Ben Tibbetts Studio: Piano Performances and Original Music

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Other downloads:
Music for "Metal Mayhem": Metal Mayhem, Junkyard Chase Scene, Kitchen Theatre
Music for "Shark Patrol": Shark Patrol, Deep C
ZIP download of "Mr. Pig's Quest for Pants"
Gameplay of "Mr. Pig's Quest For Pants" on YouTube, and MP4 download
ZIP download of "Riddle Nod"

Early Games and Experiments

These are games that I developed when I was a kid, experimenting with early versions of Game Maker. All of these games are terrible by comparison to professional work, but they were fun to make.

The first game listed here, Super Mario in Tubaland, is significantly less terrible than the others. I put a lot of work into that one because it was a present for my girlfriend at the time. That said, I didn't think to include a manual or help file. Basically, you control Mario with the arrow keys and hold shift to run.

Planet Star

Planet Star was a game I made in middle school (I think fifth grade). It's basically a glorified slideshow. It was an attempt to tell a story (although the plot was nonsense). I think when I was making Planet Star I had recently started playing Final Fantasy VII, which inspired me. I wrote it in HTML, used Microsoft Paint for most of the graphics, and used Melody Assistant for the music. I still have it and you can download it here:

planetstar.zip

It seems to run best if you extract everything into a directory with a short address (e.g. C:\planetstar) and then open "planetstar.html" in Internet Explorer (which should play the background music instead of downloading the midi files). Even then, some of the images are missing.

One problem with the way it's made is how I nested each subsequent part of the game into a deeper and deeper subdirectory. Because of this approach I ended up with very long addresses by the end, which causes an issue on Windows.

There's something humbling for me about revisiting this. The child that made this game and the adult that's writing this text are different people, but they're connected by shared experiences and interests. I'm proud of that kid for having sat at a computer and actually made something over the course of several months.

The best part of this game is the music. Some of it's not bad. You can tell even back then it was something I had a knack for. The Planet Star soundtrack is elsewhere on this page; just scroll up and look under "planet_star".

Chronicles of Metropolis / The Voyage

When I was a kid, outside of Planet Star I made two attempts to tell stories through games. The first was called Chronicles of Metropolis and the second was called The Voyage. I abandoned both by the end of my freshman year in high school, but I did manage to write some music for them.

Chronicles of Metropolis portrayed a future in which the planet was covered in one gigantic, sprawling city. The areas that were not part of the city proper were suburbs, and there were no truly rural areas anymore. I had an idea that somebody might want to exercise totalitarian control over this city through political maneuvering. That person was the antagonist. The protagonist was be a juvenile delinquent. I think this was inspired by Final Fantasy IX, in which the main character was a thief.

The Voyage was kind of based on The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, except in a different world and mythology. It told the story of a prince whose mother is killed at a young age and whose father sailed off when he became a teenager. The boy followed him in a small ship. While he's gone, the kingdom was subverted from within, and the kid travels for years, seeing different parts of a strange world. In the end he returns as a man.

These two ideas were similar to each other in some respects. Looking back on it, I'm pleased by how much more coherent they were than the terrible plot of Planet Star. That makes sense; these were a little later in my childhood so I had a better sense of storytelling. Anyway, nothing much came from them outside of the soundtracks, which can be heard above under "chronicles_of_metropolis" and "the_voyage".

Early film soundtracks and films by other people

Here are some of my first soundtracks for short films, as well as some films that use the music on this page.

The Door: watch on YouTube, download mp4
Casper the Animated Series Pilot: watch on Newgrounds
Brain Dandruff: T<3T: watch on Newgrounds, download swf
The Fall of Sonic: watch on Newgrounds
The Alien: watch on Newgrounds
Birth of a 2 x 4: watch on Newgrounds
John & Dante Adventures: watch on Newgrounds, download swf
Was That Really Necessary: watch on Newgrounds

Download "All City" (mp4)

Download "Four Animations" (mp4) - improvised (and planned) piano accompaniments I performed for my senior recital at UNH, using animations from YouTube

Download "Midterm" (mp4) - an animation midterm I was invited to score (I've lost my information about the animator...if you made this please email me!)

Download "Stop Motion Boredom 1" (mp4)

Download "Stop Motion Boredom 2" (mp4)

Download "Stop Motion Boredom 3" (mp4)

Download "Stop Motion Boredom 4" (mp4)

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