Trove OST

One of the fun things I get to do is write music for this game called “Trove” – a Voxel based MMORPG produced by Trionworlds.

My stylistic choices for the game’s score was based on old retro games from the 80s, 90s and early 2000s – mainly Nintendo 64, Nintendo Game Cube, Sega Mega Drive and old Commodore Amiga games.

I designed the music to be fairly simplistic in execution and listenability.

This creative choice was to allow more focus on melodic structure. Whilst achieving this goal, I managed to stay away from the complex over produced orchestral scores that most MMORPGS are notorious for. Different is good and it has lent quite unique character to the game’s world.

The other reason I chose to stay with this music design was that I wanted to be able to compose by improvisation – and thus play all the music by hand which helps the immidiate feedback loop of on the fly creativity.

Most of the score is centered around the title theme in some variation or permutation. This constraint really adds a nice parameterized dimension of creativity. Constraints are good – they keep you within a boundary, which for me, inspires a good stretch of the imagination to come up with something new. The themes fit the various areas or ‘biomes’ as they are known.

The game’s OST has been obtained by various fans, and it is amusing to read what people try to name the music pieces and guess how and what they are used for.

Please enjoy this playlist offered by MMOs.com