Having to fight for your life against zombies in rural America is scary in itself, but add to it a moody musical score and the uneasy atmosphere becomes ten times creepier. In Microsoft Studio’s zombie-survival video game, State of Decay, now available on the Xbox 360 and Microsoft Windows, veteran video game composer Jesper Kyd surrounds gamers with the seemingly soothing sounds of small town Americana, before cranking up the terror when the living dead attack.
For the latest part of our Q&A series, we caught up with State of Decay composer Jesper Kyd, who told us about his experience creating a beautiful and haunting score for a video game environment that’s infested with zombies.
Are you a fan of the zombie genre? Did any music tracks from zombie movies, television shows, or video games influence you while writing the music for State of Decay?
Jesper Kyd: I am a huge zombie fan and have watched a ton of horror movies over the years. There was a time some years ago where horror was all I watched :)
No, there was no influence from other zombie movies. I really wanted this to sound unique, something crafted specifically for State of Decay and not something that would fit another zombie game.
How do you go about starting a game’s score from scratch? Did you have guidelines coming into the State of Decay project, or were you free to create whatever you desired?
Jesper Kyd: You fill your head up with ideas (the right kind of ideas :) and then at some point the music almost writes itself. Having written over 50 scores I know I can deliver the score, it's more about eliminating ideas and finding the exact mood and theme of the project.
The setting of State of Decay is a bleak one: a world overrun by zombies with only a few scattered survivors. What mood did you set out to evoke with your music in this post-apocalyptic game?
Jesper Kyd: It's such a great setting and I wanted to remind people as much as possible about the way life used to be in Spencer's Mill and Marshall…Kind of echoes of the past and how life once was. Yes, there is a zombie apocalypse happening but it's still the small town American lifestyle everywhere you go. And of course that all had to be mixed with a mood of zombie horror when things get really scary.
You’re no stranger to crafting scores that can be hauntingly beautiful during a game’s downtime before switching to heart-racing intense tempos when the battles begin. State of Decay’s music wonderfully features these musical mood switches. What were the challenges and rewards of creating diverse, emotive musical moments with a shared underlying link in State of Decay?
Jesper Kyd: I worked on getting the beauty of small town America into the music. Even though the zombie apocalypse is widespread and nothing works as it should anymore, we felt it was
important to still get the feeling of how things used to be. So that's the main idea behind the exploration music in the small towns. Then when you start fighting zombies I focused more on conveying the danger of these zombie attacks in the music.
State of Decay’s music is composed of haunting, nightmarish notes that linger in the player’s mind long after they’ve faded from the speakers. What instruments and devices did you utilize to create these spooky sounds?
Jesper Kyd: Well, the melodies do have a haunting kind of style to them which I felt would really add to the areas you explore, providing glimpses of the past while still sounding like something is not quite right. It was a delicate balance including elements such as musique concrète/found instruments, rustic sounds and a sound of decay. Americana can be many things and one of the elements I honed in on was that once you get out there on the farms in really small towns there is a certain amount of rustic and decaying machines laying around, and that's something we really wanted to feature in the score.
With its southern-sounding string instruments and tinkling wind chimes, I feel like some of State of Decay’s music has a backwoods flavor to it. Was this a style you wanted to elicit going into the project, or did it materialize organically? What was it like mixing these rural sounds with electronic elements?
Jesper Kyd: Yes, that's totally it. And these various elements were then mixed with steel guitars, broken violins and so on. I really enjoy mixing different styles together to create a unique sound.
How does your music for State of Decay compare with other video game scores you’ve created in terms of immersing gamers in an effectively creepy atmosphere?
Jesper Kyd: Well, it's the first horror or zombie game I have worked on. I just love the idea of setting the tone with some nice moody music and then suddenly tearing it down with pure terror. I have always wanted to work on a score like that. I feel a lot of time horror scores tend to only be creepy – and for State of Decay I had a chance to really mix things up emotionally.
With State of Decay currently available on the Xbox 360 and Microsoft Windows, what’s next for you?
Jesper Kyd: Currently I have a show airing on SyFy channel called Metal Hurlant Chronicles and State of Decay: Lifeline is coming out soon which I wrote new music for. I’ve also scored a new sci-fi game and working on several other projects that I can't talk about yet.
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To learn more about Jesper Kyd and his work, visit:
Raised on a steady diet of R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps books and Are You Afraid of the Dark?, Derek has been fascinated with fear since he first saw ForeverWare being used on an episode of Eerie, Indiana.
When he’s not writing about horror as the Senior News Reporter for Daily Dead, Derek can be found daydreaming about the Santa Carla Boardwalk from The Lost Boys or reading Stephen King and Brian Keene novels.
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