Tag Archives: game music

GDC 2025 A Score for Wizardry: The Underworld

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Photo of Grammy Award-winning composer Winifred Phillips, at work in her music production studio.

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Welcome back! I’m game composer Winifred Phillips – my most recent game release is the Grammy Award-winning original music of Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord!  Wizardry is the smash-hit 3D remake of the awesome 1981 dungeon-crawler (listen and download the soundtrack). This is part four of my series of articles based on the content of the lecture I gave at the Game Developers Conference 2025. My lecture (entitled “A Score for Wizardry: World-Building Through Music”) explored how music can help flesh out the world of a game by virtue of historical research and thematic construction. In order to make sure everyone can access this lecture (including those of us who couldn’t attend GDC 2025), I’m very pleased to share the content of this GDC lecture in an article series that includes the entire discussion, along with videos and some of the best supporting images.

In case you haven’t read the previous installments of this series, you can find them here:

GDC 2025 A Score for Wizardry: World-Building Through Music
GDC 2025 A Score for Wizardry: Medieval World-Building
GDC 2025 A Score for Wizardry: Medieval Style

In part three of this series, we heard a cross-section of the music I composed for the Wizardry Overworld, representing many facets of ordinary medieval life. Now, we’re about to move from the Overworld to the Underworld, and there’s nothing ordinary down there.

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GDC 2024 Dial Up the Diegetics: Musical Sound Effects

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Photo of award-winning video game music composer Winifred Phillips, working on her original music score for the game Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord.

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Hello everyone!  I’m video game composer Winifred Phillips – my latest is the music for the bestselling remake of Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord! (Listen and download the award-winning soundtrack for free, and vote for the Wizardry soundtrack in the public voting of the World Soundtrack Awards)

Last March I was pleased to give a lecture at the Game Developers Conference 2024 — it’s a top industry event where experts in various game development disciplines share tips and techniques related to their fields. My presentation was called “Dial Up the Diegetics: Musical Sound Effects.” Every year, after I give my lecture at GDC, I include most of the lecture content in an article series (for the benefit of those who couldn’t attend the conference). So with this article, I’m kicking off a six-part series based on my 2024 GDC presentation! In these articles you’ll find all of the discussion from my GDC lecture, supported by many of the videos and illustrations that I used to support the ideas explored in my talk.  So let’s get started!

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Importance of Contrast (The Game Music of Jurassic World Primal Ops: GDC 2023)

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Video game composer Winifred Phillips is pictured here working in her music production studio. This image is included in an article about the music of the video game Jurassic World Primal Ops.

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Hello there! I’m video game composer Winifred Phillips.  In March of 2023, I gave a lecture entitled “Chaos Theory: The Music of Jurassic World Primal Ops” during the Game Developers Conference 2023.  This lecture was named one of the most popular presentations at GDC 2023, and is currently nominated for a Game Audio Network Guild Award for Best Game Audio Presentation.  Every year, after I present at this popular yearly conference, I release the complete content of my lecture in a series of free articles.  This is the sixth and final article in the series based on my GDC 2023 presentation.  As before, I’m including all the substance from my GDC presentation in this article series, along with all of the videos and sound files, and many of the illustrations that I used during my GDC talk.

During these articles I’ve been sharing my process composing the musical score for Jurassic World Primal Ops – it’s the video game from Universal Games and Behaviour Interactive. Jurassic World Primal Ops came out in the summer of 2022, right alongside the theatrical run of the latest film in this famous franchise: Jurassic World Dominion. 

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Kinetics and the 12 Tone Approach (The Game Music of Jurassic World Primal Ops: GDC 2023)

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Video game music composer Winifred Phillips is pictured at work in her music production studio. Phillips' music for Jurassic World Primal Ops won a Global Music Award and a NYX Award, and was nominated for a Society of Composers & Lyricists Award and a Game Audio Network Guild Award.

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Hey everybody! I’m video game composer Winifred Phillips, and I’m happy to welcome you to the fifth installment in this series of articles based on my Game Developers Conference 2023 lecture, “Chaos Theory: The Music of Jurassic World Primal Ops.” I’ve included the content of my GDC lecture in these articles, accompanied by all of the included videos, sound files, and many of the illustrations from my GDC 2023 conference presentation.

During the previous four articles in this series, we learned about Jurassic World Primal Ops – the latest video game in the popular Jurassic Park / Jurassic World franchise. We discussed how the strategy for this game’s musical style was driven by the concept of Chaos Theory.  This chaos-inspired musical composition philosophy attempts to increase tension through the use of some of the most unpredictable composition techniques, employing these unconventional strategies in the effort to create subversive and disturbing effects.

An illustration supporting a discussion of the use of chaotic, unconventional music composition techniques in order to subvert listener expectations. This illustration is included in the article by award-winning video game music composer Winifred Phillips.

By devising a musical style that avoided a conventional structure, the music of Jurassic World Primal Ops was able to support and sustain emotional unbalance during lengthy action sequences. You’ll find these unconventional techniques discussed in detail in these four articles:

Part One: Tonic Pivot (The Music of Jurassic World Primal Ops: GDC 2023)

Part Two: Quartal Chords and Chromatics (The Music of Jurassic World Primal Ops: GDC 2023)

Part Three: Whole Tone and Octatonic Scales (The Music of Jurassic World Primal Ops: GDC 2023)

Part Four: Polytonality (The Music of Jurassic World Primal Ops: GDC 2023)

We just concluded our discussion of the role that polytonality played in the musical score of Jurassic World Primal Ops.  Polytonality is an uncommon musical device that helps us to break away from harmonic conventionalism.  But harmony is just a piece of the puzzle, and it certainly isn’t the only way we can introduce chaos into our game scores. 

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Super Mario Bros. video game theme song honored by Library of Congress (NPR Interview)

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Video game composer Winifred Phillips records vocals for her Super Mario Bros. theme song cover recording, "Go Mario! (Super Mario Bros)". Phillips is a BAFTA-nominated video game composer whose credits include titles in six of the biggest franchises in gaming: Assassin's Creed, God of War, LittleBigPlanet, Lineage, Total War, and The Sims.

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So happy you’ve joined us!  Each year, the Library of Congress adds a list of top recordings to its National Recording Registry, and The Sounds Of America radio series devotes an episode to each of the recordings selected for preservation that year.  Recently I was interviewed for an episode of The Sounds Of America radio series on National Public Radio, in order to provide some background and musical context to one of the latest additions to the National Recording Registry – the famous theme to the Super Mario Bros. video game!  This is awesome news for game composers and game music fans.  The Super Mario Bros. theme music is now the first game music composition preserved for posterity in the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress.  Each year, the National Recording Registry selects twenty five recordings that represent “the richness of the nation’s audio legacy.”  The expert preservationists at the National Recording Registry works to ensure “the long-term preservation of that legacy for future generations.”

As the author of the book A Composer’s Guide to Game Music, I was able to discuss the historical significance of the Super Mario Bros. theme music as a seminal work in the field of game music composition.  I had previously given a lecture at the Library of Congress about the nature of video game music (that lecture is recorded and preserved in the Library’s Films & Videos Collection) and this experience gave me further insight to the importance of the preservation efforts undertaken by the Library of Congress.  I could also discuss the Super Mario Bros. theme music from the perspective of a musician who had recorded one of the many cover versions of this world-famous tune.  I recorded my version for the tribute album, “Best of the Best: A Tribute to Game Music.”  All of this gave me a unique perspective on this historically-significant musical composition, and I was honored to discuss it during the interview with The Sounds Of America radio show.  In addition to my own interview, the show includes interviews with author Jeff Ryan (How Nintendo Conquered America), Super Mario Bros. actor Charles Martinet, and the Super Mario Bros. composer himself, Koji Kondo!  You can listen to the entire show here:

 

I thought it might be useful to include the transcript of my entire interview in this article.  The transcript also includes my own cover version of the track (which you’ll find in the section discussing the popularity of cover versions).  But first, let’s listen to the original Super Mario Bros. Theme, and then dive into the transcript!

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The Big Index 2023: Articles for Game Music Composers

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Video game composer Winifred Phillips was nominated for a 2023 Society of Composers & Lyricists Award for her music for the video game Jurassic World Primal Ops.

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Welcome!  I’m game music composer Winifred Phillips, and just before the holidays I was ecstatic to learn that my music for the Jurassic World Primal Ops video game was nominated for a Society of Composers & Lyricists Award!  In all the excitement following the announcement of the SCL Awards nominees, many budding game composers reached out to me for advice regarding their own career trajectories.  I found myself referring many of them to articles I’ve written in this space over the years – articles covering the widely diverse topics that interest us as game composers.

Since 2014, this series of articles has explored the evolving state of our industry and the tools and techniques that can help us make great game music.  Over time, these articles have become a fairly deep repository of information. After referring so many budding composers to articles in this lengthy series, it has occurred to me that this sizable collection has become quite difficult to navigate – partially due to the many topics that have been explored over the years.

Discussions have included many of the creative challenges that make our profession unique.  Through an examination of the structure of interactive music systems, numerous dynamic composition techniques have been investigated.  Along the way, we’ve pondered how game music composition has been accomplished in the past, and where it might be going in the future.  A profusion of resources have been collated in these articles – including the best methods to find gigs, and awesome networking opportunities that can benefit a game composer’s career.  There have also been examinations of resources that can keep us inspired and creatively energized.

Together, these articles constitute a living document about game music composition.  However, they definitely need an index at this point.  With that in mind, I’m offering this ‘big index’ of articles I’ve shared over the years, organized by subject matter.  We can navigate around this index using the following menu:

Dynamic Music in Games | Game Music Business | Game Music And Cognition | Game Music Composition and Production | Game Music Events and Interviews | Game Music in Virtual Reality

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Utility for Modular Game Music (Composing for Lineage M: GDC 2022)

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In her music studio at Generations Productions, Winifred Phillips is pictured here composing music for her video game projects. Phillips is a BAFTA-nominated video game composer of music for games in the franchises God of War, Assassin's Creed, Total War, Lineage, LittleBigPlanet, and The Sims.

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Delighted you’re here!  I’m video game composer Winifred Phillips.  Welcome to the fifth and concluding installment in this article series based on my Game Developers Conference 2022 presentation, “Composing for Lineage M: Modular Construction in Game Music.”  You’ll find the entire contents of my GDC lecture in these articles, accompanied by all of the included videos and some of the images from the Powerpoint presentation I used during my conference session.

During the previous four articles in this series, we learned about how NCSoft ported the original world-famous Lineage PC game from 1998 to mobile devices under the name Lineage M.  We discussed how the launch of brand-new DLC content for this mobile port raised an unusual conundrum.  How does a modern game composer create new music that will work effectively within a game engine originally devised in the 1990s?  In the previous articles of this series, we discussed the popular DLC release of Lineage M: The Elmor, and I described what it was like creating new music for such an awesome game with an amazingly long history and enduring fanbase.

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Segmentation for Modular Game Music (Composing for Lineage M: GDC 2022)

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Pictured working in her music studio at Generations Productions, As a video game composer, Winifred Phillips' credits include games in the franchises The Sims, Total War, Assassin's Creed, LittleBigPlanet, and God of War. In this photo, Phillips is pictured at work in her music production studio.

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So happy you’ve joined us!  I’m video game composer Winifred Phillips, and this is the fourth article in my series based on my Game Developers Conference 2022 presentation, “Composing for Lineage M: Modular Construction in Game Music.”  I’ve included the content of my GDC lecture in these articles, along with the videos and some of the images I used in my Powerpoint presentation during the conference.

In the first three articles of this series, we discussed the port of the popular Lineage PC game from 1998 to mobile devices under the name Lineage M, and the subsequent launch of brand-new content for this world-famous game in the DLC release Lineage M: The Elmor.

This is an official promotional game image supporting a discussion of game music composition within a modular system, as described by video game music composer Winifred Phillips.

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Stemming for Modular Game Music (Composing for Lineage M: GDC 2022)

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Video game composer Winifred Phillips was nominated for a BAFTA for her work composing music for the LittleBigPlanet franchise (other projects include games from the franchises Total War, The Sims, Assassin's Creed, and God of War). Phillips is pictured her working in her music production studio at Generations Productions LLC.

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Welcome!  I’m video game composer Winifred Phillips.  I’m glad you’re here for this third article in my series based on my Game Developers Conference 2022 lecture, “Composing for Lineage M: Modular Construction in Game Music.” My GDC presentation explored the top creative and technical challenges of creating a flexible music system for a game with a retro design.  This article series shares most of the content of that GDC presentation, along with the videos I included in my presentation at the conference.

In the first two articles of this series, we explored the power and awesome popularity of retro gaming.  We reviewed the history of the world-famous Lineage video game franchise, including how the original Lineage PC game from 1998 found its way to modern mobile devices in 2017 under the name Lineage M.  I shared my experience as the chosen composer of the music for a new DLC release for Lineage M, and what it was like composing the first new gameplay music for the original Lineage MMORPG in over 24 years.

An official game logo and cover image, as included in the article written by video game composer Winifred Phillips.

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Structure for Modular Game Music (Composing for Lineage M: GDC 2022)

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BAFTA-nominated video game composer Winifred Phillips is pictured here working in her music production studio at Generations Productions. Phillips' video game credits include music for games in the famous franchises Lineage, Total War, God of War, Assassin's Creed, LittleBigPlanet, and The Sims.

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Hey everybody!  I’m video game composer Winifred Phillips.  Thanks for joining me for this second article in my series based on my Game Developers Conference 2022 lecture, “Composing for Lineage M: Modular Construction in Game Music.”  In my GDC presentation, I discussed my work composing music for a recent installment in the famous Lineage franchise (one of the most popular MMORPG game series ever made).  This article series will share the content of that GDC talk, along with the audiovisual samples I included in my presentation at the conference.

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