I was nominated in two categories for this year’s squareenixmusic.com game music awards. This alone is a massive honour and to be recognised for my first professional soundtrack in this way is pretty mindblowing. But then it turned out I’d actually come runner up in BOTH categories. This, my website-reading friends, is amazing.

Runner Up Best Score – Independent
http://www.squareenixmusic.com/features/awards2/bestscore.shtml

Runner Up Outstanding Contribution – Newcomer
http://www.squareenixmusic.com/features/awards2/bestartist.shtml

I’d like to also point out that the winner for Best Score Independent was Virt, who is freaking amazing, and the winner for Outstanding Contribution was Brian Tyler, composer of Modern Warfare 3 and countless Hollywood movies. To be even considered in that echelon is more than I could ever ask for.

I extend my gratitude to the members of squareenixmusic.com, and everyone who loves game music. Big thanks, of course, to Robert Boyd and Bill Stiernberg of Zeboyd Games, for giving me the chance to live out a childhood dream and score an old school JRPG.

Let’s see what next year brings!

Watch this space.

Breath of Death VII, a retro-styled RPG was released on the Xbox Live Indie Games platform the other day and it features two tracks by the person that has written this very blog post. Specifically, I wrote the battle music and the final dungeon music, both tracks I’ve posted on here already.

It takes a parody route and promises 5-6 hours of gameplay, which isn’t bad at all considering it only costs a buck (80 Microsoft Point things). And also it has my name in the credits, so surely that’s reason enough for you to immediately halt your current activites and purchase at least seven copies.

The game’s site can be found here and you can find the game’s XBLIG page here.

http://zeboyd.com/2010/03/05/breath-of-death-vii-trailer-is-live/

Sounds good, no?

[audio=http://binbag.superfundungeonrun.com/Binbag%20McGraw%20-%20Battle%20of%20Minds.mp3,Battle of Minds,download]

It peters out at the end because that is the exact moment I stopped writing for the day. I’m just writing random stuff for now, waiting on some more details from a couple of the projects I’m involved with.

Someone mail me a big bucket of money, that’d be nice.

Right, well on top of that guy using those tracks in their upcoming XBL indie game I’ve had a few people message me looking for music. This was fantastic news until I realised all the work I was gonna have to do.

I’m not sure how solid they are so don’t want to name any projects. I’d rather let the project developers do that so they can establish such things themselves/exert their considerable control/set up a three month hype train with staggered info releases.

Anyway, for one project I’m trying out Pxtone, and attempting to harness it long enough to allow me access to the retro-sounding melodies so many these days desperately crave. I made a test song that might end up in a game, who knows.

This is it in Pxtone’s native .pttune format.

Hopefully, more good news soon, but for now I’ve got to get my head down and work on these projects. So far, the release date for all of them is ‘March/April’, which in indie gaming means we might see them before 2011.

Edit: And here’s an MP3, of which I forgot:

[audio=http://binbag.superfundungeonrun.com/Adventuring.mp3,Adventuring in Pxtone,download]

The game is Breath of Death VII, an X-Box Live Indie Game due out in March/April. The game looks interesting, but I’m just happy to get my music into another project. It’s gonna use Tight Spot for the battles (so they should be super epic) and Testimony for the final dungeon (so it should be super period).

More info when we get closer to the release date, as the ebb and flow of time inevitably creeps up on us like the cold hand of the reaper.

Cheerio!

[audio=http://binbag.superfundungeonrun.com/Binbag%20McGraw%20-%20Move%20'n'%20Groove.mp3,Move 'n' Groove,download]

[audio=http://binbag.superfundungeonrun.com/Binbag%20McGraw%20-%20City%20After%20Midnight.mp3,City After Midnight,download]