The Picture Puzzle Revolution soundtrack consists of specially mixed versions of five songs from Nine Inch Nails' The Slip. Initially, I planned to have only 10 levels in the game - one for each song on the album, with each song providing the soundtrack to its corresponding level. That plan changed when I decided to incorporate some of the artwork from Ghosts I-IV into the game, which saw the number of levels increase to 24.
More significantly, at the same time, I also began playing around with the idea of using the multi-tracks that are available from remix.nin.com. The multi-track idea was initially just a proof of concept for a future game that would be more directly based on music; I figured that since I was learning how to use FMOD anyway, I may as well see if I could have multiple music tracks playing which could be muted and unmuted based upon in-game events. So I took five of the instrumental tracks from "1,000,000", trimmed them so that they would loop cleanly, and set them up so that each track would only become audible once a certain percentage of tiles have been placed correctly. I really liked the way that this worked in the game (in particular, the way a level often starts off with nothing but drums, eventually building up to a full rock ensemble with guitars, bass, and keyboards), so I decided that I should mix more songs in this way.
Once again, I thought about using all of the songs from The Slip and the handful of songs from Ghosts I-IV for which multi-tracks are available. However, I soon began to realize that Nine Inch Nails songs typically have a LOT going on - one of the Ghosts songs, for example has 26 tracks, including multiple types of guitar, piano, percussion, and other instruments. I decided to stick with the five songs that can currently be heard in the game for a simple reason: I have seen all of them performed by a five-piece band, so splitting them up into five tracks each was a relatively simple process. The songs are "1,000,000", "Letting You", "Discipline", "Echoplex", and "Head Down" - the five songs that were featured on the DVD that came with the physical version of The Slip. As Nine Inch Nails songs go, they are all pretty catchy and upbeat, and I have had a lot of fun listening to them while programming and testing the game. I hope that anyone who plays the game will also enjoy listening to these songs and getting to play around with them a bit.
Stay tuned to this space, as later this week the full game should be ready to download!
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