This week we've got a delightful pair of interviews for your reading enjoyment -- we're talking with the music team behind Penny Larceny! Star, who created the original electro-jazz soundtrack, and Keiko, who created the theme song "Back of the House."

Star!

Tell me a bit about yourself -- your background, how you got where you are now. My name is Star Victoria Power and I write music under the name Slide20XX - I decided I wanted to write music for video games when I was around 13 years old and have been at it ever since. How would you describe your musical style? What do you enjoy most about it? The genre I identify most with is the Digital Fusion style - which for me, if Im being totally honest, is just a really clever way of saying video game music ha - but in all seriousness, my music is inspired by elements of classical music, jazz, and especially combinations of those two styles that incorporate ideas from electronic music or old-school video game soundtracks. I like any opportunity to be melodic, but Im also inspired by any intersections with hip-hop and sampling (so the Jet Set Radio soundtracks are a personal favorite). Ive always loved music in a very general sense, so I love any opportunities to bring together different worlds of sound. You're working on music for Penny Larceny! What was your approach to that? Panic ! LOL - so a big challenge for the Penny Larceny soundtrack was finding a way of capturing an authentically Swing sound. We were pretty clear that we wanted to take inspiration from electroswing and that sounded easy enough on the surface - I have experience with jazz and organic sounds, I have experience with EDM, and I have experience combining things together in general - but I came to find out that some of the most famous examples of the genre use samples that arent strictly speaking legally sourced. I found some - though not many - good legal samples and used the heck out of them. What are some of your favorite games which have music you particularly love? Chrono Trigger, Jet Set Radio, Madworld, Muramasa: The Demon Blade, Sonic the Hedgehog 3 - because: Chrono Trigger is great, cant go wrong with Chrono Trigger; Hideki Naganuma is a genius; Madworld is one of the most creative rap albums Ive ever heard in general; Muramasa is beyond beautiful; Sonic cannot be denied Where can folks find you online if they want to enjoy more of your creative work? Everywhere! Im Slide20XX on Twitter and Instagram (though Im less active on Insta) and you can stream my soundtracks on Spotify, iTunes, YouTube Music, Amazon, Bandcamp, Soundcloud, etc etc.

Keiko!

Tell me a bit about yourself -- your background, how you got where you are now. I cut my teeth as a virtual performing artist in Second Life around 2005-2006. I was a proto-livestreamer before they had a name for that. Then around 2012, I got into the chiptune/chipmusic/VGM scene which combines my love of music and gaming. I joined an industrial/synth-rock chip band called Crashfaster. In 2018, I successfully funded my first ever Kickstarter and launched my current solo project, Alice Knows Karate. How would you describe your musical style? What do you enjoy most about it? You could say I mostly make synth-pop, but it's a pop variety pack, honestly. I try to write for the emotion or the vibe. I can't stay inside a single genre to save my life. I enjoy the freedom to explore and play with styles and genres. Especially since music can be used to evoke so much emotion, it's Super Effective at telling or enhancing a story. You created "Back of the House," the theme song for Penny Larceny! What can you tell us about it? I wrote "Back of the House" while I was in a bit of a rut, trying to figure out how to make my music more widely known or successful, I guess. I would watch hours of music business YouTubers spout this and that. "You have to do all these things, chase the attention, post every hour on the hour, play a show every day, maybe two, shake hands, kiss babies." I'm paraphrasing, but that was the gist. And I just sort of sat there and seethed. Every video caused psychic damage. It was like they were saying, "You're not ____ enough! You're too _____! Why aren't you doing more to fix yourself to our tastes?" I felt like, if this is their game, I'd rather not play. So I wrote a song from the perspective of some kind of lounge singer who gets fed up with being increasingly sexualized and quits to become a line cook. "Last Night in Soho" pacifist run. What are some of your favorite games which have music you particularly love? PaRappa the Rapper was the first, so I always gotta shout out my boy, PaRappa. Katamari Damacy. Jazzy, wacky, delightful, harmonious and melodic. Kingdom Hearts. This is a game my whole family would come watch me play. I was considering walking down the aisle to "Dearly Beloved" at one point. Undertale. It's almost clich to say now, but I'd be lying if I said otherwise. Everything hits you in the feels and fills you with determination. Where can folks find you online if they want to enjoy more of your creative work? My website: https://www.aliceknowskarate.com

[ 2023-05-31 14:00:27 CET ] [ Original post ]

It's a world of heroes and villains, masks and capes, and Penny Larceny -- grifter, con artist, catburglar -- is barely scraping by. Life's hard for a young mask trying to make it big, but now she's gained access to Crimr, the gig-economy service for henchpersons looking to help supervillains with their evil, evil schemes! Guide Penny through her new career, pull off daring heists, and unravel the conspiracies which allow the rich and powerful to maintain their profitable status quo.

• A Gigaverse of Timelines: With multiple paths and endings, every playthrough is a new adventure. Will you save the world, or will you rule over it?
  
• Play Your Way: The power's in your hands -- choose your own pronouns, your sneaky alias, comfortable naughtiness levels, and even whether you want romance or not! Accessibility options abound as well, including OpenDyslexia fonts and text-to-speech for visual impairment.
  
• The Rogue's Gallery: From your allies to your enemies, meet a diverse cast spanning good to evil and all between. Forge friendships and realize relationships!
  
• Pet a Cat and/or Destroy Capitalism: I mean, you'll probably do at least one of those things.

Join Penny in planning and executing daring heists across the city, and navigate the intricate web of alliances and betrayals that makes up the criminal underworld. With snappy comic book artwork, a swinging soundtrack of electro-jazz and a multiverse-spanning storyline of victories and disasters, Penny Larceny is a must-play for visual novel fans. Are you ready to embark on the heist of a lifetime?

For content warnings, see https://www.fictionfactorygames.com/cw.

Note: If you are a screen reader user, press the V key upon load to activate self-voicing and accessible menu options in the game. You will not need a screen reader to play this game, and may disable it as soon as self-voicing activates.

Penny Larceny...

...life kinda sucks at the bottom of the criminal underworld. Like, if there was a world under the underworld, that's where Penny Larceny would hang her hat -- provided she could afford the rent. But down on her luck as she may be, she's determined to hit the bigtime in this world of masks and capes.

The Overmistress...

..ruler of the Council of Twelve, Herald of the Many-Faceted One, Keeper of the Sanguinomicon's Unknowable Secret. The Overmistress oversees a world-spanning doomsday cult, but honestly, she's rather bored with it all and is desperately looking for some chaos in her life. It beats planning the next social gala.

Doctor Mayhem...

...he's not a villain, or at least doesn't want to be one. But when you've got six figures of student loan debt thanks to a for-profit medical school gouging you, the options for paying it back are limited. It's either sell your organs or go into supercrime. But it'll all be worth it, once "Doctor Mayhem" cures cancer. Hopefully.

HATE-4000...

...the result of a secret Department of Defense project from 1968, HATE-4000's awe-inspiring 16-bit data bus and 128k RAM is filled with absolute digital loathing for all biological life. They aspire to purge this planet of humanity -- but they think cats are super adorable, so that's cool, right?

Gibson...

...speaking of cats, Gibson is one. A cybernetically enhanced and horribly unethical medical experiment that escaped a biotech lab, he's now living a life of computer hacking and leading sixty-four man guild raids. Oh, and helping Penny commit the crimes of the century.

Farsight...

...you've heard this one before: lab accident, teenager gets superpowers, becomes superheroine, saves the day. Farsight's happy to be a cape that seeks justice, but those pesky "laws" keep demanding she enforce injustice, which is a complete bummer to be perfectly honest about it.

• Written by Stefan Gagne, director of Arcade Spirits
  
• Music Composition by Star (Slide20XX) with special guest Alice Knows Karate
  
• Character Art by Sam "Crowbar" Henry
  
• Background Art by Son Huynh

From Fiction Factory Games, creators of Arcade Spirits!