Macroblank has spent his career recontextualizing existing sounds into something atmospheric and hypnotic. ShantyTown, the upcoming urban city builder from solo developer Erik Rempen, demanded something different: original composition built from scratch, designed to move with the player rather than sit beneath them. The result is one of the more genuinely interesting game soundtrack approaches in the cozy game space right now.
The music isn’t a traditional OST. Each track is built from modular loops and layered components that shift and intensify as players progress toward map completion. Every playthrough generates its own version of the soundtrack. “Each playthrough effectively generates its own version of the soundtrack, tailored to the way the game unfolds,” Macroblank explains. It’s adaptive scoring done with real intention, not as a gimmick but as a core part of how the game feels to play.
The sonic direction is an unexpected one for the genre. Cozy games typically lean on ambient, classical, or lofi textures. Macroblank went somewhere else entirely, bringing his downtempo vaporwave sensibility into an upbeat, dynamic, location-specific framework. Each in-game environment carries its own distinct musical identity, built organically from the diversity of its settings. It’s immersive without being intrusive, which is a genuinely difficult balance to strike.
The production philosophy kept things moving fast. Ideas developed as short loops before expanding into full arrangements, with synthesis and sample manipulation at the core. Tools like Xpand!2, Nexus, and Omnisphere kept the workflow fluid. “Friction is the killer of ideas,” Macroblank says. ShantyTown launches April 16 on Steam, with a demo available now.