Video Game Tracks to Score Your Finals Week

May 31

May 31 Video Game Tracks to Score Your Finals Week

I often imagine that music takes the shape of a liquid. It’s the little tunes that get stuck in my head most often–– the cheap, sugar-sweet tune that pours over hot summer air, proceeding the slow crawl of the ice cream truck. The soft jingle of the television as a company attempts to sell insurance, or a foot-long sub. The sudden emptiness of the room when the AC shuts off, the held note evaporating into thin air as the machine gasps for breath.

It seeps. Every moment of our lives is scored.

It’s in these sounds that I’m reminded most of my childhood. Last weekend, I took the liberty of digging up my old Nintendo DS in all its sparkly pink and sticker adorned glory. The little bell at the end of a heart-shaped keychain looped to the side jingled as I grabbed it, and I half-expected a window to appear before my eyes, signaling the discovery of a new item. Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Red Rescue Team was still loaded in the cartridge slot.

What I remember most vividly about these games, beyond the beautiful graphics and otherworldly characters, is the music. Not a single inch of narrative went unexplored by kid-Emily–– I would speak to each NPC multiple times, exhausting all conversation options until I was certain I’d amassed near-encyclopedic knowledge of the in-game world. The map, too, was a treasured tool; I’d pull my avatar around the region until I knew each space like the back of my hand. And with every line of dialogue, every new city, music was there.

The towns have an undeniably ethereal, larger-than-life presence. A different track scores each area. As you, explorer, venture through each individually scored area, the transitions between tracks creates the visage of traveling across worlds.

Real life is not so naturally romanticized. There is no such celestial track scoring periods of growth, nor epic battle music blaring as you clock in for your shift in retail.

And yet, my memories of summer are drenched in sound. I think back to swim meets and am met with that sugar-sweet tune, the decrescendo until on your mark… *BEEP* and the immediate ffff cacophony of teammates and family cheering. I remember the songbirds outside my window as I rose for morning practice, and the rush of crisp air across my eardrums, flooding my lungs as I sprinted against the clock.

There is no battle theme scoring the entrance of the away team. No matter. You can hear the music all the same.

I’m taken back to those moments in my family’s living room, the soft carpet beneath my body, where I would let the score play unburdened from my DS as I counted the stars in the sky (lightbulbs on the ceiling, but alas).

Close your eyes.

Carpets can be grassy fields. Lightbulbs can be stars. The tune of the ice cream truck can signal an optional side-quest.

The world is exciting. It awaits you.

The following tracks contain some of my favorite atmospheres–– pieces from film, free skate programs, video game towns. See end for extended playlist.