When you complete the first set of puzzles in the game Big Walk, you’re rewarded with a chill-out amphitheater that overlooks the ocean, where you can sit and relax and listen to the music broadcast on speakers that surround you.
The music in the game was done by aksfx, and I believe the track that was playing when we arrived was called “12:00 AM Motif.” It certainly sounds familiar, but I could be mistaken because almost all of the music (apart from the main theme) kind of blends together in my mind and it’s all good.
To me, that moment in the game felt like the point where all of the disparate pieces clicked together, and it announced, “this is what this game is about.” It made me want to look around and take it all in, from the sight of the waves crashing on the shore, to the distant outcropping with an intriguing structure on top that looked kind of like Diamond head via a primary color version of Myst, to the way that you could see the speakers vibrating if you got close enough.
But the music by aksfx isn’t what I was hearing for most of the game, because I almost immediately got the song “Big Walk” by Poi Dog Pondering stuck in my head and could not get rid of it. I loved Poi Dog in college, and some of their concerts in Athens were formative experiences.
As the world moved on from the 1990s and things got more electronic and less earthy, so did Poi Dog Pondering, transitioning to dance music that was described in a review as a “sweaty gay disco.” I fell off around that point, but I listened to their first four albums so much that I still have all of them practically memorized.
Even if this song isn’t your thing (I regret to say it’s no longer really my thing either), I think the bridge at 2:30 is still pretty dang cool.
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