Trixel Rocket Devlog 04 Music and Sound with - Composer Lewis Thompson

Here is a Devlog getting insights and tips and the development process for the sound of Trixel Rocket with Trixel Rockets's composer Lewis Thompson. Trixel Rocket - Coming Summer 2018 (look forward to my first full game - updates every day on social) Website: http://bliz.studio Instagram: https://w

This Trixel Rocket devlog is a conversation between Jerry and composer Lewis Thompson about scoring and sound-designing the game. Rather than a how-to, it's a look at how music and game design shaped each other, and the practical thinking behind writing audio for mobile. Below are the main takeaways.

The soundtrack went through real iteration

The first pass was fast, cheesy, upbeat electronic music — a mash-up of classic retro arcade style and the new triangle-based Trixel look. Jerry's instinct was that mobile players have short attention spans, so the music had to grab you in the first 20 seconds with fast beats, big bass, and melodic riffs. In hindsight both agreed the original was too intense for such a hard game, and a second pass moved it toward an 80s-inspired synthwave direction that better fit the evolving art style.

Music and design influenced each other

A central theme is that audio and visuals have to go hand in hand — great graphics with bad sound, or vice versa, won't work. Once Lewis committed to the synthwave sound, it pushed Jerry to embrace the 80s aesthetic across the UI and visuals, and the updated game in turn fed back into the music. The back-and-forth is presented as one of the best parts of the collaboration.

Triangles, even in the time signature

A deliberate, almost hidden design choice: most electronic music is in four (four beats to a bar), but Lewis wrote Trixel Rocket's score in three to echo the game's all-triangle visual language — threes instead of fours, just as the art uses triangles instead of squares. Beyond the conceptual link, the 1-2-3 feel made the track bouncy and fun, which suited a punishingly difficult game where overly serious or scary music would have felt discouraging.

Mixing specifically for phone speakers

A big practical lesson: studio monitors reproduce deep bass that tiny phone speakers and earbuds simply can't. Lewis writes in Logic Pro, then exports and mixes in Pro Tools, using an EQ curve on bypass to roughly simulate how a phone speaker rolls off the low end. Because the bass is central to the 80s sound but won't be audible on phones, he arranged the chord progressions to live in the mid frequencies so players can still infer the harmony and feel even without hearing the bass.

Sound effects build the world

Effects are layered from many small elements and lean on big reverbs to stay consistent with the spacey, retro 80s feel — the start sound, for example, is a layered ding-and-explosion designed to not feel boring. A favorite is the narration: a voice heavily processed to sound like a spaceship's comms system, which Jerry felt added surprising depth and useful feedback for the player. Loudness matters on mobile too, so the final elements are mixed loud and robotic to read clearly on small devices.