Affordable VGM – PPPPPP – The Soundtrack to VVVVVV

VVVVVV is an addictive indie game by Terry Cavanagh where you navigate your way through a hyper-dimensional space station by reversing the gravity to slingshot up into the air and back. The puzzles are intense but addicting, and the save points are close enough to where you died that you are tempted to immediately try again. However, a big part of VVVVVV‘s charm comes from the game’s fantastic soundtrack by SoulEye (Magnus Palsson). This Swede produced one of the most amazing chiptune soundtracks in recent memory, which he dubs PPPPPP – and each track in the game begins with the letter “P”. The melodies here are pure gold – it’s refreshing to see such catchy, lyrical melodies in today’s games that are dominated by epic atmospheric scores. In fact, I still listen to it regularly, even though I bought it about 6 months ago in the Game Soundtrack Bundle.

PPPPPP – The VVVVVV soundtrack

• $10 (MP3, FLAC, or CD); sometimes available in bundles for less
• (Available for PPPPPPreview on Bandcamp)
• Artist will sign the CD
• ***** Five Stars (Highly recommended)

VVVVVV makes use of the Commodore 64 aesthetic, as does the soundtrack, which draws on the system’s 8-bit sound, complete with its trademark ringing arpeggios, though infused with modern synths for percussion and supporting instrumentation. While retaining the aesthetic, this is not something the original hardware is capable of doing, and so sounds like a C64 on steroids.

The album has a nice, slow opening through “presenting vvvvvv”, where Palsson whisper’s the game’s title (including a two-second silence track!). This is followed by the adventurous and determined “pushing onwards”, the first level of the game, which has a nice transition into “passion for exploring”,

Affordable VGM: Game Music Bundles 1 & 2 (Sale Ends Sunday, Feb. 19)

Game Music Bundle is a pretty awesome project where a bunch of indie game music composers got together and decided it would be a great idea to sell dozens of soundtracks together in one big bundle at a pay-what-you-want rate. This model was started by the famous Humble Bundle, whose selections regularly rake in millions of dollars (part of which goes to charity, the other part to the developers). With a few heavy-hitting games (or in this case, soundtracks), the bundles are sure to generate hundreds of thousands of sales.

Game Music Bundle – $1 and up (highly recommended)

In the basic bundle (pay at least $1), you get some great soundtracks, including Jamestown (voted one of the top 5 indie soundtracks by OSV, and completely awesome), Sword & Sorcery (if you haven’t played the game yet, you should get it on your iPad or iPhone – or your friend’s!), and Machinarium, as well as some new music from Laura Shigihara in To the Moon. Pay $10 and up, and you can get a bunch of bonus albums, including Mighty Switch Force (by Virt), Tower of Heaven, and Shuttle Scuttle (by Inverse Phase, founder of MAGFest). Heck, “Dark Flute” from Sword & Sorcery is worth $1 alone, so that’s some quality stuff you can buy!