Musica universalis

For The Chinese Room, music is a storytelling tool of equal importance to everything else in the game, and Curry’s haunting, reactive soundtrack is tightly bound to both the game’s narrative and your journey thorough it. It is an uncommonly symbiotic relationship. “I think the music is a character in our games,” Pinchbeck says. “I guess because of the fact that [Jessica and I are] married, and we run the studio together, there’s no secondary function; the music and the story are fundamentally intertwined.” The relatively short length of The Chinese Room’s games complements this philosophy. “There’s no reason why, in a game of this length, every cue can not be absolutely placed,” Curry says. “I know exactly what’s going on and there don’t have to be any repeats, any looping. It’s a joy, but it’s hard work – it’s a lot of material to generate.”