Meadows

When I work on game jam games, I make a specific point of writing at least 2 pieces of music: a main gameplay theme and a title screen theme.⁠
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"meadows," the title theme for Spelltacular Smoothies, takes after my Breath of the Wild inspired work on Calico. It's a simple piano tune, meant to accompany the lovely natural outdoor ambience put together by sound designer (and partner-in-crime) Vitor Amado - I think it's a pretty natural (ha) fit⁠
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I also found space in my ambient piano doodling to fit in a nod to the motif of the main theme - which is another fun trick I like. It adds a nice bit of ✨polish✨ to the soundtrack.⁠
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The Spelltacular Smoothies soundtrack is available wherever you get your music!⁠

My name is Star Victoria Power

My name is Star Victoria Power and I write colorful music for colorful games. (and here are some of them!!)

My origins come from an unexpected place... sonic the hedgehog sprite comics.

For the uninitiated, a "sprite comic" was a popular genre of online content from the late nineties/early aughts - folks would rip graphics from video game and make comics out of them

I read... a lot of these. and they were mostly sonic themed.

I also grew up in poverty - we did have a computer and internet, but we were on painfully slow dial-up internet for the longest time.

I still remember the 3 hours I took to download the massive 6-megabyte sonic fan game, "Amy, One Girl Army"

So I had a lot of time on my hands - no youtubes or tiktoks or whatever. I needed something to do, so I decided, "hey, why don't I try to make some of these comics?"

coming back to that slow internet - I also really liked music! but I couldn't download 2, 3, 4 megabyte songs !!!

So what did I listen to? midi files. from vgmusic.com

Video game music midi files.

for the uninitiated - these files do not have recorded sound in them. They're essentially a set of instructions - digital sheetmusic - that your computer's (very bad) instruments would play back for you.

I downloaded so many of these.

Mostly Sonic the Hedgehog midis.

The patterned repeated itself. Eventually I said to myself, "hmm. I wonder if I could make midis."

"I wonder if I could make.. video game.. midis..."

"I should write music for video games."

I was about 13. and now here we are!

If you're curious how it went - check out my website! slide20xx.com (linked in my bio)

and get in touch if you're at gdc and want to meet up for a chat (or if you want to work together 😉)

How to Handle Hard Times

For the understatement of the century: times are tough right now. With what’s happening in the games industry, in politics, in many of our personal lives, it can feel overwhelmingly difficult to orient ourselves. I’ve been through a lot of tough times, myself, and here’s what helps me get through them.

One of the best things you can do for yourself is to continue to do what you do best. If there’s an artform you’re passionate about, whether it’s traditional "work" or the art of caring for your loved ones and your community, there’s never been a better time to tune out of the world and into your art. You’ll be a happier, better self - and that's the self that we need.

Bonus: if you’re in the business of monetizing your art, that’s a good way to move out of the nightmare of capitalism. Become a master of your craft and build a war chest for yourself and your loved ones. Or, feed your spirit enough with your art to keep going wherever you go to pay the bills.

Exercise. Sorry.

Endorphins, longevity, a healthier body and a clearer mind - you know it’s good for you, you know it’s good for you, so get out there and get moving. Remember that "best version of you?" That version of you exercises.

I like to lift weights. I’m gettin real strong. If you know me well, you already know this, because I will not shut up about it.

Do it.

Stop reading the news. Sorry again.

Unplug, and take care of yourself. There are other people out there with more resources, more time, more energy, who can and will fight on your behalf. If you’re questioning whether or not you have enough to give, it is very possible that you don’t right now. That sucks, but what sucks worse is you burning yourself out and giving up entirely. So, don’t do that.

Take a chill pill.

They’re small steps, but they work. Inch by inch, step by step, it’ll help. Maybe you’ll win that contract or land that deal, maybe you’ll get that promotion or find that job, or maybe you’ll just find the strength to get up and get back to it for another day. But here’s the trick: if you do that every day, before you know it, you’ve done it.

meditations - now available on Spotify!

My album of electroacoustic and acousmatic music, “meditations,” is now available on Spotify!⁠
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When I was at Berklee I signed up for a class called (surprise) electroacoustic and acousmatic music! It was one of the best composition classes I’ve ever taken - we explored non-traditional electronic music including work inspired by the earliest examples of electronic music production, a very powerful modular synthesizer, and some of the finest examples of ambient music out there.⁠
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I’ve always considered myself a connoisseur of Music (capital m) and what is music if not sound organized through time? (I promise I’m going somewhere with this)⁠

Writing stuff like this has been an incredibly informative part of my musical education - even though it doesn’t sound like anything else in my catalogue, the principles that apply to making avant-garde “noise music” like this engaging are exactly the same ones used by any talented classical composer, hip-hop producer, or pop musician - from Beethoven to Tyler, The Creator (two of my personal favorites).⁠
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I used to have a resistance to releasing this kind of stuff under my artist name in an “official” capacity, but these days I’m more keen on sharing everything I’ve got - and I think it’s neat to show more sides of musical creativity in general anyway.⁠
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Check out meditations on Spotify (and everywhere else !) or for purchase on Bandcamp if that’s your fancy. Cheers !

meditations... now available on Spotify!

My album of electroacoustic and acousmatic music, “meditations,” is now available on Spotify!⁠
⁠
When I was at Berklee I signed up for a class called (surprise) electroacoustic and acousmatic music! It was one of the best composition classes I’ve ever taken - we explored non-traditional electronic music including work inspired by the earliest examples of electronic music production, a very powerful modular synthesizer, and some of the finest examples of ambient music out there.⁠
⁠
I’ve always considered myself a connoisseur of Music (capital m) and what is music if not sound organized through time? (I promise I’m going somewhere with this)⁠
⁠

Writing stuff like this has been an incredibly informative part of my musical education - even though it doesn’t sound like anything else in my catalogue, the principles that apply to making avant-garde “noise music” like this engaging are exactly the same ones used by any talented classical composer, hip-hop producer, or pop musician - from Beethoven to Tyler, The Creator (two of my personal favorites).⁠
⁠
I used to have a resistance to releasing this kind of stuff under my artist name in an “official” capacity, but these days I’m more keen on sharing everything I’ve got - and I think it’s neat to show more sides of musical creativity in general anyway.⁠
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Check out meditations on Spotify (and everywhere else !) or for purchase on Bandcamp if that’s your fancy. Cheers !

An Inclusive Soundscape: A Diversity in Game Audio Roundtable Summit

I’m pleased to more formally announce that I’ll be speaking at GDC this year! Our diversity in game audio roundtable from 2024 was a resounding success and we’ve expanded it to include 6 speakers across 3 days! ⁠
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On Wednesday, March 19th from 3:30pm - 4:30pm in Room 312, South Hall, we'll focus on building empathy and understanding in the game audio community - discussing how personal growth and diverse interests can build new connections, navigating cultural differences, and examining things from a hiring perspective.

On Thursday, March 20th from 11:00am - 12:00pm in Room 314, South Hall, we'll explore concrete strategies for making change, focusing on implementing diversity initiatives, addressing challenges in networking, and understanding neurodiversity when working with a team.

Finally, on Friday, March 21st from 10:00am - 11:00am in Room 308, South Hall, we'll conclude with a discussion of systemic barriers and long-term solutions - specifically around improving opportunity pipelines & addressing financial barriers to entry.

This is going to be an incredible series of discussions - can't wait to see you there!

City Cat Kitty Cat

The city theme for Calico was the toughest one to put together.⁠
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The reference that I was given for the tune was a delightful enough clip from Carole & Tuesday.. except, it was only about 15 seconds long. But that wasn't the difficult part!⁠
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I listened to that 15 seconds a few times, really dialed it in, and I realized: it was hip-hop. Happy hip-hop.⁠
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Now, I've been listening to hip-hop my whole life, and I'd even covered some light hip-hop production techniques at Berklee. Like, for example, if it doesn't sound "right," try moving your drum samples so that they're ~ever so slightly~ off beat - either a little bit ahead of the beat or a little bit behind the beat, depending on what kind of "feel" you want it to have.⁠
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My problem was: my drums were really bad. Like, criminally bad. And I don't know if you know this, but you cannot make good hip-hop if your drums do not sound ~crisp~⁠
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After a solid 6 or so days of trying (and failing) at making something, THANKFULLY, I finally put together a decent sounding kick and snare. Most of my sketch came together on the 7th day (the day it was due) and the team was like "oh cool, yeah, sounds great." and I was like "yeah thanks it was easy 🫠"⁠
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(I'm kidding I told them it was hard)⁠
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City Cat Kitty Cat is available for streaming wherever you get your music!⁠
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And if you're curious, the reference the Calico team found for me was a short snippet of "Warm Groove" from an episode of Carole & Tuesday. I ended up finding the whole tune earlier this year.

a lonely spaceship

A lonely spaceship is an original demo track I put together in response to a call for composers! It's not something I typically do but my mentor (get a mentor) suggested that it'd be a good idea, so I gave it a go. ⁠
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Inspired by the gameplay of Far: Lone Sails and Opus: Echoes of Starsong (neither of which I've played 🫠 🫠such is life), I wanted to lean into the idea of wandering or floating somewhat "aimlessly" through space. I picked a few sounds that were evocative of twinkling stars or the whoosh of an engine's exhaust⁠
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Wide Ocean, Big Jacket was another lil reference - I thought it offered some instrumentation and mood inspiration, but I thought the warmth of that soundtrack might be a bit out of place - that said, I did find a tune about 30min into the game that felt like a fit (it was less camp-site-guitars and a bit more ~moody~) -- but I took some subtle inspiration from the percussive sounds in that game and added a bit of guitar for good measure⁠
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Full tune available wherever music is sold! mostly⁠
i mean you won't find it in a record shop⁠
it's on them internets tho⁠
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stay frosty⁠
-💫,

Mixing Magic... for Spelltacular Smoothies

"Mixing Magic" is the main gameplay theme from a game jam game I worked on called Spelltacular Smoothies! The premise of the game is that you're a barista running a magical smoothie cart, blending together ingredients into potions for adventures to take on their journeys. (Somebody's gotta be putting those things together, right?)⁠
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My goal was to blend (ha) the kind of sound associated with chill, cozy games with something more reminiscent of writing for JRPGs. I'm told that the end result sounds like a cross between Zelda and Stardew Valley, so I think I nailed it 🫡⁠
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The full track is available for streaming wherever you get your music!

Calico: Neat Things DLC!

There's new Calico DLC!!⁠
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And with the launch I can finally share the secrets of a few tracks from the EP I put out a little while ago, Calico: Pawsome Collection DX - it features the day and night themes from the new area (with Mermaids!), the day and night versions of the cooking theme "Makin' Biscuits," and this special retro demake of that theme!⁠

This was a fun one to put together - I tried to strike a balance between something 8-bit inspired and the light "magical" electronic elements I used throughout the Calico soundtrack. You'll hear it when you're playing one of the two new retro mini games.⁠
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The Calico Neat Things DLC is available on Steam and Switch, and the Pawsome Collection is available to stream wherever you get your music!⁠
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Dreamy Lights (Main Theme)

"Dreamy Lights" is my take on the main theme for an in development title! It's from the same title as the 'sinister creature' theme I shared a little while back.

Our focus was capturing a certain kind of nostalgia (hence the old-timey strings) and working in a little bit of (digital) Magic*

We also wanted to capture some of the joy and whimsy that the protagonist experiences in their journey through the setting. While 'sinister creature' focused on another character and their representation of the strangeness and danger of the world, this theme captures a bit of hope, a bit of dreaminess, and some nods to the modern-day aspects of the game's locale.

It's now streaming alongside that darker theme (sinister creature) in a release titled "and other stories" which is available on Bandcamp, Spotify, and wherever you get your music!

https://slide20xx.bandcamp.com/album/and-other-stories
https://open.spotify.com/album/1aAhpXegXqdaJovBjwiJPV?si=Z5UZtJTITTansUYEbFtb3w

*this is marked, "lowercase digital, Capital Magic" in my direction document

Ocean's Breath

Part of Calico's soundtrack was inspired by Breath of the Wild 🎹🌲

This was definitely a fun one to work on - a lot of my game soundtrack work falls more firmly in the digital fusion genre, with plenty of electronic instruments and effects, so it was lovely to write something improvisational on the piano as a change of pace.

(although if I'm being totally honest, this is a piece for "piano and reverb" more than just solo piano 🫠)

Ocean's Breath is available wherever you get your music! (even Steam!)

8 bit depth (the magical 8bit etude)

In classical music performance an "etude" is a piece of music written to teach a performer a particular skill. They're not known for being 'musical' per se - if, for example, I wanted to teach someone to sing a really high note, I might get a piece of paper out, write that same note on it 20 times, and then hand it to them to practice with. That'd be the etude.⁠
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Well, I'm doing compositional etudes! (don't worry there's more than one note)⁠
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8 bit depth is my first etude for 2025; When I upgraded my computer late last year I was dismayed to find that one of my favorite instruments, "Magical 8bit Plug" didn't work with my machine- thankfully, the creator released "Magical 8bit Plug 2" and I thought it'd be smart to play around with it a little bit, so I started on my "magical 8bit etude"⁠
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This uses a combination of Magical 8bit Plug 2, Super Audio Cart, and a few things built into Logic. Available wherever you get your music!⁠

Seattle Indies Speaker Series

I'm excited to announce that I'll be giving a talk with Seattle Indies! After learning a bit about my career from my interview, they asked if I've ever given a talk about my journey and said that it might be interesting - so here we are!⁠
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I've tried to specifically hone-in on experiences and lessons that I think will be most relevant to developer's today. I'll be focusing on what it takes to build towards the life and career you want when times are tough. If you're in the Seattle area, please come by! and for more info, see my blurb below!⁠
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With 2024 being a challenging year for the games industry, many of us have faced career turbulence—whether it’s layoffs, delayed projects, or disappearing opportunities. While these moments are difficult, they offer us a chance to pause, reflect, and reimagine how we define and pursue success.⁠
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In this talk, I’ll share my journey as a freelance video game music composer, highlighting the lessons I’ve learned and the strategies that have helped me move my career forward. We’ll explore what it takes to make meaningful progress (even during tough times), how to channel your passion into a sustainable career, and how to keep moving toward your goals and make 2025 a landmark year in your journey.

neural air

Another from the EyeWire soundtrack (and one of few tracks where the entire thing fits into a social media post !), "neural air" is actually one of the very first things I wrote for the soundtrack -- but I didn't actually write it for the game.⁠
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I started with the developer as an intern while I was at Berklee and wrote this piece as background music for the video that I created to explain the creative direction for the title and the technical approach I was going to take to the score. Fun fact about each of the main gameplay tunes - they're each written in 10 distinct chunks (intro, 3x A, 3x B, 3x C) and each A section goes to each B section, B to C, and C to A. They shuffle randomly (a Sonic Shuffle, if you will) to get a lil more length out of the score.⁠
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Eventually they decided to add an additional bit of onboarding to the web-game, and I extended the original cut of this track into its current form to play during that introduction.⁠
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The full soundtrack is available on Bandcamp, Spotify, and wherever you get your music. Enjoy!⁠

thick as thieves

Last time I shared the first track I wrote for Penny Larceny - this time I'm sharing the last one! ⁠
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As a lil refresh, my soundtrack for this game combines electroswing, swinghop, and jazzhop (and like, one dubsteppy jazzy thing) all into one package! It's a departure from a lot of the other game music I've written, but a natural fit for my style.⁠
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This track ended up being one of my absolute favorites from the game, but it wasn't originally planned. If I'm remembering right, we were going to write something else, but ended up deciding on making another chill, hangout track. I fell in love while I was writing this one and expanded it into a big, 4 minute loop (unHEARD of in game audio im a menace)⁠

The Penny Larceny soundtrack is available on my Bandcamp, Spotify, and wherever else you get your music!⁠
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And from my original post about the release:⁠
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"It's a world of heroes and villains, masks and capes, and Penny Larceny -- grifter, con artist, catburglar -- is barely scraping by. Life's hard for a young mask trying to make it big, but now she's gained access to Crimr, the gig-economy service for henchpersons looking to help supervillains with their evil, evil schemes!⁠
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Guide Penny through her new career, pull off daring heists, and unravel the conspiracies which allow the rich and powerful to maintain their profitable status quo."

inspiration

We're coming up on the last piece that I wrote for EyeWire, "inspiration" - by the time I'd gotten to this point in the soundtrack, I'd felt like I'd fully explored the style we devised for the game, along with the different ways that I could create music inside of the "Sonic Shuffle" system we'd devised so I decided to think outside of the box on this one a little bit.⁠
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The file for this one is all in the same tempo and time signature (to make everybody's life easier) BUT I took the liberty of playing more free, improvisational parts without any regard for a metronome or any sense of time. I wrote several of these sections (at varying lengths) so it has a neat effect of moving between those free bits and the traditionally written parts as it shuffles through each segment. ⁠
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inspiration and the rest of the EyeWire soundtrack are available wherever you get your music!

Pixel Pizza Podcast: Announcement

In case you missed it - I had a fantastic time talking with Jared Ettinger on the Pixel Pizza Podcast! I talked a little bit about my creative process, what it was like working on projects like Bloodstained and Calico, and gave a little advice for staying persistent in a creative field. ⁠
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Jared asks fantastic questions and has had all kinds of wonderful guests on the show. Highly recommended - check it out on Spotify below or wherever you get your podcasts!

Spotify Wrapped (2024)

Spotify Wrapped is here!!

I'm posting late because - would you believe it? I was embarrassed. The eagle-eyed among you might notice that these numbers, though admittedly impressive, are smaller than my numbers from last year. But numbers don't tell the whole story.

It's no big secret that it's been a difficult year in video games and that's effected every part of the industry, including the work of freelancers like myself. That could be part of the story, but it isn't the important part.

I've spent the last 2 years reshaping my career on the backend. I've let go of things that weren't serving me, built new systems to support a stronger career, and reshaped my approach to my entire life, in a sense. It's some of the most powerful work a person can endeavor to do and it's _very_ internal. It's not the kind of thing that sounds sexy and fun when you talk about it. It's not the kind of thing that shows up in the numbers. But it's extremely impactful.

So as we watch our numbers, let's not forget the things that really matter. Remember that you're always moving forward, even if the numbers take a lil step backward for a while.

stay frosty,
-💫

The Story the Numbers Don't Tell

Spotify Wrapped is here!!

I'm posting late because - would you believe it? I was embarrassed. The eagle-eyed among you might notice that these numbers, though admittedly impressive, are smaller than my numbers from last year. But numbers don't tell the whole story.

It's no big secret that it's been a difficult year in video games and that's effected every part of the industry, including the work of freelancers like myself. That could be part of the story, but it isn't the important part.

I've spent the last 2 years reshaping my career on the backend. I've let go of things that weren't serving me, built new systems to support a stronger career, and reshaped my approach to my entire life, in a sense. It's some of the most powerful work a person can endeavor to do and it's _very_ internal. It's not the kind of thing that sounds sexy and fun when you talk about it. It's not the kind of thing that shows up in the numbers. But it's extremely impactful.

So as we watch our numbers, let's not forget the things that really matter. Remember that you're always moving forward, even if the numbers take a lil step backward for a while.

stay frosty,
-💫