Earlier today, a studio visual designer at Bungie named Andrew Elmore released a fascinating new musical project on his personal Bandcamp account: an electronic soundtrack to an imaginary Mega Drive/Genesis game called Silver Javelin.
The concept album is "a love letter" to the shoot 'em up genre and Sega/Mega Drive games from Japanese developers like Sega, Toaplan, and Treasure. It includes music created to replicate the Mega Drive's sound capabilities and features 15 tracks for fictional stages, splash screens, and bonus levels. So, if you have a fondness for this specific era of gaming, this might be a project worth checking out.
Elmore described the album with the following on his Bandcamp:
"A long-running project conceived as an original score to an imaginary STG (scrolling shooter, space shooter, "shmup" if you're nasty) game for the Sega Genesis / Mega Drive. Inspired by the games from studios like Sega, Tecnosoft, Toaplan, Compile, Wolfteam, Renovation, Vic Tokai, Masaya, Data East, Taito, Treasure, Success, etc.
"I've recreated the hardware's capabilities as closely as I'm able to with the tools that I have. This was made over the course of roughly two years using hardware like the Yamaha FB-01, Yamaha TX81Z, Korg OpSix, and Korg Volca FM, as well as software plug-ins like Dexed and Plogue's Chipsynth MD.
"This game does not exist, but its soundtrack does. I hope you enjoy it! I recommend listening to this as loudly as you can get away with."
If you want to listen to the album or download it, you can find it on Bandcamp. It costs $10 to download, but you can also pay more if you like what you hear!