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TST in the Oct. 2009 PC Gamer

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Jimmy Brown
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Registration Date: 06-26-2007
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TST in the Oct. 2009 PC Gamer

PC Gamer for October 2009 has an article written by Jonathan Coulton, composer and geek icon, in which he says some nice things about Terry Scott Taylor's work on Skullmonkeys.

"I had to look up Skullmonkeys on the internet just now, because even though I spent many hours playing it back in 1998, I can barely remember anything about the game.... The only thing I do remember is the bonus room--and that's because of the song.

It was called "The Li'l Bonus Room" and it was composed by Terry Scott Taylor.... The thing that amazed me was that it was an actual song: It had lyrics, it was sung, and it was played on acoustic guitar. I had never heard anything like it in a game. I actually saved right before the bonus room so I could quickly get in there and listen to it over and over. I can still sing it all the way through.

That experience was a big inspiration to me when I wrote "Still Alive" for Portal. Without Terry's example, the idea that we were going to cram what was essentially a musical theater number into a videogame would have felt even crazier than it did. After all, most of the history of game music has been about creating a kind of film score to accompany the story and enhance the mood. This is not to say that it's easy or unimportant.... but the idea that music can play a different role in games is still relatively new."

Edit: Fixed a typo.

This post has been edited 1 time(s), it was last edited by Jimmy Brown: 09-06-2009 12:26.

09-03-2009 18:31

Ritchie_az Ritchie_az is a male

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Leave it to Terry to be forward thinking even in a video game soundtrack.

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09-03-2009 19:36

audiori audiori is a male

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Cool deal. THanks for alerting us to that. Happy

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09-03-2009 19:50