Trash Is Fun

‘Trash Is Fun’ is a co-op game about cute animal mutants trying to save our planet from global warming and garbage zombies.

These animals became extremely intelligent due to the melting glaciers that released a strange virus, and now they want to fix the situation since humankind has disappeared somewhere.

‘Trash Is Fun’ is an ambitious eco-friendly indie project from a group of Ukrainian teens from the ‘Martian Teapots’ studio. This game is not only an excellent opportunity to have fun with friends but also an easy way to study the principles of sorting and recycling garbage.

We’ve learned about this fun cooperative game from a crowdfunding campaign, through which the team tried to fundraise for the game soundtrack. We’ve decided to support them and create music for free so that they could spend the raised money on marketing and overall project development.

You can immerse yourself in the atmosphere of post-apocalyptic fun by purchasing the game here:

Sound concept

The creative process behind the sound of ‘Trash Is Fun’ became an exciting journey for our agency.

Firstly, we immediately liked the developers’ idea of ​​”post-apocalypse fun.” It sounded super-promising, and we wanted to explore this idea through music.

Secondly, the ‘Trash Is Fun’ team permitted us to create music that will not only not “ease” the players but also add a degree to the overall level of insanity.

And thirdly, after analyzing the competitors and best practices of similar co-op games (like ‘Overcooked’), we realized that we had to go towards non-banal solutions. After all, given the background and clichéd music prevalence, it was the only logical decision to qualitatively differentiate the game from other titles and evoke the audience’s affection.

So after analyzing all the info we collected about the game, its audience, and competitors, we developed several audio hypotheses and put together relevant audio mood boards. And together with the developers, we chose the best ideas for the soundtrack.

An audio mood board is а playlist that contains a selection of musical clips that show different ways of conveying a particular message, meaning, or idea.

Among the compositions included in the mood boards were tracks from the third Crash Bandicoot and soundtracks for ‘The Willoughbys’, ‘Meeting the Robinsons’, ‘The Greatest Showman’, ‘Wreck-It Ralph’, and Marvel’s ‘Daredevil’, etc.

After listening, we chose positive and negative references and finally approved the audio concept: pop-rock with elements of orchestral music (but one that would have a toy-ish sound) and nuances of electronic music.

Challenge

We faced this project’s biggest challenge almost immediately after finishing the work on the main theme.

The thing is that each level in this game is divided into segments of 30 seconds with different dynamics, and what’s more, the duration of each subsequent level becomes longer and longer. The final levels, for example, last 5 minutes.

That is why we had to respect a rigid track structure while making music vary throughout the level. And, well, we also had to make all tracks different from each other, despite the same structure.

It was quite an exercise in creativity, but we managed to nail it! The fact that each level has a rather distinctive setting helped us a lot: snowy Lviv, noir Berlin under the rain, somewhat melancholic Stockholm, etc.

Result

The ‘Trash Is Fun’ soundtrack includes six tracks: the main theme and five gameplay tracks. You can listen to the final result below:

Or you can also find this soundtrack on your favorite streaming platform

We also recommend you check out the gameplay video to understand better how music works in the game context: