Our new section features independent game soundtrack releases from a variety of composers, including work by some of our current members. Head on over to PLUS and check out the first two releases! More to follow.
On August 1st, as our website marks it’s one-year birthday, we’re launching a brand new wing to II. It’s something we’ve been talking about doing since the very beginning, and we feel we’ve postponed it enough. Be very excited.
Alex Mauer’s Chiptune Opus “9999″ can now be purchased for the ironic price of $9.99.
INQ (link), an internet magazine and resource for netlabels and netaudio, has featured II as a guest label for an episode in their “Monographic” series, in which various netlabels are showcased. The podcast contains a variety of tracks, some of which are unreleased or only available on CD.
I recently devoted my musical abilities to a small, retro style platformer developed by 16×16 for the Procedural Generation Competition over TIGSource, a consistent and excellent source for all that is independent gaming.
Here’s a brief excerpt written by the developer about the story of the game: “A cargo airplane crashed somewhere above the wast areas of the Amita range. It was carrying a large shipment of beagles headed to the CutLab, a huge animal testing facility.
The Lab is upset about losing it’s precious testing material and is deploying a biohazard division determined to reclaim it’s property. They operate under the strict orders: seize the usable specimens, kill the rest.
We’re sending three of our elite animal rights activists to rescue as many dogs as possible before the Lab’s grunts confine them back to the life of endless misery.”
The game is currently in beta but check it out and let us know what you think!
The latest issue of Play Magazine has a whole page preview of Brain-Damaged Toon Underworld, so make sure you pick up a copy (USA-edition). And someone get me a copy, please! To quote my favorite part:
“…vibrant backgrounds are merged with an atmospheric retro synth soundtrack by the talented Phlogiston (composer of 8bitpeople’s classic “CyberAxe Café”).”
Also; if you downloaded the new IQTU release before May 19th, then you might want to re-download for an updated mix.
To those who have taken the time to write reviews/reactions to my work, I’d like to thank you all, it means a lot to me to hear what people think of what I’m doing. I’d like to share some of the responses I’ve read with you guys, although I’m not sure you will all share my enthusiasm.
mad_about_crews @ Rotten Tomatoes gives NEUTRALITE a 9/10
NebLJ @ LiveJournal Responds to Level
And some great comments from my CD page.
Also, for those who are interested in what is in the works, I’ve started taking strides down the career path, pursuing a degree in Music Synthesis, and hoping to get my foot into the door of the videogame industry composing and producing original music for titles of all sizes. I will soon have a professional portfolio up at RichVreeland.com for all to view. I’m also working on new material; there are a number of tracks floating around loosely and on compilations (Death Satellite Evasion, Jump Error, Sober Colony, etc) that will all be tweaked and compiled into one album entitled “Rise of the Obsidian Interstellar”. I plan to get it out by the end of this year. For those who wonder what the nature of the album will be, it will revolve around a space civilization. The rest you’ll have to decipher on your own when the album comes out. 
Once again thanks for all your support and happy listening!
Francis Coulombe, the man behind much of II’s graphical content, has made a storyboard to the Radiohead song Bodysnatchers, as a part of this competition. Check it out. It’s rad! It’s also worth mentioning that we’re thinking about making some chiptune music-videos in the future.
4 songs from 9999 are available as a preview to Alex’s first CD album coming out on PAUSE in the not so distant future - 42 songs made for 9 different game systems:
NES, Gameboy, Game Gear, Genesis, C64, Atari XL, Amiga, MS-DOS (adlib), MSX (SCC, PSG, and OPL)
and most of his old free releases are available on his website now as MP3 and apple lossless