A couple years ago, composer Dale North shared a cab to a gaming event in Boston with indie game designer Adam Rippon.
Dale mentioned he'd always wanted to write a score for a game, bemoaning the fact he'd only ever been a contributor in the past.
Rippon happened to be working on Dragon Fantasy Book II, and extended an invitation to Dale to write the score.
Dale, however, is a busy human being, spending 60-plus hours a week as editor-in-chief of Destructoid.com. In the end, he had nine days to write music for the game.
It turned out great. Dragon Fantasy Book II is an homage to the 16-bit era of games, from the late '80s and early '90s.
"The end goal for the game was to look, feel and sound like a Super Nintendo game," North says, "so that's slightly pixelated, but maybe less blocky than a Nintendo game; a type of game where you still have to use your imagination a fair bit."
It's a colorful game with a colorful score. Dale's music visits many different genres, but maintains continuity with recurring themes.
Dragon Fantasy Book II is available now on PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita.
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