Development team calling!
We hope you've enjoyed peeking behind the curtains for Kingdom Eighties so far. This week, we want to share the first part of the conversation we had with Andreas Hald, who is the composer of the Kingdom Eighties soundtrack. Andreas is a Copenhagen-based film and media composer who has written scores for movies, television and lots more, and we're super happy to have him on board for Eighties.
What are the defining points of a Kingdom OST to you?
For previous Kingdom games’ soundtracks, the defining points to me have been ambience, sparse, almost like a melting pot of all sorts of different musical elements being put together in order to create something else than your typical genre-specific music. It’s music that, at least to me, sometimes might sound odd but in a very good way. To me, that is classic Kingdom - that melting pot of elements being put together.
Then you have Kingdom Eighties which is a different beast. This game relies heavily on memories and references of 1980s Americana. The eighties were fast-paced, you had acid-washed jeans and the neon colors - very bombastic and in your face with most things. There was also this shift in technology which opened up new sonic environments, so we had to come up with something else for Kingdom Eighties than what you hear in the previous Kingdom games. You want it to sound like the ‘80s but at the same time like a Kingdom game, so how do you balance that?
It is a tough one to crack. The ‘80s sounds one way to me but it may sound completely different to you based on your memories, what you listened to, and where you were brought up. Did we want it to reference glam rock, hip hop, or electronic synthesizer music?
If you go a bit further with it, a Kingdom soundtrack should enhance the player experience and not step on the players’ toes too much. It’s there to make the game feel more immersive and I think that the music kind of reflects on the anatomy of the game. It is two-dimensional, you can only go left or right, and it forces you to be creative in both the design of the game but also in the design of the music. You need to make it interesting, evolving and cool, but within the boundaries of the core of Kingdom.
I think Kingdom Eighties is just a different paced game from previous Kingdom games, which I think is cool, but it is different and you need to embrace that and go with it. I think that we’ve gone all the way to create an ‘80s game in all aspects, not just the music, and I think that’s how it should be. No half-measures. Go all the way, full out. Be brave and don’t look back.
Thanks for reading and tune in later this month where we continue with part 2 of Andreas' interview!
See more of Andreas' work here: https://andreashald.com/
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See you next time!
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