Quote from
Hober on October 29, 2007, 2:08 am
Portal's been fantastically successful in one aspect, without a doubt: having a theme song that is irrevocably lodged in your brain. This is not the first time Jonathan Coulton, the man behind "Still Alive," has made catchy tunes As it turns out this "Geek Troubadour" is a veteran songwriter and gamer, which he discussed with MTV's Multiplayer Blog:
Quote:
Later in the year Valve invited Coulton to the company's offices in Kirkland, Washington. "They flew me out there at Kim's urging," Coulton said. "During the visit they sat me down and I did a little play-testing on an unfinished version of 'Portal' and just loved it. We sat down with Eric Wolpaw, the writer...Eric said, 'I always wanted to do a musical number in a game,' and I said, 'Oooh, that sounds juicy.'
He also has talked about Portal on his blog before:
"The character is this hilarious passive aggressive personality, which is obviously a perfect subject for me. I write about that sort of thing all the time. I got an advance copy of the game when it was nearly finished, played through it, talked with the writers, and tried to get inside this character's head as best I could. I bought my first ukulele specifically to record this song, it just seemed right for it. (Or maybe I wrote the song that way so I could buy a ukulele, hard to say.)"
And just as the ThinkingWithPortals community has started imitating the Portal mappers, the Victims of Science have imitated Jonathan Coulton (sort of) with their new song "The Device Has Been Modified." I only say sort of because they've replaced Coulton's guitar with a synthesizer for a nice stroll down Synth Street. It's the sort of thing you'll like, if you like these kinds of things.
(Hat tip: Rock, Paper, Shotgun)
Portal's been fantastically successful in one aspect, without a doubt: having a theme song that is irrevocably lodged in your brain. This is not the first time Jonathan Coulton, the man behind "Still Alive," has made catchy tunes As it turns out this "Geek Troubadour" is a veteran songwriter and gamer, which he discussed with MTV's Multiplayer Blog:
Quote:
Later in the year Valve invited Coulton to the company's offices in Kirkland, Washington. "They flew me out there at Kim's urging," Coulton said. "During the visit they sat me down and I did a little play-testing on an unfinished version of 'Portal' and just loved it. We sat down with Eric Wolpaw, the writer...Eric said, 'I always wanted to do a musical number in a game,' and I said, 'Oooh, that sounds juicy.'
He also has talked about Portal on his blog before:
"The character is this hilarious passive aggressive personality, which is obviously a perfect subject for me. I write about that sort of thing all the time. I got an advance copy of the game when it was nearly finished, played through it, talked with the writers, and tried to get inside this character's head as best I could. I bought my first ukulele specifically to record this song, it just seemed right for it. (Or maybe I wrote the song that way so I could buy a ukulele, hard to say.)"
And just as the ThinkingWithPortals community has started imitating the Portal mappers, the Victims of Science have imitated Jonathan Coulton (sort of) with their new song "The Device Has Been Modified." I only say sort of because they've replaced Coulton's guitar with a synthesizer for a nice stroll down Synth Street. It's the sort of thing you'll like, if you like these kinds of things.
(Hat tip: Rock, Paper, Shotgun)
