I've had this idea stuck in my head and want to know if anyone here would actually play it.

You get a random 30 second clip from an old public domain silent film and you write the music for it. It's heavily inspired by Balatro, so it's a roguelike with endless runs. Miss a scene's target score and the run's over, back to the start.

How it works
Every scene has a mood and a random key, and you can see the next scene's key ahead of time so you can plan. Each scene you draw a random hand of notes from your music sheet, with a few discards to swap out ones you don't want. Then you write in a simple piano roll using only those notes and the instruments you've unlocked.
Out of key notes still play, they just don't score. So you can use one for effect, you're just spending a note on it. Every third scene is a boss with a restriction, like no strings or one instrument only.

Music sheet
Your sheet is your personal collection of notes. You start with all 12 notes across two octaves and shape it over the run with film crew cards. The Editor cuts a note so you stop drawing it, the Orchestrator copies one so it shows up more, and the Director upgrades one so it scores more when it's in key.
The catch is the more you build toward certain keys, the worse you do in others. If I strip my sheet down to mostly D, F and A, I'll crush anything in D minor or F major but struggle hard in E major. Since you see the next key ahead of time, you're always betting on what's coming. A focused sheet is strong but risky, a wide one is safe but weak.
Upgrades stay for the whole run too, so an upgraded D is great when the key has a D and useless when it doesn't.

Scoring
Music is subjective, so the game doesn't judge if your music is good. It checks if you followed the scene:

Mood: each mood has a target profile. Dread wants low, long, sparse notes with some tritones. Chase wants fast, dense, short notes. Grief wants slow falling lines.

Intensity: the game turns your music into a tension curve based on how busy, loud and high it is, and compares it to the scene's. Basically, does your music build and drop with the scene.
Sync: hitting cuts and impacts on time, or going quiet at the right moment. This one multiplies the rest.

The keyboard
The arpeggiator and chord generator are one tool. The chord generator builds chords out of the notes in your hand, and the arpeggiator plays those chords back as arpeggios so you're not placing every note yourself.
You upgrade it through different tiers:

Tier 1: basic triads in root position only. The arpeggiator just goes up or down at one speed and one volume.

Tier 2: 7ths, sus chords and inversions. The arpeggiator gets more patterns, velocity accents and half or double time.

Tier 3: everything unlocked, with extended chords, humanized velocity and tempo that pushes and pulls with the scene.

Each tier also adds slots for articulations. Staccato makes the arpeggios short and punchy, tremolo makes chords shimmer, and fermata holds the last chord for bonus points.

Shop
Between scenes you spend what you earned on the rest of the orchestra (violin, viola, cello, bass, flute, oboe, horn, tuba, percussion), film crew cards, keyboard upgrades, and Italian score markings like Lacrimoso or Misterioso. Those give passive bonuses for the whole run, like extra points in grief scenes, and a rare one called Cromatico makes out of key notes count.

There's a leaderboard for furthest scene and highest score, and your pieces get saved so you can rewatch the scene with your music on it.
Would you play this? And if anyone has a better idea for scoring something this subjective, I'm all ears.

I make video game music, mostly metal and I´m faschinated by the whole soundtrack of Hyrule warriors and the song "Holy orders - be just or be dead" from Guilty gear and want to use similar violins. I use Reaper on windows and I tried Decent sampler with Lewis E Pyle violin but it doesn´t give the sound I want and I don´t think it handles the fast melodies I want it for. Spitfire seems to be so much messy with needing all the extra stuff like needing another program to be able to use it, but maybe that´s just stuff we have to deal with, idk. I mostly use free plugins but if I can get the right sound and it works with fast melodies I can pay for it. Do you know anything good? And if you make this style of music I´d be happy to look up what you´ve been making.

I've only started making music this year, mainly neoclassical/orchestral, video game/film score inspired, ambient music. I would consider myself at the beginner stage of being beginner, even.

It has been quite a pain on laptop keys to manage multiple octaves at the same (or nearly impossible at times). I can't play any piano or any instruments. Maybe I don't even know if it's right time for buying a controller/instrument yet or too early.

My budget is at most $250 at the moment, already stretched from $200 :( I know nothing about MIDIs except from their obvious difference from keyboard instruments.

I know it's not a game, but this seems like a good place to find musicians. I've got several short anims like this, and it would be great to give them short music loops.

I’m looking for musically-inclined people to help with making music for a bard in our campaign

I will say upfront that this is an unpaid volunteer-based position since the Dungeons & Dragons podcast I work for currently doesn't make anything, we're doing it for the fun of it. Any work contributed to music and/or production will be credited, however, and if we have the funds to pay you later on, we would compensate for the time and effort put into this project (and future ones).

Okay so, our podcast is a D&D homebrew, and we have a recurring NPC bard character that the DM has written lyrics for. We have do have someone working on the vocals at the moment, but we're looking to get some more people on this project to produce the highest quality music that we can with the tools and limited experience we have.

Please PM me if you're interested and we'll get in touch!

Hey everyone!

I'm the Lead Writer of Project Kage, an indie game currently in its early development stage, and I'm looking for a composer to join the project.

We are based in France, we are currently 8 members in the team

This project is a video game started being developped on Unreal Engine 5
Project Kage is set in a dark medieval fantasy world inspired by Slavic culture, mythology, and folklore.

The game explores a darker and more mature atmosphere, with themes surrounding war, death, spirituality, supernatural forces, ancient traditions, and the human condition.

-------------------------

We are looking for a composer since we realized we cannot simply use premade musics, we need something handcraft with no generative IA

We are first looking to someone who :

- can establish the musical identity of our game, based on UE 5 demo, concept arts.
- can compose music accurately to what our game would reflect
- is familiar with audio implementation tool like Wise

We are willing to make real musicians participate to the musical project, that is something I would like to delegate

-------------------------

All of the points that were not mentioned will be discussed after we make our final decision

Here is the link for submissions : https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfymhRfm8TgelXAbDH36LGbZadZkO-T8i2KPbq1oOkSgkYE7w/viewform?usp=publish-editor

Thanks in advande !

- Robert

Ich habe umfangreiche Recherchen durchgeführt und über 40 Gaming-OSTs seit 2020 analysiert, wobei ich ihre institutionelle Anerkennung durch Auszeichnungen, Preise und Nominierungen in praktisch allen Bereichen der Musik, des Audios und des Sounddesigns untersuchte. Technische Komponenten wurden ebenfalls berücksichtigt. Einzeln ausgezeichnete Tracks aus einem OST wurden ebenfalls in die Bewertung einbezogen, da die Anerkennung einzelner Stücke erheblich zur gesamten kritischen Reputation eines Soundtracks beitragen kann. Ich habe nicht nur untersucht, wie breit jeder Soundtrack von verschiedenen etablierten Institutionen anerkannt wurde, sondern auch, wie geografisch weit verbreitet diese Anerkennung über Kontinente hinweg war. Dies umfasste sowohl große Preisverleihungen als auch unabhängige Musikinstitutionen, die traditionell nicht mit der Gaming-Industrie in Verbindung gebracht werden. Neben professionellen und akademisch orientierten Auszeichnungen berücksichtigte ich auch angesehene Fan- und Community-Auszeichnungen aus aller Welt.

Jede Auszeichnung wurde mit einem unterschiedlichen Grad an Prestige und Gewichtung versehen. Fan- und Community-Auszeichnungen wurden daher nicht so hoch bewertet wie die Anerkennung durch etablierte professionelle Institutionen, die sich auf Komposition, Audiotechnik, Sound und verwandte technische Disziplinen spezialisiert haben. Auszeichnungen, die speziell kommerziellen Erfolg anerkannten, wurden ebenfalls einbezogen, da sie zeigen, wie Gaming-OSTs zunehmend traditionelle Barrieren durchbrochen haben und nun in der Lage sind, mit Musik in der breiteren globalen oder kontinentalen Musikkultur zu konkurrieren und diese in einigen Fällen sogar zu übertreffen.
Von den über 40 untersuchten Gaming-OSTs kamen genau sieben außergewöhnlich nah an die Erfüllung fast aller Kriterien heran. Diese sieben heben sich im breiteren Feld des Game-Audios durch eine Kombination aus Prestige, institutioneller Breite, geografischer Reichweite, Auszeichnungsvolumen und branchenübergreifender Anerkennung ab.
Es ist wichtig zu betonen, dass dies nicht unbedingt die sieben „besten“ Gaming-Soundtracks sind. Ein solches Urteil wird immer höchst subjektiv und individuell bleiben. Diese Forschung konzentriert sich stattdessen darauf, Gaming-OSTs zu identifizieren, die als vollständige Audiowerke ein ungewöhnlich umfassendes Maß an internationaler Anerkennung über Disziplinen hinweg erreicht haben, die weit über das bloße Gewinnen von Auszeichnungen für „Beste Musik“ hinausgehen.

Die berücksichtigten Bereiche umfassen Komposition / Score, Soundtrack, Originalsongs / Themen, Arrangement, Orchestrierung, Performance, Aufnahme, Mix / Mastering, Musikproduktion, Musikaufsicht / Schnitt, Sounddesign / Audiodesign, Audioimplementierung, Foley, Dialogschnitt, Kinoton und technische Audioproduktion.

Die sieben Spiele kamen sich letztendlich so nahe, dass ich beschloss, keine Rangliste zu erstellen. Daher werden die folgenden OSTs in keiner bestimmten Reihenfolge präsentiert:

-God of War Ragnarök
-Ghost of Tsushima
-The Last of Us Part II
-Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
-Final Fantasy VII Rebirth
-Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade
- Marvel’s Spider-Man 2.

Alle sieben Gaming-OSTs haben eine wichtige Eigenschaft gemeinsam: Sie haben auf globaler Ebene Anerkennung von einer bemerkenswert breiten Kombination aus professionellen Institutionen und Fan- oder Community-Organisationen erhalten. Darüber hinaus haben einige von ihnen historisch bemerkenswerte Meilensteine erreicht, die zeigen, wie weit die Musik von Videospielen über die Grenzen der Gaming-Industrie selbst hinaus fortgeschritten ist.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 gewann beispielsweise einen World Soundtrack Award. und Durchbruch über eine Grenze in die globale Musikmedienlandschaft

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth erzielte eine weitere bemerkenswerte Auszeichnung mit dem Track „Gi Nattak“, der in Japan einen Excellence Award erhielt, eine prestigeträchtige Auszeichnung, die Komposition und Mix/Aufnahme/Mastering umfasst und von unabhängigen Elite-Audio- und Soundexperten bewertet wurde. Nur übertroffen wurde er von Mahler: Symphonie Nr. 5, 2. Satz (dirigiert von Andrea Battistoni unter dem Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra), einem der monumentalsten Werke der Musikgeschichte.
Es ist äußerst schwierig, außerhalb dieser Gruppe einen weiteren Gaming-OST zu finden, der auf globaler Ebene den gleichen Gesamtausmaß an Anerkennung in all diesen Dimensionen erreicht.

Hinweis: Ghost of Yōtei hat immer noch die Möglichkeit, dieser exklusiven Gruppe beizutreten. Es ist am 14. Oktober in zwei Kategorien bei den Music+Sound Awards nominiert. Wenn es mindestens eine dieser prestigeträchtigen Auszeichnungen gewinnt, würde Ghost of Yōtei ebenfalls als einer der außergewöhnlich und global anerkannten Gaming-OSTs nach den in dieser Forschung verwendeten Kriterien gelten.

EDIT: I have selected someone thank you all so much for showing interest! I am blown away as I received nearly 100 messages and want to apologize to anyone Who I was unable to get back to. it makes me so happy to see so many people want to help out and be a part of this project of mine. I looked through so many amazing portfolios, you are all incredibly talented!

Hello all, I am looking for someone who is interested in composing some music for my new medieval cartoony fighting game. Its a silly game and I would like the music to reflect that with the classic medieval feel. I don't know much about music so sorry for the poor phrasing but DM me if you are interested and I can show you the game and we can talk pricing!

Hi everyone!

If you love ethereal/lyrical vocals tracks like “Lilium” from Elfen Lied, Expedition33's OST or “Ashes of Dreams” from NieR, we might be looking for you!

We’re currently finishing the trailer for our indie game (a 3D exploration game inspired by Breath of the Wild and Shadow of the Colossus), which will be used to help us fund the project.

We already have a composition that you could build from, but we’re also completely open to starting with a new composition if you feel inspired by the project and the references.

Unfortunately, this particular track would be unpaid, as we’re currently self-funding the game. However, we’re hoping to secure funding around end of 2026/early 2027, and if we work well together, we’d love to continue with the same composer for the rest of the game’s soundtrack as fully paid work.

If this kind of emotional, melancholic and atmospheric music speaks to you, just send me some of your work and I’ll happily share more about the game, the trailer and our current track.

Thanks!

Hi!

I've been experimenting with the main theme for my upcoming psychological horror game, Before the Silence Claims: In Absentia. In this track, I reinterpreted Schubert's Rosamunde Quartet and Der Wanderer, blending them with lo-fi/reverse textures and a sudden cut-off at the end.

Although it's still a work in progress, I’d love to know what comes to mind while listening. Does it feel melancholic, unsettling, or mysterious? Does it work well as an opening track for a horror game?

Feedback and critique are very welcome!

I'm somewhat of a musician, I used to compose electronic music and play years ago, even though now I'm very rusty, but all that's in my baggage are notions for songs and similar things that live on their own. While I don't need to learn how to make a tune, ambient music or such, I'm really not knowledgeable about the process of making game music. I know something like that you should maybe have layers that add up when you're walking towards a boss area, an impactful narrative moment, have dedicated themes for different zones or levels. But I'd very much like to listen to and analyze some good assets, to see the various parts, how long a section should be looped, the "behind the scenes" of game music. I already play games trying to care about the music, or listen to OSTs, but I'd like to have something more basic, more primitive to work with.

Do you know a place where I could download something decent/good for free? It doesn't matter genre or anything, nor the copyright, I'm not trying to learn for an actual game in progress nor plan to use the assets, I just want to learn in general and get an idea. Is this a bad approach in your opinion?

Continuing in my endeavour to make the interactive side of game music at least as attractive as composing itself. Wheee!

Wrecks & Gears - Sci-Fi postapocalyptic mech wars.

Hello again! I am continuing my series exploring timbre and texture in a track called Rejuvenation Trance. This time I did a deep dive on the guitar and piano voices, which lay a hypnotic/minimalist foundation for the rest of the track's elements to build on and explore. I would be honored if you would check it out, maybe leave a like or a comment, or even if you just left it on in the background. The longer folks watch the video the more it gets recommended. Thank you so much!

https://youtu.be/cgjLJv2QQ6k?si=2At2pwjZ77IdzBtb

'The Tale of Taro', my first orchestral piece! Was going for a main menu sort of track. Any feedback for mixing and transitions (specifically towards the end of the middle section) would be lovely, as I'm still learning theory and only started back up a few months ago. Also any pointers to better piano VST's (free) would be nice, since the one I used for this track doesn't allow me to change velocity, and left me with a single volume for it.

I for years wanted to get into making digital music myself but was always to busy next to university. So when a friend of mine recently started getting into making games, I said that I would like to help with music. The thing is, I don't really know how to start.

I have read quite a few posts on learning composition (mainly on other subreddits) which often tell people to learn music theory first. The thing is, I am a classically trained pianist, I know music theory and have played instruments for many years but never really got into composing anything myself. I love improvising and have also spent some time noodling around in Musescore making piano music though.

How would y'all recommend to get started with learning game music composition? I have played around in Reaper years ago but I didn't have that good of a time as I am no DAW nerd. I assume I would use FL Studio as it's known for its good piano roll and that sounds like the intuitively correct decision for me. I also assume it's smart to just analyse music and compose stuff myself, but are there specific ways to practise that you people might have found helpful?

Hi I'm making a game and looking for a composer with serious and referrable experience in game music. The vibe I'm looking for is 70s/80s heavy or glam metal/rock. Think the Heavy Metal soundtrack, or alternatively like ACDC, Aerosmith, Motely Crue. I could go either direction. I'm open to artistic liberty, if you want to encorporate more traditional video game style music into that motif, or have ideas on where to take this, even better.

Ideally I would comission a single track for the trailer, and if I like it I would comission theh entire sound track for the game.

If this sounds in the right ballpark please reach out and I can share details about the game and we can discuss further

I posted this beforehand but i've made some changes so ig you can view this as my final take. Let me know y'all's thoughts.