For most of the background music (BGM) sets, I had in mind a general theme I wanted to invoke, and ran off a few variations on the theme to see which one worked best. They were intended to run looped in the background during the level or event in question, for however long the player spent there. (Between reading times for the text messages, time to solve the puzzles, and - where applicable - time to defeat any enemies, this length of time is not fixed in advanced.)

You can download one ZIP file with all of the MIDI files, or listen to them in rough order of appearance:

• "Opening" set: played during the minimally-interactive animations that lay out the story at the very beginning of the game. Unlike the other sets, both of these BGMs would be used.
  1. Space, the solar system, and asteroid habitats...
  2. A particular group of researchers sets up an asteroid habitat to do some potentially dangerous research...
• "Residence" set: the first level of the game, a residential level that is safe from the monsters. Peaceful and calm...but perhaps a bit too peaceful, for people looking to escape.
  1. BGM #0 (test/scratch track)
  2. BGM #1
  3. BGM #2
  4. BGM #3
  5. BGM #4
  6. BGM #5
  7. BGM #6 (after the arena: celebration/anticipation of being able to explore the station at last)
• "Arena" set: the first battle of the game - a training arena, which the heroes must pass before the computer will open the gates into the "dangerous" rest of the station.
  1. BGM #1
  2. BGM #2
  3. BGM #3
• "Core" set: not much happens in the station core, and the BGM reflects this. It's mostly a "level select" area, from which the heroes can go to any of the opened sections. Most of the sections are blocked off by various things at first. Progress through the game includes acquiring means to open more sections.
  1. BGM #1
  2. BGM #2
  3. BGM #3
• "Reactor" set: with the station open, the first order of business is to restart the fusion reactor, both in order to replenish life support reserves and to acquire fire (plasma) weapons. It seems to be a simple task (the abandoned, quiet reactor has silence for its BGM), until monsters appear out of nowhere. The heroes must clear them all out. The music is a clue to the best method: a thorough, determined hunt (which actually doesn't take that long, if done well).
  1. BGM #1
  2. BGM #2
• "Puzzle" set: after the reactor has been secured, it must be restarted. This sequence requires quick thinking and reactions from the player.
  1. BGM
• "Labs" set: the abandoned laboratory module, where much of the research was conducted. With immediate concerns addressed, the hunt for truth begins. The younger hero might view this area as a bit creepy, while the older one definitely has unpleasant memories of his last visit. There are no ghosts, but (depending on if I could work it in without things getting too grisly) there might be the bodies of the older hero's former colleagues, perfectly suspended at their moments of death (since they were dead, and thus classified as "inanimate objects", when the caretaker AI decided to start preserving said objects instead of letting rust and rot accumulate).
  1. BGM #1
  2. BGM #2
  3. BGM #3
  4. BGM #4
  5. BGM #5
• "Boss" set: two dangerous fights, wherein the heroes confront the person who caused all the mischief. While they may attempt to kill him, he's actually set things up so he's invincible - but they're not, and the music is intended to highlight this. The first time, they're fighting his projection, which they can damage enough that the boss gives up. The second time, they're fighting next to the computer that's controlling all the deviances from reality, including making him invincible - but the computer isn't protected. Of course, destroying it would make the station self destruct. The older hero does not favor this outcome, but it's not his call: only the younger hero can reach the computer to damage it, and she is faced with a choice between sacrificing her home and sacrificing her loved ones.
  1. BGM
• "Post-residence" set: the residential area after it has been ransacked by mosters, following the boss's first defeat.
  1. BGM
• "Dump" set: the cryogenic storage section of the station, where that which is no longer useful is stored. Ice crystals and frost everywhere; very much a "crystal cavern" environment, which was the inspiration for its music. At the beginning of the game, everyone thinks that ice weapons are useless since they're inferior to the other two known types. So, what ice gear they had was tossed in here. After the residential section is overrun by electric-using monsters, ice weapons become very useful, since ice armor is invulnerable to electric attacks. Unfortunately, the dumps are now cut off, unless a couple of brave heroes would venture through the monsters to retrieve what had been discarded...
  1. BGM #1
  2. BGM #2
  3. BGM #3
• "Electric" set: with the ice weapons secure, the heroes must venture into and secure the only spacecraft presently attached to the station, which is still infested with monsters. This is one of the later stages in the game, and I'm still not quite sure what theme I'd want; I intended to revist this when I got closer to filling in this level. But I did have enough of a concept of it to reject (and delete) BGMs #1 and #3. As it stands, #4 is perhaps too close to the next set, but #2 might work.
  1. BGM #2
  2. BGM #4
• "Final" set: with all the necessary preparations complete, the heroes descend upon the boss's lair to put an end to the monsters once and for all, not to mention find out the truth of what really happened when he made the AI go haywire, and what's been going on in the 15 years since. (The boss knew he was just one breakthrough away from mastering the power, and wanted it all to himself. Unfortunately, in all that time, the answer has eluded him...but the younger hero, who has grown up with thought-controlled nanites, has long since intuited the sought-after answer.) Music's intended emotional theme: righteous vengeance and triumph, as the heroes work their way through the last barriers to victory.
  1. BGM #1
  2. BGM #2
• "Happy ending" BGM: played while the heroes watch their former home (the only home the younger of the two has ever known) blow up in the rear-view window of their escape shuttle, then slowly (as displayed in a sequence of images) come to accept what life will now be like.
• "Sad ending" BGM: if the heroes both die. (The heroes can revive each other if one dies, but this requires the other one to escape and reach assistance.)
• "Item" effects: not BGMs, but non-repeating tunes to be played, as an interrupt to whatever BGM is playing at the time, upon certain minor events.
  1. Item lost
  2. Minor item gained
  3. Major item gained