Hi, my name is Stian Stark and I'm a game musician. I love games, I love music and I try to stand out from all the other game musicians by battling the things I feel are keeping game music from reaching its full potential: poor musicianship and lack of commitment to games.

Ever wonder why so much of the greatest game music comes from Japan? It's not like the west is lacking capable composers. It's because in Japan game musicians have a different mindset when it comes to their work. They're doing their small part in a bigger picture to create the best product possible, together. Over here musicians are self-centered. Johnny thinks it's cool to have his trance track in a game so everyone will hear his music and he'll become famous. Paul is trying to break into the film industry so in the meantime he composes his John Williams ripoffs into whatever video game crosses his path. Their priority is creating music they want to create, and often that's not game music.

I've always been a game(r) musician and that's all I ever want to be. I want my music to transport the player into another world and keep him there undistracted. I also want to use real instruments and real singers to make that happen, instead of just machines and synthesizers. These challenges require creativity and musical finesse, not the usual as-loud-as-possible assault on our senses.

My favourite games are Alpha Centauri, Steel Panthers, Fantasy General, XCOM (you know which ones), Master of Magic/Orion, Dominions 3 and Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth.

It's obvious that I love strategy and war games and it's one genre of games that I feel could really benefit from some strategically placed music. The problem with most strategy titles is that they either have no music at all, or the music they have is too intense for gameplay that consists of staring at a big map for hours. If you really want to transport the player to 1945, a mix of orchestral instruments and weapons of war - occasionally emerging in the distant soundscape to remind the player with ominous roars that the world is at stake - would do wonders for immersion.

I'm always interested in new game projects. If you're in need of a passionate and proficient audio man, let me know! Here is my email address.

These are tracks from various games I've worked on. Use the flash player to listen to them here or use the download link to get them for yourself.

Cubz is a fascinating 3D sliding puzzler by swiss company Rudicubes. I provided the background music that builds around a hybrid bass guitar/acoustic bass instrument that in a weird, warm and fuzzy way reminds me of mathematics.

In Chromixa your goal is to solve puzzles by arranging shapes of differently coloured light into other shapes. The background music is something that just started playing in my head while I was hypnotized by the beautiful, revolving lights.

Solium Infernum is hard strategy in hell. It's one of the best strategy games I've ever played and I'm honored to have my music in it. If you don't mind a little learning curve, you should really check it out.

Crayon Physics Deluxe is a lot of things, too hard to describe with just words. So go check out the webpage! I made a really calm, ethereal track for it. It reminds me of the forest in summer.

This is the unofficial trailer for a browser-based strategy game called Hours Of War. There's some very beautiful painted artwork in it. I created all the sound effects and music.