Show Notes
Pixelated Audio is back from a wonderful weekend at VGMCon in Minnesota! Gene was slated to represent us but along the way drummed up a party including Pernell from Rhythm and Pixels, Carlos from Heroes Three, and Thomas Kresge head of the Game Brass (check out their new album Barrel Brassed)!
When in Minnesota do as the Minnesotans do, as the saying goes. We had a fun time talking about all manner of VGM related to the Midwest; the region itself, games about the area and made there, as well as composers from the area.
Getting more specific we cover pinball and edutainment in some level of depth before the panel devolves into talking about Shrek, cheese, and endless trips cross country. It's a fun journey through a diverse range of VGM and we hope you enjoy the show we put together. Pardon the noise in the background, it was the best we could do with a portable recorder.
If you'd like to follow along with the slides we used during the talk, feel free to click through. If the presentation doesn't show up below, click here.
Track list
0:00:00 (Bedding) "The Creek" WolfQuest (Minnesota Zoo & Eduweb 2007) by Tim Buzza, additional music by Ben Woolman 0:14:52 (Excerpt) Suzanne Ciani Creates the Soundtrack for a Pinball Machine YouTube 0:15:51 (Excerpt) Xenon gameplay (Bally 1980) all audio by Suzanne Ciani (video courtesy of London Pinball) 0:18:19 "Main Theme" Pin-Bot (Williams 1986) by Chris Granner 0:22:24 "Speak Softly, Love" feat. Slash from The Godfather Pinball (Jersey Jack Pinball 2023) by Thomas Kresge 0:26:38 "New York City (Action)" X-Men Legends (Raven Software 2004) by Rik Schaffer 0:33:34 "Title Theme" Oregon Trail Deluxe (MECC 1993) by Lon Koenig and Larry Phenow 0:36:47 "Gimme Mo' Torque" Vigilante 8: 2nd Offense (DC version, 1999 Luxoflux) by Christian A. Salyer, Eric Klein, Javier Marquez 0:40:26 "Tracking Trouble" Puzzle Agent (Telltale Games 2010) by Disasterpeace / Richard Vreeland) 0:47:04 "Granny Cream's Hot Butter Ice Cream" Hypnospace Outlaw (Tendershoot 2019) by Hot Dad / Erik Helwig / "Chowder Man" 0:49:11 "Kitchen Music" I Am Bread (Bossa Studios 2014) by Black Heron (Leo Chilcott and Murugan Thiruchelvam) 0:54:48 "Protector's Enclave" Neverwinter (Cryptic Studios 2013) by Kevin Manthei 0:58:44 “Let's Break Physics (Main Theme)” Unstable Scientific (Studio Castle Soodalkov TBD) by Super Marcato Bros 1:04:29 "Exploration" WolfQuest by Tim Buzza 1:21:09 "The Creek" WolfQuest by Tim Buzza
Additional things mentioned during the talk
Minnesota Educational Computing Consortium (MECC)
The Story of The Oregon Trail - Gaming Historian YouTube Trailheads: The Oregon Trail’s Origins - Twin Cities PBS Ben Hanson travels the roguelike Oregon Trail - Video Game History Foundation R. Philip Bouchard (lead designer of the 1985 Oregon Trail)
Personal website | died-of-dysentery.com | Died of Dysentery book, history of the game
Minnesota things!
Level with Emily Reese podcast home | PA episode with Emily VGMCon Games Done Quick
Other things mentioned
Airport CEO - game | soundtrack Fight'N Rage - game | soundtrack SML Podcast
More from Pixelated Audio
Pixelated Audio is back from another VGMCon in Minnesota, this time about space! Joining Gene once again from last year are Pernell from Rhythm and Pixels and Carlos from Heroes Three!
Our show takes us back in time to the pleasant summer vibes of Malibu Bikini Volleyball, a no-frill sports game released in 1993 for the underdog Atari Lynx handheld, developed by Hand Made Software and composed by Paul Tonge.
Today, we're looking back at Astyanax, an action platformer released for arcade and NES in 1989 and a game we both grew up playing. Sometimes referred to as "The Lord of King" or "The Astyanax", the original arcade game was developed by Aicom and published by Jaleco, with the NES version developed and published by Jaleco. Both versions share some similarities, like fighting hordes of mythological creatures, but the key difference for our show is they feature completely different soundtracks. We'll be focusing on the NES soundtrack written by Toshiko Tasaki with an occasional detour to the arcade original composed by Kiyoshi Yokoyama.
In this installment of Pixelated Audio, we're taking a stroll through the soundtrack of Blades of Steel. Originally, Konami released this fact-action hockey game in the arcades in 1987 but it really gained popularity a year later when it was converted to the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1988. However, most of us (at least your hosts) tend to forget that two sequels were released: NHL Blades of Steel '99 and NHL Blades of Steel 2000 which we’ve got some tunes from as well.
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