5 out of 5

Label: (digital)

Produced by: ?

We’re a relatively long while into this thing where more of us are appreciating video game soundtracks, but I can still be surprised by how much depth can be found in the music of the non AAA / AA space. I mean, fair enough: indie games’ scores were what had me first listening to this stuff, and I tend not to get into the generally more orchestral, bombastic music made for larger games… and yet, here I am, despite being drawn to this score exactly because of the names involved, and expecting something minor. This might also be a reaction to listening to a collection of soundtrack music from another name composer that left me a little cold, but if so, I think that only served to underline how much I enjoyed Desktop Dungeons OST by Danny Baranowsky and Grant Kirkhope, which leans towards the latter’s platforming bop, but has an underpinning of edginess that Baranowsky has helmed across his works.

There are a couple main things that – while not required – I think help make for a good score, whether games, shows, or movies: having a theme, and having atmosphere. While those both might be ‘duh’ sounding, I think you can get away with only having one if it’s especially strong: if your theme is automatically grabbing, you can craft a whole soundtrack out of manipulating that without necessarily telling a story; and oppositely, if you can tell that story without arriving at any recognizable mantras, then so be it – you’ve entertained me either way. (And I’m sure there are examples that’ve worked without either of these, but they nonetheless represent a baseline.)

Desktop Dungeons somewhat misleads with its theme, in that it feels entirely predictable: bleepy video game stuff, with a light “medieval” vibe to it, a la, well, MediEvil. It’s a solid song, but perhaps exactly what I was expecting tonally, and rather simplistic to boot. But we’ll use this familiarity as the springboard for much deeper, more exploratory stuff, which nips at various genres – rock, sometimes orchestral, ambient – and massages them into the chiptune-esque template for something that feels appropriate in all senses: a modern game with a nostalgic presentation; and a game that rewards the skills earned with replay, just as the music kind of grows and grows along the way, such that whenever we revisit that theme, it’s like a celebratory nod to where we began.

Baranowsky and Kirkhope trade off throughout, joining up on a few tracks; I think if I compared track credits while I was listening, I could offer a bit more detailed analysis on their varying approaches, but the score sounds seamless otherwise – that is, the two composers, to my ears, found how their styles combined and approached it as one mind. The production quality is also appreciably dense, which is why the evolving sound palette is so effective at creating the aforementioned atmosphere: while bleeps and bloops and beats really only “require” a certain crispness to be effective, once you start roping in other sounds, a flat recording can ruin the immersiveness, but DD just kind of keeps opening up the further you go with it.