Untitled

(via Jim Guthrie – “Dark Flute”)

Year: 2011

Album: Sword & Sworcery LP soundtrack

Last week there was a great Verge profile on Sword & Sworcery LP, a mobile game celebrating its five-year anniversary which Andrew Webster fittingly called a weird and beautiful game.

The game, created by Toronto artist and game designer Craig D. Adams, was a blend of pixel art and Zelda-like puzzles that felt like a throwback to old-school console gaming while also embracing the modern, self-aware aesthetic of mobile games that are now being played on devices that are just as, if not more, powerful than your old NES. It’s a game that could have only been made in the Internet age; It even embraced Twitter-like dialogue, with everything delivered in under 140 snarky characters (you could even tweet your progress using the hashtag #sworcery, but that’s a bit overkill).

One of the game’s notable strengths is its original score, composed by musician Jim Guthrie. The music creates a memorable mood for a game that focuses on the feeling of living in another world instead of simply playing through. The standalone soundtrack is great, but the real joy is hearing the music played whenever you interact with the pixel world. Everything you touch, press, hit, etc creates sound that plays along to the backing track of whatever surrounding you’re in. This doesn’t sound like much, but it’s 8-bit melodic beauty that I haven’t encountered in any other gaming experience.

I recommend checking out the game, and right now it’s $2 on the app store.