For Napolitano, video games are “the sound of my childhood.”

Scarlet Moon Promotions founder Jayson Napolitano started out as a writer, doing reviews of games to get into industry events. He gave special attention to the music in the games he was reviewing, commenting on the composer’s previous credits. “I wanted to do interviews and features,” he says. “I started writing for other outlets before starting Original Sound Version, a nerdy music blog that isn’t updated anymore, but is still around. I started Scarlet Moon in 2013 to provide PR services to composers, release game music soundtracks, and arrangement albums.”

As a lover of game music, Napolitano says that while growing up, he would drive his friends nuts humming the melodies from his favorite games. “It’s literally the sound of my childhood, which is why retro game music sounds from the 1980s [Nintendo Entertainment System] and 1990s [Super Nintendo] are things I still seek out. There’s a genre of chiptune that includes these retro sounds that were often called upon to provide this sound to game projects. My family thought I’d attempt becoming a game composer myself. I tried to do that, and am a bit of a hobbyist musician myself, but I didn’t have the patience for perfecting my sound. Instead, I thought I would go into sound engineering to keep involved in that way. The most rewarding thing about this work is partnering with composers I’ve been a fan of since childhood and facilitating them creating even more music — while getting to hear it before anybody else.”

Just in time for the season of spooks, Scarlet Moon released the album Halloween Volume III on October 1. The Scarlet Moon Halloween series began in 2022; Napolitano says each album takes on its own “vibe” based on who contributes. “The first album was electronic music-heavy. The second was diverse and featured a large number of game arrangements. The third album is probably the most diverse in styles, offering electronic, rock, and orchestral, and features mostly original songs. It’s also the most ‘San Diego’ of the series. I didn’t realize it as we were putting it together, since you never know who’s going to ultimately submit a track to the album. It wasn’t until I had the final masters in hand and started writing up our album copy that it occurred to me how special and San Diego this volume was.”

According to Napolitano, the game and game music communities in San Diego aren’t very cohesive. “As we all know, San Diego is the eighth biggest city in the country. But it is extremely vast. So, even though a lot of people are making games and game music, there isn’t anywhere for everyone to come together and learn what everyone is working on. In that way, I’m always very excited when I come across an indie game developer based out of San Diego.”

The six-song Halloween album includes music from local artists Tim “VECTORDRIVE” Sheehy, Vladymir “Rogov,” and Coronado based George “The Fat Man” Sanger. Says Napolitano of Sanger, “While I’ve always known George and his work, it was only two years ago that a mutual friend introduced us when they were in town for San Diego Comic-Con. We hit it off immediately, as he’s such a friendly, fun, and talented artist. We were looking for ways to work together, as I love working local, and tagging up on these compilation albums seemed like an easy opportunity. George contributed to our retro 1990s original MIDI (Musical Instrumental Digital Interface) music album titled Canvas City earlier this year, and it was a slam dunk to have him on as our celebrity guest, given that he made a name for himself in games using the Roland Sound Canvas synthesizer throughout the 1990s. His contribution to Halloween Volume III is his second collaboration with us, and features his band, Los Coronados.”

Sanger’s song “The Game” also features keyboardist Adam Holzman, who has performed with many jazz legends, including Miles Davis. In addition, it marked the recording debut of talent from the San Diego Mid-City Community Music group. “He worked them into the album,” Napolitano says. “He asked me what I’d think about including them. I support their mission and their artists one hundred percent.”