Coach Simon Says

Notes

Music for Coach Simon Says, a trampolining game on TrampOnline. On every bounce a pixel-art coach calls out a shape (tuck, pike or straddle), and the player has to tap the right one before the trampolinist lands. Every twenty moves the coach shouts "Faster!", and the bounces quicken.

The score is a bright sports-day march in G for the four voices of an old games console: two pulse waves, a triangle-wave bass and noise for the drums. One bar of music is one bounce, so every landing falls on the downbeat. The music is played live in the browser rather than from a recording, so when the bounces speed up the music speeds up with them, without changing pitch.

It is written in layers. A count-in of beeps starts each game, and the first level has only the tune, the bass and a snare drum. Each new level adds something: an inner line, then hi-hats, then a leaping bass, and finally racing arpeggios, while the tempo climbs from 118 beats a minute to 200. A wrong move cuts the music off for a falling "wah-wah-wah" ending, and a gentler version of the tune plays under the high-score table.