Good to hear positive things about that game, since feedback for games like that is obviously hard to come by. I took interest in it after seeing screenshots and the video of it, I really like the graphics style, "retro" done right if you ask me. Now to this...
AGH the first question is so hard. I have a ton of songs that resonate with me strongly, but perhaps I'll go with these two:
ICE AGES - "Trapped and Scared"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThZrG8n33YM#t=1938 This act is actually a side project of one of the members of Summoning, Tolkien-themed black metal group driven by lush keyboard arrangements meant to invoke landscapes and histories of Middle-Earth. Some of the most otherworldly music around, I'd say Summoning may be among my favorite groups, if not my absolute favorite. Now the song above actually was reworked by Summoning as the song "Over Old Hills" on their album
Dol Guldur. You can hear that here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rl60kjN8NoA I'm gonna have to go with the original on this one. The odd mix of vocal styles on the reworked track (that croaky, low-pitched throaty voice and the robot [?] vocals) don't work as well for me as the voice on the Ice Ages version, and the lyrics (different for both songs) I think are more befitting the original, as are the less busy, ambient/EBM sounds than the guitar-backed, vaguely fantasy-like synths on the remake. The emotional resonance is just greater for me. "Over Old Hills" is still a very good song, but probably the weakest overall on that album, all things considered, especially after having heard the original. Next up,
TANGERINE DREAM - "Mysterious Semblance at the Strand of Nightmares"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8J2doVjui4 I'm gonna be honest and say that I don't know if it'd be as powerful as it is to me without the title of the song. It'd still be a great song, but titles give music context and make you perceive it with a slightly different perspective (which is why I really despise the modern trend among indie electronic/ambient musicians to give their songs "wacky" titles like "Pissfuckers on a Bucket in a Hippo's Ass" or [song title that's like 27 words long and completely nonsensical] or something, quit trying to be cute and ironic, you're neither, you're just irritating). The title could've randomly been thrown together for all I care, it still was a great choice of a title and gives the song a great personal meaning for me. I myself deal with recurring nightmares, less "monsters and blood and a nuclear holocaust as I'm falling without my pants on" kind, though I've had my share of those, and more outwardly mundane stuff than nonetheless is a torment to experience in my head. Things from my past life that feel as if unresolved, and no way to resolve them. This song, without any lyrics, just a wonderful Mellotron melody and a lot of spacey effects, feels like a "mythologizing" of the commonly shared torment of the human race we call "nightmares" and gives it an essence we can confront and speculate on. As though a "Nightmare" were a place than a state of mind, and this "Mysterious Semblance" whatever it may be, is responsible, but remains that, mysterious. It's like being on a windy edge of a cliff reaching into space, powerful winds strewn about, as a black cloaked silhouette stands there, watching my labored ascent. I beg for answers. My questions are only responded with silence. I grow indignant, its silence remains. I grow frustrated, weary, then I'm brought to my knees. Then I cannot help but cry, and cry out begging for answers. The Semblance continues its silence, the winds growing stronger. Then in a flash, it all ends. This is what this track does for me. I hope I've provided explanation enough :)
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BOOKS NOW:
Blood Meridian or: The Evening Redness in the West by Cormac McCarthy. Because, 1) It's probably my favorite book of all time (granted I am not exactly the most prolific reader out there). 2) The idea of a Cormac McCarthy novel being turned into a game is such a fascinating prospect. 3) The idea of turning THIS book into a game would be wrong yet amazing on so many levels, and a developer not only willing to pull it off but do so successfully would be an astonishing thing to see. 4) The planned movie adaptation is currently in limbo, since nobody with money has the balls to fund it without neutering the story completely, but a small video game studio may have the resources to do something with it. It'd obviously have to be released as freeware, as I highly doubt any rights would be legally given out to any game studio anywhere, but still, a freeware title, even if it'd have to be done as a game mod (and some amazing mods that work as standalone games have been made out there) is still feasible. I have not a fucking clue what genre of game would actually work with this, as its plot and characters are completely secondary to its prose, imagery, concepts, and the vast and unsavory portrait it paints of the human condition, but I do know that for it to work the devs would have to be OK with the idea of making you essentially a completely unsympathetic protagonist. I'd also be curious as to how Judge Holden would be worked into the gameplay. All I know is I'd hope it'd be something besides an on-rails visual novel of some kind, which would be the easy way to do it, but the least interesting. NEXT...
Finnegans Wake - by James Joyce. Because WHY THE FUCK NOT. Make it a text parser-based adventure game just to further drive players up the walls and out of their mind.