Here's some original music from Carpoon, a downloadable Windows game being developed by Tom Arnold from GameXplain!  In Carpoon, you control a pick-up truck and harpoon escaping cars sentenced to recycling by car crusher, towing them to their doom!  The game can be played in both single player and local multiplayer for competitive demolishing action.  This theme—now extended—features on the Volcarnage Island map, where two active volcanoes spew giant molten globs of lava that land on the asphalt, adding some dangerously hot obstacles to the environment.  There are two versions of this music: one for normal gameplay, and one for when the timer has less than 30 seconds remaining.

When originally composing this piece, I wanted to capture the feeling of a dangerous volcanic island, keeping in mind the whimsy of the game's art style and the light-hearted fun found in the gameplay.  The composition developed into something you might hear in a Donkey Kong Country game, but with some musical effects that mimic automobile sounds here and there.  Towards the beginning, the slide of the bass guitar imitates a revving engine while the mute trumpet later is very akin to the honking of a car horn.  Overall, it turned out to be a catchy, playful piece with a bit of an adventurous, tropical vibe.  But its length was much shorter than other stage themes that followed.

About five years later, I revisited the theme upon request and updated it to feature twice the content as before in order to increase its duration to level comparable to other stage themes.  The first idea was to include various shouts to ramp up the intensity, bringing the composition from the drum solo to the climax of the piece.  The almost chaotic feeling near the end was made to match the feeling of the active volcanoes as they erupt their balls of lava onto the ground, peaking with the trill sound of the zaghrouta yell near the end.  With the pre-established content that only was polished a little, these new sections are intended to bring more variety, dynamics, and memorable quality to the theme.  Have fun listening!

Play the Carpoon demo or purchase the game on Steam or Itch.io!
https://steamcommunity.com/app/1068840
https://tombo.itch.io/carpoon

Disclaimer:
Carpoon and all imagery presented are copyright of Tom Arnold.  All rights reserved.

New tracks tagged #Thomas Arnold