Heya folks!
In the last few weeks, we started looking into getting some music specifically made for the game. Robert did some research and found a music genre called Dungeon Synth. In particular, he found a musician/band called Old Sorcery. At some point, we contacted them and asked if they’d like to compose music for the game, and they agreed! So now we’re getting some cool music right from the source. For this post, I decided to ask him a few questions.
Q: Hi, could you introduce yourself?
A: I am a musician from Lahti, Finland. I dabble in various genres.
Q: When did you start composing dungeon synth, and what got you into it?
A: Hmm, it was in 2015-2016 when I thought that I can do this kind of stuff by myself. I have always listened to Mortiis and Burzum and the pioneers of electronic music like Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze and Goblin. I thought that the world lacked a symbiosis of medieval soundscapes and analog synthesizers.
Q: What was your impression of The Hand of Merlin?
A: I am a lifelong fan of isometric RPGs. Baldur’s Gate I and II still are easily the best games in the whole universe. I was positively surprised by all the aspects of The Hand of Merlin; the amount of reading one has to do, the difficulty of the battles, the general lore of the game. Not only that it mixes the Arthurian times with this alien stuff, it had this Lovecraftian element to it, which really got me interested.
Q: How do you make music that fits a particular theme or scene?
A: I don’t really know how to answer this. I spend hours of thinking of what I shall do next, and my whole life is centered around music. After a few days of pondering this story, this Realm, I really got into the proper mindset and started dabbling with some actual musical themes.
Q: Do you find any challenges composing music for a game?
A: I have done this earlier, but all of those former games have been amateurish shit, which never got published. With this project, EVERYTHING is a challenge for me. Honestly, I have never done anything this satisfactory. And I do love every minute of it. I feel like I have found my true calling. Not only that I was chosen to do this game, I was chosen to do a RPG involving magic and medieval battles. What could be more exciting? Old Sorcery is based on this kind of world.
Q: What things do you do when not composing music?
A: Watch movies, play video games, read books. Not much else, really.
Thanks for reading! If you've got any questions for our composer, join our Discord server and ask!
MarkoP
https://store.steampowered.com/app/600610/The_Hand_of_Merlin/