Stepping into new adventures: Pump It Up PRO
Many months ago, I was contacted about having a couple of my songs included in a new release of a popular arcade/console dance game, In The Groove 3. It sounded really interesting since it would be a way of getting my music out to new listeners, a promo opportunity that I didn't even knew existed.
I agreed without thinking very much about it. Months passed without any news, until I suddenly learned that the game project had been closed down. It was sad news, but appearently another project would be launched and the team wanted to include my music there instead. Once again, I agreed. But this time I didn't have any special expectations about it. In fact, after a while I almost forgot about it all since I didn't expect anything to happen.
But it sure did. A couple of months ago I got an e-mail asking me why I had not posted anything on my blog about having my music included in "the new Pump", and a quick Google search helped me find the name of the new game: Pump It Up PRO. After a quick read-up, I learned that three songs from my music collection were selected for the game - which was going through extensive live testing in arcade halls already. The songs are:
- Andreas Viklund - Riders, unite!
- Lagoona - Into my dream (Kaveh Azizi remix)
- Lagoona - Be my friend (2001 edit)
Right now, the music download links on both my own music page and the Lagoona page have been removed since I am re-organizing the music pages. Once the site update is complete and the new music pages are online I will update this post with download links to the songs. Until then you can go to my artist page on purevolume.com where you can download "Riders, unite!" and other songs by me, along with some of the most popular Lagoona songs. For free, of course (no registration required).
Getting into the world of videos
While learning more about Pump It Up PRO, I found a lot of dance step videos on different video sites, including several that include my music. For example, check out this clip showing "Riders, unite!" on the "Crazy" level, or this one that shows "Into my dream" being cleared on the 10-pad Nightmare level. I was happy to see that the songs often get nice feedback in the video comments, it was a happy surprise. I also discovered several artists that I had never heard of before when I looked at other Pump It Up PRO videos, so it is definitely a working platform for music promotion…
This is a new world for me so I don't know much about dance games yet. But I'm hoping to learn more about it through the music and through the people who dance to it. Just days ago, Lagoona classic "The promised land" appeared on the frontpage of StepMania.com as an entry in the StepMix 3 Contest - giving me even more good reasons to learn more about dance games, and even try the freeware game StepMania myself.
I will return to this topic in future posts for sure. This project is already giving me lots of inspiration for making new music, and with some luck it may perhaps also give me the inspiration to make that music video for "Riders, unite!" that I have wanted to do for years now. It would be a really fun project to do. If anyone out there would be interested in taking part of a music video project based, just let me know!
Comments can be only posted for 14 days after the post date. If you have comments about an older post such as this one, feel free to send me an e-mail!
Comment from James Temple
Time: November 22, 2007, 16:45
Wooooooooow! I've never seen it before. huuuh… huuuuh… =-O Great!
Pretty cool to see that others like me think that this music is not over. Ya!
JiTi
Comment from Yry
Time: November 22, 2007, 19:18
This is an interesting way to reach a larger category of people with your own music. I would have done the same without even thinking. Congratulations!
Comment from Andre
Time: November 22, 2007, 20:34
Tjenare Andreas, jag är just nu mitt uppe i ett köp av domän och ska installera wordpress. Jag har ett problem, att hitta rätt Theme, hur gör jag på ett ungefär för att få ett theme som liknar http://zenime.animeblogger.net/. Alltså i bredd och med den stora loggan. Jag har kollat igenom alla themes som finns i theme viewer men hittar inget med den bredden. Tack för svar.
Comment from Lars
Time: November 24, 2007, 13:08
This sounds really awesome! Cool way to spread the music. Perhaps a good thing would be to create specialized tracks which fits this kind of entertainment!
Comment from Muczyne
Time: November 25, 2007, 2:09
That sounds really good - wish I could make such good music that people would want to use it in their games..
Comment from Khushal
Time: November 26, 2007, 4:00
So you've made it to games as well;) The fingers are magic Andreas!
*Gosh* the rider unite music i just checked, how come u did that? used some mixing tools or what cos with a plain instrument seems impossible, plenty of beating and ALIVE music, truly made for bikers and drifters!!! Congrats
Comment from ted
Time: November 22, 2007, 3:25
Haha, I want to see a picture after you do all of those crazy steps that guy did. That kids feet were flying around like mad.
Congratulations on getting your music out like that. I would be proud to see my name on a video game.