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[PAID]I use game consoles as instruments

A topic by Da Flarf created 74 days ago Views: 615 Replies: 4

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Hi!

I'm Flarf, a game dev and chiptune musician based in Ohio. I'm looking to join projects as a Godot developer or a composer. I also offer services in porting games to the Nintendo Gameboy.

Did you know that 90% of "retro styled" music is fake? Many composers may offer you soundbytes that aren't console accurate using soundfonts. I, however, offer 100% accurate music for the Nintendo, Gameboy, Super Nintendo, and Sega Genesis. All of my Gameboy music is written using the Gameboy itself!

But that's enough trivia. Let me show you why I'm qualified to help with your game!

Here is the most recent game I have published, so you can get an idea for my chiptune audio and my programming for retro and modern systems: Magnet Mike by Da Flarf, retrokid104

Recently, I had the opportunity to perform chiptune live at GDEX (the biggest Midwest game dev conference): GDEX on X: "Loving these chiptune tracks written on and playing off of an original Nintendo gameboy. Da Flarf is killing it. #gdex2025 https://t.co/nPocrwkgNw" / X

Additional qualifications:

- mentored by Jason Graves (composer of Dead Space)

- Won second place in a game jam

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Da Flarf73 days ago

I prefer commission based work with negotiable rates, but I am willing to work rev-share in any of the scenarios:

1. You can't afford to pay me at the lowest acceptable rate

2. You have demonstrated that you have made money off your games before. Even $1 counts. I don't rev-share with people who make no money, because there's no rev to share

Boost

firstoff, I admire your use of the word “fake”, even though I find it slightly obnoxious [the news flash and reality remains]

secondly, I was wondering if you’ve ever encountered situations where the console’s interrupts interfered with your musicianship; you might be familiar with how some audio programmers use “realtime” kernels, and unfortunately any electronic computer more complicated than some pure FPGA is likely to have various edge cases where unexpected and possibly uninvited work interferes with the scheduling of your main activity.

this problem is why you’ll often find musicians sticking to mechanical instruments, or at least, electromechanical ones, and avoiding anything that could “bug out” worse than a broken string or burned tube.

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Da Flarf68 days ago(+1)

If I'm understanding your question correctly, you're asking if I've run into situations where console hiccups interfere with the music, correct?

Well yes, and no. It really depends on the hardware. When I'm making Gameboy music, I'd have to overclock the CPU or set the BPM to even remotely have it affect playback in any meaningful way. There is, however, the quirk of the Gameboy background hum, which comes from the speakers and can muddy mixes. For my final mixes, I get around this by recording the song from an emulator.

For Super Nintendo music, it's a little different. The CPU is a lot more powerful, so the system pretty much never crashes. However, because samples hog memory like crazy, I can sometimes run out of song space if I'm not careful. I get around this by stitching multiple song files together in a game. More annoyingly, if I'm controlling the Super Nintendo with a keyboard, sometimes the notes don't register that I've let go and ring out for eternity.

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