Shantae (GBC)
This is one of the best Game Boy Color games ever, and also one of the last. I was given total creative freedom with the musical direction of the game, working with Matt “Favorite Game Designer Ever” Bozon. I went on to work with Wayforward on many projects, up to Contra 4 and Shrek: Ogres and Dronkeys, some of the best times of my career.
Songs in this category:
Disco-house style theme for the town of the undead. Who says people have to stop dancing when they die?
I was listening to the fugees about the time I wrote this. Sort of chilled out hip hop ballad laaaa!
From what I was told, tinkerbot is ‘not all there’ – so I gave him/it a quirky upbeat battle song, and later on in the song, there are cute little off-tempo interruptions that they later made me remove to save size. I put up this version instead because frankly it’s not the same without them.
All good things must come to an end, especially if they’re really bad things. Time to lay the smack down on risky boots. So I thought I’d give her a fitting metal battle theme. Hear the grungy guitars? No? You suck.
Oooooh. She’s bad. She’s dirty. She’s evil. She’s hardcore. She’s … Mhhmmm so cute. It’s one thing to drool over little cartoon sprites. It’s another to write their theme songs. Mnggggghhmmff.
Sort of laid back ambient / electronic / melodic. It’s hard to classify these. This one is in the oasis town in the middle of the desert. I think.
Big beat. Inspired almost entirely by the chemical brothers. I mean, listen to the beat. It’s almost a direct rip from one of their tunes on ‘dig your own hole.’ the risky boots theme is in this one!
Probably my favorite tune of all. Drum’n’bass and then sort of technoish later on. The closest comparison I can draw for this tune (and the surrounding scenario whereby all the creatures become evil and more dangerous) is nighttime in castlevania 2.
One of the short mini-games – of course, inspired by Chris Hampton (beek), one of my most respected colleagues.
Mysterious labyrinth tune that gets pretty hard, while you’re in the ‘underworld.’ if you concentrate hard you can hear how I was influenced by listening to the rock station on the radio, after the 30 second mark.
One of my favorite pieces in the game – this is an upbeat arabic hip hop tune with wild leads.
You’re in the room saving a captured genie, which I think is one of the objectives of the game.
You found an important item!! This is akin to the same type of sting in metroid, and you should be able to notice the massive influence. Hip tanaka, you are god.
Sort of upbeat mountain-travel music, the bridge part (at :51) has one of the chord progressions I’m proudest of, simple but effective.
Here’s the other of the two tunes I did for the first demo – and it’s the one that showed up on all the ign videos and promotional material, so I’m kind of sick of it. Nevertheless, it is the game’s ‘
I am reluctant to call it a harem… But …. Well, anyway, here is the music that you hear when you go in and are greeted by the totally cute dancers as you get ready to play the dancing game.
The end credits! Triumph! Sort of a dramatic rock tune. “/content/jake_kaufman_-_shantae_-_dance_beats.mp3
Housey looped track that plays when you have a dialogue with someone while walking around.
Short piece that loops while you’re going through underground passages – drip drip drip…. Bwoop bwoop bwoop.
Power dance, this was one of the first two tracks I did for the game, and I think a lot more work went into them than anything else.
I was listening to cypress hill (yes!!1) right before I started this, and it gave me this great idea to take ‘insane in the membrane’ and combine it with melodies in arabic scales. Having the chance to write stuff like this is what makes game music fun.
Your standard game opener, intro and title screen, exposition, ranges from funky to dramatic.