In Agonalea we are always on the lookout for people who are truly passionate about what they do. Our goal as a team is to make games that bring unforgettable gaming experiences, so we are constantly seeking for innovative ideas while trying to connect with our inner selves through the video games we make.
Music is a powerful tool with which we can set the tone of the story and generate emotions around the video game’s narrative. In Rhythm Realms, the tracks are even more important, since besides generating an immersive experience, they are the basis of the battles you’ll fight against all kinds of enemies. You can even find references to popular songs throughout the game’s dialogues!
For this project we worked as a team with composer Juan Gabriel Galindez, an artist who developed his passion for music by learning to play several instruments at an early age and deepened his academic knowledge later on. Also a gamer while growing up, Juan has loved to get the opportunity to put his two passions together while working on Rhythm Realms’ compositions.
Our soundtrack is inspired by indie game musicians such as Danny Baranowsky from The Crypt of a Necrodancer, Darren Korb from Bastion and Hades or Lena Raine from Celeste, among others. The songs in the game are born from a common thread of electronic aesthetics, which in itself goes very well with the retro and 8 or 16-bit game music we are looking for.
To begin with, Juan sends us his prototypes and once the overall aesthetics of the track is agreed upon, there is usually a very active exchange with the team. Based on our feedback, he makes adjustments and modifications that usually have an interesting impact on the songs.
Beyond this, his personal process of composing is rather non-linear —Juan also experiments and draws inspiration from different sources when composing, ranging from his academic background to different musical genres and even the local music that can be heard in the streets of Buenos Aires.
We try to maintain the overall aesthetic and structure of the tracks as we move from arena to arena, so that there remains a connection across all the campaigns. It’s definitely a challenge to build different genres into each track while keeping a similar feel to them. Depending on the campaign, we think of organic instruments and other thematic tools, like scales or melodic motifs, that match the environment of each level.
Juan also likes to experiment with the electronic instrumentation of the song, so he usually works using different synthesizers for the last layer of each song in order to give them a final touch.
We are happy to finally share with you this project after all this hard work. The full playlist of the Rhythm Realms is now available! Find it in our Youtube Channel and make sure to leave us your thoughts about them in the comment section!
We hope you have enjoyed this small insight into our music composition process —hopefully, you’ll like the soundtrack as much as we loved doing it!
