Good day!
I am Michael Wright, and I did the music and sound for Conqueror 940 AD. It was a great opportunity to live the dream of a younger me. I would leave my NES and Gameboy running so that I could have the music playing in my room and wonder what it would be like to be able to write music like that.
Fast forward a little to the age of the internet. I stumbled upon OCRemix.org and my life was changed. I gotta give a shout out and thank you to the amazing Ben Briggs for all the awesome remixes from him that I’ve enjoyed over the years. Now my iPod was full of video game music while everyone else in high school was listening to… not… that.
Go a little further, and I started studying music in college. I had lots of performing and composing experience behind me, and I still found myself turning up the music when I entered a Pokémon center or encountered a random battle in Final Fantasy to listen to that sweet sweet digital sound. While I was working at a movie theater during college, I was scratching down original music compositions on whatever scraps of paper I could find during the down times, and since I come from a small town there were a lot of down times. Coincidentally, this is what caught the eye of a certain someone who would become my wife. I would write music for games that I made up in my mind, and I eventually found my way over to studying computer science and developed a passion for creating games.
That’s how I ended up working for Combat Wombat Studios and got to write music for a game IRL. It was a cool project, and I really liked the challenge of writing music or developing a sound effect to fit a specific request from the director.
If you didn’t already assume, I am definitely a retro gamer, and I’ll always look twice at games that have cool pixel art and chiptune soundtracks. Seeing Anamanaguchi in concert following their success with Scott Pilgrim vs. the World was super cool. I’m pretty much always running through at least one Pokémon title ever since the day I first got my copy of Pokémon Red. I was so excited to pre-order Pokémon Yellow, and yes, I have the official sheet music to the 2.B.A. Master soundtrack. While Pokémon is my addiction, I would say that Final Fantasy is my soul. My favorite soundtrack is FF6 because every character’s theme is so emotional and descriptive to who they are in such an amazing story. That opera scene is just *chef’s kiss*. I can’t leave out my passion for Mega Man music. That intro tune to MM3 gets me pumped every time.
I think it’s so cool that Combat Wombat Studios is making fan-driven games. Let us know what games you think have the best music, and I’ll do my best to please.
Thanks, Combat Wombat Army!
Michael Wright
