Recorded Live Inside The Toon Room Community

In this episode of The Toon Room Podcast, I sit down with the incredibly talented music composer José Varon for a deep dive into the world-building power of music in animation and games. José breaks down his creative approach through his recent work on the RTS video game Immortal: Gates of Pyre, showing how music can become more than an emotional layer — it can be the heartbeat, identity, and storytelling engine of an entire world.

We explore:

🎼 Holistic music design — building a score from the ground up to reflect a world’s culture, technology & personality

⚙️ Creating new instruments — how José recorded industrial machinery and transformed it into a signature percussive palette

👤 Character-driven themes — crafting musical identities that express personality, history & emotional truth

🏛️ National anthems & city music — using composition to define civilizations, societies & their values (including a Vegas-inspired industrial jazz city!)

🎮 Dynamic play-driven scoring — layering multiple character themes so gameplay triggers evolving musical storytelling

🤓 The value of quirks & imperfection — why analog unpredictability brings authenticity and life to sound

It’s a fascinating look into how music can shape narrative, tone, and even player perception — proving that great scoring isn’t just about what we hear, but what we feel and understand without a single line of dialogue.

🔔 Listen. Learn. Join the conversation.

This podcast is recorded live inside The Toon Room — a global guild for animators, composers, storytellers, and collaborators. Want to join future sessions? Come hang out with us at:

👉 thetoonroom.com

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