Dicey Dungeon’s soundtrack was inspired by Earthbound and disco house

Dicey Dungeons’ soundtrack can really crank up the pressure. When I was playing the game the most in 2020, its bumping rhythms amped up every match’s stakes. Even though I’ve moved on to other titles, the soundtrack is still in heavy rotation when I’m on deadline, thanks to its upbeat and funky tracks. When brainstorming for our Polygon FM, our theme week celebrating the intersection of music and games, I knew its composer Chipzel was someone we wanted to talk to as part of this Q&A series.

(This interview was conducted via email and edited for format and clarity.)

Polygon: Was there a game soundtrack or song that inspired you to pursue creating game music? Can you set the scene of what that felt like for you, and why the music was so effective?

Chipzel: My entry into games music was a little unconventional. I entered the chiptune scene at 16 and began writing music on a Nintendo Game Boy. I released music online — all made from scratch using LSDJ. LSDJ is something like a DAW for Game Boy where every sound is crafted with the Game Boy soundchip.

This lead to a lot of traveling, playing shows all over the world. In 2012, Terry Cavanagh commissioned me for Super Hexagon, which had insane success, and this lead me into a career in video games.

So although video games hold a lot of core memories of my childhood, they weren’t particularly formative to my entry into music or the style I would write. It was the aesthetic of the 8-bit sound that resonated a lot with me to begin with. What resonated most was the DIY punk culture of chiptune as a whole.

Can you break down one of your own songs and its influences? Was it inspired by game soundtracks, other music, or something else?

Dicey Dungeons is hands down my favourite game soundtrack I’ve composed. “Swing Me Another Six” is my favourite piece from it. We were a very small team, and we created something we’re all so proud of within just one year of development.

My initial mood board for this soundtrack was Earthbound/Undertale meets funk, disco, jazz and French house. We went into Early Access quite soon after the team assembled, which was intense. This intensity set the tone for what the soundtrack eventually became.

I was updating players with music for a game that so far only had killer mechanics and gameplay (and extremely fun MIDI pop). But what we had so far had such a strong feeling of “luck of the draw”. I wanted the soundtrack to have this feeling of winning big on your last chip in the casino. The setting felt competitive, but the reality was that the player was only in competition with themselves — a Terry Cavanagh staple.

I also was very inspired by the story of Alice In Wonderland in that this particular dungeon crawler game felt a little bit like losing your grip on reality and utterly bizarre. The game at first seems to be completely against you and you feel like you have no control over it. I suggested the game show setting quite early on and we hit the road with that concept. It wasn’t until the last few months that it actually started to come together into what I wanted it to be and what it is!

What are the main instruments used to record the soundtrack for the game you chose to highlight above? How did you choose those instruments?

I wrote most pieces as LSDJ pieces first (the entire arrangement written on Game Boy) and as we progressed in development, with Marlowe adding incredibly vivid assets and a wild variety of memorable characters, I was motivated to give this soundtrack as much life as it was due. I was really inspired by this idea that there was a live band playing improv on a stage on this game show setting we had all created and that they were all standing by waiting for their time to shine. The feeling of those viral videos from Too Many Zooz came to mind where they’re just jamming in the New York subway — I wanted that feeling. But with a Game Boy thrown in the mix.

So, much of this was done from chopping up lots of brass instruments — trumpets, saxophones, horns, etc. I wanted some super funky baselines thrown in there. Some disco samples and orchestral hits. I chopped and hacked my way through the whole thing with a combo of samples, lush Korg M1 presets, weird and wonderful glitch sounds recorded on synths and eurorack and, of course, the old reliable Game Boy.

Is there anything else I should know about your approach to composing video game music?

Every project is like starting from the beginning again. I try to approach everything from that same place of excitement and wonder that lead me (to) write music in the first place. This can be one of the most human, creative and ever-evolving industries to be involved in and things can start to become very formulaic and impersonal if we let it. The creative side of games — the art, the music, the story — they are the humanity and the soul of this entire industry.