The Lazarus Sign

The Lazarus Sign is a psychological drama RPG created by solo developer Stefan Ortelbach. With its roots in RPG Maker, the game has a retro 16-bit vibe, and the gameplay focuses on narrative, exploration and puzzling.

I love the indie dev community! The creativity, excitement and passion for projects are infectious, and I'm bowled over by developers' openness and willingness to share, collaborate and help each other.

When Stefan approached me to write the music for his game, I knew the score for The Lazarus Sign should be as flexible as possible. There would be a limited budget, and the music needed to cover many scenes.

By composing the music in a way that made looping easy for Stefan, we got a lot of mileage from a relatively short soundtrack. The contrasting moods and dynamics of the score, combined with the possibilities for looping, made this soundtrack very versatile. So, with careful

implementation, Stefan managed to curate the soundtrack for the entire game by selecting the sections he needed at any given point.

While writing the score, I didn't have access to the game. So, the ideas formed from conversations with Stephan and looking at the concept art developed for characters and locations. The loose framework provided by our discussions proved very useful, and the space it left for exploration made this project very rewarding.