Sound of Space

Everyone thinks music is hard — that you need theory, instruments, years of practice. Not true. You already know music: you've been listening to it your entire life. If you can hear the difference between something that sounds good and something that sounds bad, you can tweak a dial and make a demo.

THE TRAX AUDIO ENGINE

That's where TRAX comes in. Six dials change the sound and genre of your music live, while the loop plays — crank them until you land somewhere good, or somewhere an alien asked for. If one tells you they're into warbly nullgaze, you go make warbly nullgaze. Then build that loop into a real song: lay sections end to end and TRAX writes the transitions between them. You start out pressing single-section demos — sell enough and you unlock half-length and full-length tapes that hold the whole thing. Every sale funds new plugins for your machine: more sound, more quality, more to tweak.

MAKE BEATS WITH YOUR FRIENDS

TRAX isn't a one-person booth. Friends can work the same track at the same time — same screen, everyone's cursor live on the dials, everyone hearing the loop change together. Fight over the bassline. Or split the label: one of you stays in the studio while the other hits the street selling tapes.

GET PAID OR GET ROASTED

Every alien out here has opinions. Play them a tape and they judge it to your face — maybe they light up and ask how much, maybe you get roasted for the genre. A no always comes with feedback: what they didn't like, what they're actually into. A yes starts a negotiation — name your price, but get greedy and you'll eat a spiteful final offer. Win them over and they'll text you with requests and budgets of their own. Just don't try selling anyone the same song twice.

BECOME THE BIGGEST PRODUCER IN THE SOLAR SYSTEM

The planets out here aren't menu options — they genuinely orbit, and you fly between them yourself: off one world's surface, through open space, down onto the next. Every planet has its own aliens and its own ears. When you've outgrown the local scene, save up and take your sound somewhere new. Find more customers. Grow the empire.

THE BLACK HOLE IS GROWING

It's up there, consuming anything and everything in its path — and it's only a matter of time until it engulfs the solar system and everything in it. Every alien knows it. That's exactly why nobody's wasting what's left: life is short out here, and music is how you spend it.