The high score in your ear

Homegrown video games are adding a local musical touch to match the play. Sitar riffs, chants, choruses - it's a new level of immersion

- Karan Pradhan

It's the first day of summer vacation, but your father's crops need tending. Bummer. This wasn't how you wanted the holidays to go. You head to the market for supplies, expecting the soundtrack to your life to be sombre, to match your mood.

Instead, a playful, jaunty, uplifting tune plays. There are Indian classical instruments, but with contemporary touch. You know what? You got this! Gamers, playing Vir in The Palace on the Hill, can't have missed the distinctive musical flourishes in this year's Niku Games release. The game follows Vir's exploration of rural life, and like so many homegrown game companies these days, the sounds deliver the perfect soundtrack as characters jump, run, shoot, explore and perform side-quests.

Nikhil Rao, Indian Ocean guitarist, worked on the music for Detective Dotson, an upcoming title from Masala Games. Greek musician and prog metal fan, Linos Tzelos, scored the mythology-based, action-adventure Raji: An Ancient Epic (Nodding Heads Games, 2020). A number of established musicians have been taking their work from the concert to the console. It's as much learning as unlearning, they say.

Ready Player One