While the musical mix on Bean’s Quest is a tasty one, its implementation is somewhat hit-and-miss. Sure, the game deals in well-known Mexican musical stereotypes, but mixing these with chiptune sounds gives them some degree of freshness. This seamless mix of elements is introduced right away on opening cue “Introduction” and is the soundtrack’s greatest strength, as it sets Bean’s Quest apart from the many other retro indie scores that populate Bandcamp these days. The acoustic guitar provides laid-back, warm lines, a solo trumpet or flute plays languid but catchy melodies that quickly evoke the game’s Latin setting, while the chiptune synths either double and imitate the acoustic instruments, or provide retro-flavored, optimistic melodies of their own. In practice, this means that most tracks dance along to snappy Salsa rhythms, performed either by acoustic guitar, staccato Mariachi trumpets, or chiptune sounds, which either imitate the trumpets or - particularly on later tracks - add some poppy, cheery beats. To blend the required Mexican influences with the chiptunes elements of Bean’s Quest, flashygoodness chooses a simple, but efficient method: write the music squarely with the game’s Latin locations in mind, then orchestrate the cues both with electronic and acoustic elements. flashygoodness wrote about 30 minutes of music for the game, which was released on his Bandcamp site in February 2012. For Bean’s Quest, his task was to write music that would match both the game’s Latin-inspired setting and the game’s 16-bit retro aesthetics. The artist had first made waves in 2010 with the excellent score for Flash game Tower of Heaven. Of course, this would also impact the game’s soundtrack, written by indie composer flashygoodness. This choice of protagonist naturally influenced the game’s aesthetics, which received some Latin overtones. To simplify the controls of their upcoming mobile game, Kumobius had decided to implement an auto-jump function so the gamer wouldn’t have to worry about hitting the jump button - and what better pretext for a character who constantly jumps than that character being a Mexican Jumping Bean? Going with a jumping bean as the game’s protagonist didn’t only give Bean’s Quest an original main character, but also worked perfect with the game’s mechanics. What better protagonist for your indie platformer than a Mexican Jumping Bean? Australian development team Kumobius came up with this genius idea for their new game Bean’s Quest.
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