Music Power Up

Pitch

As a musician in the 1980s, create music for early video games. Make your own sounds and melodies from scratch, or use pre-composed patterns. Play games, upgrade the music app, meet programmers, editors and musicians, find your next music job, in the crazy decade that started the digital revolution.

Description

As a musician in the 1980s, create music and sound effects for video game releases! Meet programmers, editors, innovators, all passionate about their own projects, in the crazy decade that started the digital revolution. Make music, for real. Play games. Be rewarded. Upgrade your app, learn new features and new skills along the way.

Music Power Up is both a game and a music production application.

Story

You will start your career as a musician in the 80s. Meet other musicians, game programmers and editors, share their excitement in the early days of microcomputing. Visit the pub, the computer fair, the electronics store. Explore programs, play games and make music from your bedroom. You will soon be hired to create music for new game releases.

Create video game music

Music Power Up includes a complete music studio with 4 to 8 tracks, a versatile drum box and featured-packed synthesizer. You can shape your sounds and create your melodies from scratch, or you can use pre-composed patterns, assemble your tracks and go into the details later. You can create your song in sequencer mode or in real time through the performance mode. Once you're happy with your soundtrack, submit your work - it's time to ship the game!

You will receive a magazine issue with a review of each game, along with articles about sound, music and microcomputers. You may even receive one of the 4 international music awards you can get during your career!

Play games

During your early career, you will create music and sound effects for 10 video game titles, inspired by retro classics. Each one of the 10 games is actually playable and once you have completed your job, you can launch them as many times as you wish. Plus, they've got the best music … since you made it!

What happens next is up to you. The music app is now all yours and you can create and export as many new music tracks or sound effects as you wish, for real or imaginary games.

Upgrade your app

You are very lucky to be friends with Jenny. As a self-taught programmer, she disassembled your music app and she is now adding features one at a time. You'll soon learn that this isn't the only project she's working on.

These 8-bit chips have their limitations, but Jenny knows how to break boundaries. Plus, 16-bit microcomputers are coming, as well as new ranges of digital synthesizers and samplers. A whole new world of digital music production is opening up for your next music job!

You will follow the evolution of computers, synthesizers and digital music. After starting with a limited feature set suitable for chiptune music, you will progressively unlock new features like filters, additional tracks, FM synthesis, wavetables, new modulation capabilities, sampling…

Learn about sound and music

Receive magazines with articles about creating music and using sound synthesis (along with reviews of your last games). Chat with musicians, programmers, hackers, and meet people on Compunet. Your friend Jenny will walk you through the app so you will quickly learn how to use it efficiently. She also made this other program for you to learn more about the essence of sound and how it can be synthesized.

Your career is only starting

After completing the game, you will be a master at using the app. Create as many soundtracks as you want, using all the features of Music Power Up!

Note: If you're more interested in the music app than the story, you can skip the story … or you can use the full app for your own musical projects and follow the story at a slower pace.

Features

Music App Features

• True real time sound synthesis
• Integrated sequencer
• 4 to 8 tracks (each track can chain several instruments)
• Performance mode allowing to jam and compose on the fly
• Sound FX production mode
• Hundreds of Sound Presets
• Premade loops and sets in many styles, ready to be reused or completely reshaped
• Export to WAV, OGG, MP3
• Very straightforward sampler ; sing in the mic and play your voice!
• Play with your computer keyboard
• Compatible with your MIDI keyboard
• Song files are compatible with the mobile / tablet version (Android and iOS)

Game (Story mode) Features

• Meet and mingle with 8 different characters, in different places
• 10 playable games inspired from retro-classics ; for which you will make the music
• 10 magazine issues
• 4 unique awards to collect
• Learn about sound synthesis: oscillators, pulse width modulation, ring modulation, filters, FM, LFOs, wavetables / additive synthesis, sampling, common effects.
• Learn a few tricks for making music
• Relive the digital revolution in the 80s, through an engaging fictional story.

Media

Trailer

Download Trailer (30 Mb)

Screenshots

Branding

Key Art

About Team

Music Power Up began as a very personal project by Gilles Pommereuil. Gilles is a French developer and creator of the open-source game engine microStudio. He previously worked on Neuronball and Starblast, two games from the studio Neuronality, where he is a partner. Gilles worked solo on Music Power Up for two years before being joined by Jean and Félix.

Jean Haffner is a young, talented game artist who recently graduated from art school. Jean worked on the project for a few weeks in 2023 and was hired in July 2024 to continue the work until its release.

Félix Bougrat is a young developer and currently a university student. A few years ago, when he was in middle school, he interned at Gilles' studio, showing impressive skills as a game designer and programmer. Gilles asked him to return in the summer of 2024 to help with a few of the minigames in Music Power Up, again with great results! Félix is expected to continue assisting the team occasionally until the release.

A game music composer, whose name has not yet been disclosed, will be joining the project soon!

Awards