Composing for Robot Detective

Hello! I'm Zee (aka ZeroJanitor), composer for Robot Detective & the Case of the Automurderated Intern.

Robot Detective & the Case of the Automurderated Intern is a game that isn't shy about taking inspiration from the Ace Attorney series. In that vein, I went about writing this soundtrack using the music of that series to determine what sort of mood and styles would be appropriate for Robot Detective. The eagle-eared among you may notice certain thematic similarities between this game's music and Ace Attorney's based on the context of what is happening.

However, I didn't want to just do "Ace Attorney music with the serial numbers filed off" (not that I'm particularly good at that level of mimicry anyway), as the unique setting of "robot detective solving a robot-themed murder in a robot lab" offered me a prime opportunity to tap into my musical specialty: chiptune.

Robots beep, right? You know what else beeps? The Ricoh 2A03 microprocessor PSG, most famously used in the Nintendo Entertainment System.  Many of the instruments in the Robot Detective soundtrack are sampled from FamiTracker, a music program targeting the NES/Famicom soundchips. Additional sounds included are from FM synths and even a real floppy drive!

But enough of the preamble. Let's talk about the specific songs.

- Let's Investigate -

This is the "main theme", so to speak, and the one that plays throughout most of the investigation period. The big breakthrough for this song sounding the way it does was actually an accident; I had entered a vibrato value incorrectly, resulting in a vibrato that was slower and deeper than I had intended. However, it actually sounded really cool; it had a distorted, vaporwave-y sort of sound. So I leaned into that, and added some synth sweeps to the chords to further emphasize that sort of dreamy, hazy sound. 

During a couple of sections, you might hear some whirring noises in the background. That is the sound of an actual floppy drive, specifically an Apple II 5.25" drive. I thought it made for an interesting background texture, and does a good job evoking the whirring gears and servos you'd hear in a robotics lab.

- The Suspense is Killing Me -

Technically the first song you hear in the game, this song plays during any particularly suspenseful or tense moments. There's not much to say about this one as the song is quite simple; it's just cello samples for the backing chords, the VRC6 chip's 43.75% pulse wave for bass, one of the default Renoise break beats for percussion, and the brass synth from a Yamaha PSR-6 for the melody.

Part of me wishes I added an extra melody section to the song, but oh well, it's a Game Jam game. Besides, I'm pretty proud of how it turned out tonally.

- Think About It -

This plays during the logic section of the game (fun fact, I also made the image for the color-changing backgrounds in this part of the game). This is maybe my favorite of the songs I made for this game, I just love how ethereal the beginning sounds. The instrument used for the chords in the beginning section is an ambient flute sample taken from Donkey Kong Country 2; it just felt like the perfect instrument to use there somehow.

I initially had some trouble getting this song off the ground until I realized the "square wave octaves" part would sound better in 7/8. This ended up working really well for a contemplation theme, as there's something about irregular time signatures that seem to stimulate the brain.

- Grievance!! -

Here we go, the big confrontation theme. When you object to a piece of evidence presented, and you just wanna shout about how much you object to it.

The main instrument used in the intro section is a guitar sampled from one of the SNES Power Rangers games, another one of those things that just seemed to fit perfectly.  I particularly like how the B section came out, it feels like a good transition away from what's already been established into something with a little more resolve.

Fun fact, "grievance" was originally just a temp name but it was liked so much by the members of the team (myself included), that I just made it the official title. With the addition of a couple of exclamation points, of course.

Overall, this was a super fun soundtrack to write! I got to write four songs that are very distinct from each other but also compliment each other as well. As Leo mentioned in their devlog, they used my music to establish mood and pacing for the game's writing, and I think it shows in the final product. I'm very grateful to have been able to contribute so much to the overall tone of the game, and I'm very grateful to the developers, my friends, who created it.

And thank you to everyone who's played the game!