Game info: Steam
Listening: iTunes/Apple Music, Amazon, Steam
Info
The developer of ElecHead just released a new puzzle game last month, this time about a caterpillar (interpret the game’s title as a representation of one!) that uses bomb explosions to move things around. The same composer, Tsuyomi, returned to do the soundtrack here as well. While my understanding is the game is about the same length as ElecHead, there are more unique area themes, so the soundtrack is a bit larger as a whole.
Öoo is cuter and more colorful than ElecHead, and as a result its soundtrack is cuter and more colorful, very digital fusion-coded. While there’s still a little bit of chiptune in a couple of tracks, the instrumentation is more varied, primarily featuring synths and mallet percussion with some other occasional acoustic instruments like guitar, piano, and strings. There’s again one main theme woven into most of the tracks, and the theme this time is more pop flavored and harmonized in a cutejazz way. It’s also stylistically a little more varied, though sometimes in ways that I feel don’t entirely mesh well with the cuteness of the melody without it being altered a little more than it actually was.
It’s a fine soundtrack, I probably liked it about the same as ElecHead’s. Just like that game, I don’t really like the initial statement of the theme that much (though the jazzy harmony is fun), but the directions it gets taken in the later areas are a bit more to my taste. The soundtrack ends with eight unused “Sketch” tracks written during development, many of which feature different melodies besides the eventual main theme, and a couple of these are pretty nice, though fairly short.
Recommended Tracks:
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“Area1” is a laid-back, direct statement of the main theme
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“Area5” is dark and tense, edging toward haunted house spookiness in the second half
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“Area8” starts off a bit more ambient and mystical before turning romantic
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“Final Area” has that video gamey “push to the finish” energy
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“Sketch: First” is the longest of the sketches and has some quirky bleep bloopin’ in it
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