From Eric:

This is going to be a pretty big departure from the last few tracks you’ve heard, but I’m super excited to share this one. I just really wanted to make a melodramatic orchestral piece like one you’d hear in a horror movie when all the supporting characters have been killed off and we get to that moment when the main characters come to the realization that they’re probably going to die but they may as well just go out in a blaze and you never know, it might just work out. So that’s what this is, hopefully.

Also, I really wanted to make sure this piece still fit with the rest of Super Motherload’s soundtrack, so there are a couple things I’ll mention. If you go back and listen to Surface Outpost I, you’ll hear the same melodic theme, only resigned and melancholy this time around. When you get a chance to play through the full game, feel free to listen for more recurring themes between tracks. Another thing I wanted to keep consistent was the synth palette, but I really didn’t want to just play a bunch of chords on an “orchestra” preset, which can end up sounding pretty lifeless to me. So I decided to only use two analog monophonic synthesizers (Dave Smith Mopho Keyboard and Arturia Minibrute), paying specific attention to pitch/modulation/filter controls and recording single-note phrases enough times with enough sounds and arrangements until it sounded sort of orchestral. If you’re not already familiar with it, check out Wendy Carlos’ soundtrack for Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange where she took pieces by Beethoven and Rossini and reworked them using layers of synthesis. I’m not sure if she was as meticulous on the Clockwork Orange soundtrack, but on her earlier record Switched-On Bach from 1968, she put together full Bach orchestras and concertos by recording individual parts and phrases one at a time on a Moog synthesizer.

Steve, Skye, Kaelyn and I are now fully recovered from our week at GDC. We’re back working at the office, which Robyn did a fine job of ensuring that it didn’t burn down while we were gone. 

Super Motherload looked fantastic on the GDC Play show floor. We were so excited to have such a steady stream of people come by to play the game. We met so many people over the 3 days we were at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. What was really encouraging was seeing students from all across the country (the last photo is a group from Ringling College of Art + Design in Florida) devoted to spending their spring break networking and gleaning information and inspiration from industry veterans. It’s just nice to see that ambition and it’s a great reminder of the feeling I had right out of college: excited and anxious to get started working on things I’m passionate about.

The game ran really smoothly with few, if any, noticeable bugs. It survived even the most ruthless and thorough tester who admitted he was “trying to break” our game. People usually stuck around for quite a long session when they picked up a controller, and play sessions lasted anywhere from about 10 minutes to a half hour. I’m pretty sure there was even a group of 4 that ended up sticking around for over an hour digging the crap out of Mars and getting into a groove with the gameplay: managing their team’s upgrades, questing, and smelting alloys.

Our connected controllers would have a mind of their own sometimes and decide to take a break for a while and de-sync from the system that we were running the game on. Steve played tech support though and had us up and running at a moment’s notice. Aside from that—everything ran quite smoothly!

GDC 2013 was really constructive for the XGen team. It was a week full of meetings, networking events, amazing food and good friends. We hope to do it all over again soon!

- Scott

And, as always, our Steam Greenlight page is located here:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=110294430

We’re currently holding #52 spot on the Greenlight charts! Your votes and comments are much appreciated! Thanks for the support!