Developer Blog #4 - The Music of Astronimo 🚀

Hello there my name’s Vince Webb, I’m a composer and today I’m pleased to give you a little insight into the music of Astronimo.

Before we go any further let’s have a quick listen to the main menu theme.

[previewyoutube]MUSIC (video)[/previewyoutube]
Music in a game like Astronimo needs to play a variety of functional roles: creating excitement, signifying important events to the player, establishing you in a new environment, creating contrast… But over and above all of this is the music’s ability to set an overall tone or vibe. I like to think of it as fleshing out a game’s personality or ‘soul’.

The main theme is most important in this regard, as it is likely to be heard multiple times in a variety of contexts. Of course not every game requires a strong melodic theme, but I find that there’s something inherently ‘friendly’ about giving the listener something clear to latch on to.



This theme magically popped into my head after I had been immersing myself in the world of the game for several days and noodling at the piano. Let’s do a bit of post-hoc analysis.

Firstly, it has a somewhat ‘old school’ quality, with a nod to the nobility of classic, military or space themes (Dambusters, Star Trek etc). While this seriousness is definitely subverted by the tongue in cheek nature of the instrument choice, it still gives us a feeling of sincerity and hope: we are on a mission to get home and we’re going to work together to achieve that goal! It felt important to keep this note of warmth and integrity at the heart of the game’s soundtrack in spite of all the silliness.

The wonderful Basia Bartz adding some violin to the soundtrack

At the same time, all the OTT grandiosity felt like a nod to the bottomless corporate ambition of our employer - Hypergiant Inc. Our boss Croc’s endless supply of (entirely unfounded) optimism makes it all the more funny when our contraptions inevitably fall apart.


A ‘funked up’ version of the theme can be heard on Turilia as part of the background music of that particular world. By displacing the rhythm a bit I found myself writing in a danceable military marching vibe with hints of New Orleans, African and Caribbean music thrown in.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]



Working on the music for Turilia was a chance to develop and explore the game’s ‘core’ palette, before going off-piste: lots of live brass (especially tuba), uke and plenty of percussion! These sounds in combination with some broadly orchestral colours became my jumping off point for many of the stings and cutscenes throughout the rest of the game.

You can never have too many tracks…

As much as I enjoy working with software instruments and synths, I didn’t want things to be too ‘in-tune’. The music needed to feel ‘organic’ - to use the old marketing music cliche. To achieve this I leaned heavily into my ever growing instrument collection, as well as enlisting help from some top class musician friends.

Rather than doing a lot of ensemble recording, I embraced the experimentation and fine grain control that’s possible with recording one instrument at a time. Lots of layering and a ‘cut and paste’ approach resulted in collages of controlled chaos and playful grooves that hang together by a thread.

Recording my own percussion samples was one way to make things more ‘organic’

One of my favourite things about the game is that you can collect and play little musical instruments. Every instrument was recorded live (including didgeridoo) and each planet has its own ‘native’ set. Best of all, you can use them to jam with your friends in real time! Developing joyful and completely unnecessary features like this are a just one highlight of working on a project from early on. I was able to be very hands on with how the system worked as well as have time to try out different types of musical phrases to figure out what would be fun to play. I’m excited to see players experiment and perform their own music!

Djembe, 2 ukes and a trumpet. Just one of the many possible combinations!

My thanks to Coatsink and the team for bringing me on board.

Astronimo will be arriving in Early Access soon so add it to your wishlist and I look forward to jamming with you!

Bob Payne contributing some particularly aggressive Tuba ‘taunts’ to the playable music system

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