Hey Jon, absolutely massive fan! A friend of mine (lopinjop on the forums) and I just went through and played every TT game in the pre-lego era. It was a blast to revisit the games we remembered from back in the day, and crazy to discover gems like Leander.
Because games like Toy Story 2 and Bugs Life were the games of our childhood, Swallow Studios soundtracks are burned into our memories. The Toy Story 2 soundtrack in particular is often played on loop when we are around.
On that note, what was it like to work with Swallow Studios for so many years? How did you initially start working together? When developing a game, did you leave lots of creative control to them about the music direction, or were you heavily involved in the process?
Off to play some Haven (that's our next full play through game)!
I've got the full soundtracks from Toy Story (PC), Toy Story 2 (PC), and Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex (PS2/XBox - there were a few discrepancies between consoles on this one) on my phone and listen to them with all my other music - Andy Blythe and Marten Joustra really knew what they were doing. They also did a great job with A Bug's Life. I've often thought about hiring them to work on my own games, but considering I'm a one-man studio with no capital, it's really just a pipe dream. Perhaps once I actually get on the market and bring in some dough, I can consider such things.
Thanks for the info!
Oh man, thanks Jon!
First game with them was Puggsy Mega CD. Love those guys - I liked to have plenty of say as music is so important, but they always "got it" really quickly so nothing much really had to change too often.