgammon and the like, but the soundtrack written by Zbigniew Siatecki is great! Cosmigo was a very small German developer responsible for a ton of board and card game collections from arou...

GunMaster is a December 1994 arcade exclusive game developed by Metro Corporation. It's a single or two-player boss rush action game that's part fighting game and part platformer; think a dash of Gunstar Heroes with a Neo Geo art style. The game uses a well-established combo of soundchips: the OKIM6295 for 4 channels of ADPCM and the YM2151 for 8 channels of FM audio. Metro Corporation was best kn...

Gigandes (ギガンデス) is an arcade game developed by East Technology in 1989 and released in February of 1990. It's a horizontal shmup in the style of R-Type featuring all of the bio-mechanical tropes common to the era. It was designed for the Taito X System hardware which used a YM2610, the same audio configuration used in the Neo Geo, and was composed by Akira Inoue and Takaro Nozaki. East Techn...

We’ve got a really fun soundtrack to dive into this episode from a Jaleco arcade title released in 1989 called Plus Alpha, composed by Tsukasa Tawada.  It’s an overhead shooter similar to Twinbee, Raiden, or 1942 and was re-released on the Nintendo Switch in 2020 under the Arcade Archives series published by HAMSTER Corporation. This is one of Tsukasa Tawada's earliest soundtracks, a composer stil...

In this latest mini episode we're talking about Solstice: The Quest for the Staff of Demnos, a childhood favorite on the NES composed by Tim Follin. Solstice released on the NES in the US and UK in mid 1990. It was developed by Software Creations and published by various companies in different regions. It's a challenging isometric puzzle platformer in the vein of games like Knight Lore and Lumo. S...

In this bite-sized installment we're exploring the soundtrack from Bomb Jack on the Nintendo GameBoy composed by the legendary DMG DJ, Alberto José González. Bomb Jack released on the Game Boy in the UK in 1992 and Sweden in 1993. Adapted to the handheld  by Bit Managers and New Frontier; published by Infogrames. Bomb Jack has had dozens of ports derived from the Tehkan Arcade game from 1984. CPC,...

Another titan of the game industry, George "The Fat Man" Sanger, joins us live at MAGWest! George has done so much to shape the course of game audio in America that the best we can hope for is scratching the surface with this post. During his career he's worked on numerous games, alongside his legendary group of cowboy composers under the moniker "Team Fat" which consisted of himself, Dave Govett,...

Today we're joined by composer g3ntlebreeze for a unique behind the scenes look at his work on Castle in the Clouds, a Castlevania-inspired hentai game (NSFW - not safe for work). The game was developed by Libra Heart and pixel-teishoku and published by Critical Bliss. Castle in the Clouds is a 2D pixel art platformer released on Steam in 2021 with lovingly crafted art and an incredible soundtrack...

Pixelated Audio is back for the second annual Masters of VGM (@MastersofVGM), an event every June where podcasts come together to highlight some game music composers, either personal favorites or some that deserve a bit more attention. The event was created by bedroth, host of Very Good Music and BGMania podcasts. Check out some of the other participating shows in Masters of VGM and see what peopl...

We're joined today by Emily Reese; Minnesota Public Radio newscaster, VGM podcast legend and co-creator of the Level with Emily Reese and Top Score podcasts with Sam Keenan. She is a trumpet player, and studied music education and jazz studies at the University of Colorado, Boulder and received her master’s degree in Music Theory from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Emily is an avid gamer (RPG...

How do you do justice describing Brian Schmidt's contribution to gaming? His impact on the global trajectory of games has been immense. There's no doubt in our minds that Brian is one of the most important figures in videogame history, and we couldn't be more honored to have him joining us on the show. This next paragraph is only a portion of what Brian has been up to for the last 35 years or so....

Today we're joined by composer and graphics artist Robert Vroemisse for Angelic Warrior DEVA, a modern indie game for the MSX2 released in 2020. Together we talk about the game, the development process, Team DEVA and gaming in the Dutch MSX scene. Angelic Warrior DEVA is a fast-paced, tough as nails action RPG for the MSX2 created by Team DEVA; made up of Robert Vroemisse (pronounced "Fru-miss-uh"...

We're back with another stellar euro platformer, this time in the form of Wolfchild, developed by Core Design. Your father Kal Morrow, expert in genetic research and creation of human-animal hybrids, has been kidnapped and the rest of your family was brutally murdered by the terrorist organization CHIMERA. You take control of his surviving son Saul to exact revenge against CHIMERA and their leader...

Today we're joined by industry legend Neil Biggin in an absolutely massive show! Neil regales us with hilarious stories as we cover a wide range of his electronic music during his time at Gremlin Graphics from about 1992-1996. He walks us through some memories of landmark events during the 16 and 32-bit eras: the launch of the CD32, the first days of the Playstation, and being at a company with on...