Here’s to another ten years.

(This was made for a VVVVVV level I co-created with mothbeanie for the “VVVVVV’s 10th birthday eVVVVVVent” jam on Glorious Trainwrecks. Get it here: https://www.glorioustrainwrecks.com/node/11787)

  1. PARTY MIX 21ST CENTURY THROWBACK TRAP BEATS: A diegetic piece; this is the music playing on the jukebox during the party at the beginning. The rain in the background is because it’s literally raining outside in-story.

    I was aware that producing it for Glorious Trainwrecks meant the level might be played by people who are familiar with VVVVVV but not its custom levels scene, and this track was made with that idea in mind. We start with a square wave to get a connection to chiptune familiar to VVVVVV players, but then it veers off when it turns out surprise, I put a trap beat in ur VVVVVV.
  2. Please Clap: mothbeanie wrote “insert overly-long fanfare here”, and I think I delivered perfectly.
  3. Flickery Ceiling: This plays when you start using the VR headset, so I wanted a corny “WELCOME TO THE FUTURE” kinda vibe. The lead synth has this cheesy “talking” filter, and I threw in some randomly-shuffled “modular” percussion to make it a little more interesting. The outro has some different chords to break up the repetition.
  4. The Ascent (by mothbeanie): Here’s what mothbeanie has to say about this track:

    “This track is named after the title of Vermilion’s in-universe level. It’s essentially a chiptune-y rendition of the main theme, with a few twists. It was also made pretty last minute! I’m really happy with that echo effect in the latter fourth of the track.”
  5. It was on that fateful evening that I arrived at The Tower of Society.: Simple drone piece that plays during the brief overworld section leading up to the tower. Meant to establish a spooky tone so it can be undercut later. This is one of my best track names ever.
  6. really makes u think: The deadline for the jam was very tight, and I knew this was going to be the most ambitious piece (being divided into 4 different cues for each floor you visit), so I just kinda dove in and threw together something silly. The Madvillainy sample is fun, the main melody is stupid, the organ chords are really stupid, and overall it’s pretty great.
  7. Elevator Action: Elevator SFX made with sine waves and a bitcrusher. Toby Fox put “Long Elevator” on the Undertale soundtrack so I’m allowed to do this
  8. Aerie Fight: Rumbling SFX made from distorted brown noise. It’s simple but I like the texture. I added these SFX loops to this album to space things out a bit from “really makes u think”, so the title track is more effective.
  9. Decennial Hangout: Main theme that’s definitely VERY different from “Underground Space” from Levelmaking Sins. I feel good about how I got the filter and reverb just right to make it sound delicate.

cover art and track 4 produced by mothbeanie