An Album? A Minecraft-Style Game? Both!

Wanna get people to check out your music? Make a video game out of it.

The album in question is Rustie’s Green Language. I’d never heard of Rustie or his music before playing the Minecraft-inspired (at least, visually) free game, but I’m impressed by the whole production. The music is nicely varied—ranging from video-game-style bloops to minimal electronic noise to rap—and the world is simple but lush and open to exploration.

The goal is to collect every song on the album, which you encounter largely by way of these gleaming golden obelisks. Others lazily wash over your eardrums when you complete light challenges—for instance using a bounce pad produces a song called “Up Down,” and getting horrendously lost in a maze results in a tune called… “Lost”. Stuff like that.

It’s nothing particularly crazy, but I dig it when musicians do things like this. Most famously, Skrillex also premiered a new album with a video game, his a top down space shooter. I think I prefer Rustie’s approach a bit more, though. There’s more atmosphere to soak up, and it’s easier to focus on the music. That said, I wish he’d taken the concept a little further—had landscapes shift and sizzle along with songs, kinda like Rez or something. I think that could be pretty neat.

At any rate, this is cool. Give it a try. Encourage more musicians to dip a pinky toe into the pristine water temple that is gaming. When new skill sets and creative influences overlap, I think everybody wins, ultimately.