BY CHRISTOPHER LEON
How do you compose a game in which the main character has only one word (“honk!”), and there is no plot other than to be generally horrible?
We took some time to interview composer Dan Golding, who scored the 2019 hit Untitled Goose Game. The game itself has sold more than a million copies, with players taking on the role of a cheeky (albeit sadistic) goose wreaking havoc throughout the town.
Dan tells us about writing music for fleeting moments of game play.
The score for Untitled Goose Game is up for several video game audio awards in 2020. How did you become involved in video games composition and with developer House House?
I knew House House from their involvement in Freeplay, an Australian independent games festival, which I was running at the time. It wasn’t any more complicated than getting to chatting about music for their upcoming videogame, Push Me Pull You – this must have been around 2014 or so.
I had a background in music and had always been interested in soundtracks of all kinds, so being able to put something together for their game was exactly the right kind of challenge.
How did the decision to create and dissect your own arrangements of Debussy preludes come to form the basis of the soundtrack? What inspired this decision?
That stemmed from the game’s first trailer, which needed a piece of music to be played through the game’s radio after the goose picked it up. Nico Disseldorp had been listening to Debussy recently, and noted that one of his preludes had a kind of funny sound and suggested that we work on a version of that for the trailer.
Then, when the trailer came out, there were so many comments on social media from people excited to see how the music reacted to the goose in the game that we decided we had to try and figure out how to make it all work like that. It was a really promising thought that we all knew we wanted to try out, and it went from there.
Untitled Goose Game features only solo piano with a long decay (except for the radio channels). Why was this aesthetic chosen?
Once we saw how well it worked with the game, one thing we really wanted to pursue was the idea of it being something like a silent movie.
Although there were many different ways that silent films had music, we really loved the idea of the game sounding like there was a pianist in the corner, watching what you were doing, and kind of musically commentating alongside your actions. That was instantly appealing to all of us, and although solo piano is a really unusual sound for a video game, I think that just makes it all the more interesting.
How did you work with developer House House to realise the sporadic and comedic effects of the music — specifically, the algorithmic approach to cue selection?
At the beginning, none of us really knew much about how dynamic music works. I know that for me, I thought of it as uncharted territory, where there must be incredibly complicated rules and ways of working that I didn’t understand. That couldn’t be further from the truth, actually. In the end, everyone working with dynamic music is simply trying to figure out the best way to do it, and that’s all we did.
So in the end, having gone through some different ideas, the game plays each prelude in order, but broken up into around 200-400 ‘stems’ for each prelude, with two different versions of each — one for high-energy situations and one for low-energy situations.
It’s a simple and elegant solution to a pretty complicated problem!
You’ve mentioned in previous interviews that you like composing for video games because they allow you to compose with different musical palettes. How has programmatic music changed your own approach to composition?
I love composing for images, full stop, whether that’s games or film or any moving image. It has been some time since I wrote any music for music’s sake, so it’s something that I’ve really embraced.
I really admire creativity that arises from constraints, and matching music with images is to me a really exciting constraint that gives music different contexts and different audiences.
The soundtrack to Untitled Goose Game has just been released in Australia, featuring your arrangements and original compositions from the game. Without the visual aesthetic of the game, what function do you think the release will serve?
Well, I think that the game has recontextualised the Debussy preludes used in the game, and people will hopefully get something new from hearing them in this context. I’ve heard from many people who have wanted to hear my versions of the preludes as stand-alone pieces, which has been fun.
From my own enthusiasm for soundtracks, I know that people listen to soundtracks in part to reminisce about their experiences with a game, and also to re-experience it. Hearing a soundtrack without those images is always its own thing.
As for the original tracks on the album, well, they’ve never been released until now. So I’m really excited in particular to hear how people react to those as I think they’re really fun – and fun is definitely something we could all use right now.
You’ve written several academic papers on the video games industry. Where do you see the future of video games composition heading in light of new technologies?
Well, I think video games have always been a cultural form that’s tied to technology in one way or another – which actually has led to a bit of a culture of forgetting. When a new console is released, when a new piece of tech comes out, we start thinking of video games as ‘new’ all over again, when in fact of course as a medium they are much older than I am. So I’d love to see new video games that build on what has come before – and not just in video games, but in music, in film, in art.
Do you have any advice for local composers who wish to get involved in the Australian games industry?
The Australian video games industry is generally very welcoming and friendly. Although events of course look to be cancelled or postponed for a lot of 2020 while the world deals with COVID-19, there will still be online festivals and gatherings where you can ‘meet’ local developers working on exciting projects.
And don’t be afraid to embrace your own sound. I think a lot of composers assume you have to fit the current trends in game music, but I’d love to see more and more composers with a confident and unusual voices, and I’m sure you’re going to find a game maker who loves what you make.
The Untitled Goose Game soundtrack is now released on Decca. Listen on Spotify.
