LudoCrypt
Soundscape Designer, Musician, Developer
Hello! My name is Monika Carpenter, but online I go by Ludo! I am an Ambient-Electronic Musician, and Java Developer
Feel free to browse this site, check out some of my work, and reach out to me if you feel so inclined!
About
Hello! My name is Monika Carpenter, but online I go by LudoCrypt (Ludo for short). I am an ambient electronic musician as well as a soundscape designer. I've been making music since the summer of 2020, picking it up as a hobby alongside Minecraft modding. My first 'mod' was a dimension, and I wanted a soundtrack to go with it, and that's what got me interested in music. I wasn't very good at first, but I persisted, and now it's become one of my favorite things to do! The music I make takes inspiration from video games such as Minecraft, Hollow Knight, and Rain World. While I initially got into just music, I eventually started leaning towards making soundscapes too. I find the two to be interlinked within my work.I didn't always like or appreciate ambient music, and it was only when I actually forced myself to make it that it started to make me think more deeply about it. At the time, I was a very determined young woman, and I had a very specific vision for how I wanted my work to be scored. Because of this, I would listen to some of my favorite musicians and try to focus on what exactly they were doing. Which is something I still do to this day! Back then, that was mainly Daniel Rosenfeld, more commonly known as C418, the original composer for Minecraft. Daniel's approach to music is what formed my foundation when I started.Over time, the foundation of my music slowly morphed when I started playing games like Hollow Knight and Rain World. These games and their soundtracks are where my current approach to music comes from. Minecraft, being a sandbox, taught me to explore creativity. Hollow Knight, being a deep and thoughtful game, taught me to pay attention to emotion. And Rain World, being an environmental platformer, taught me to be patient, subtle, and embrace repetitivity. What I add to the genre is a mix of everything Ive learned over the years: a focus on the world, a subtler approach to melody, an emphasis on emotion, and plenty of unique soundscapes to immerse yourself in.I have a language disorder and relatively low social intelligence, so I have a very hard time communicating and understanding what the people around me are saying or thinking. Because of that, a lot of my thoughts and emotions are left unresolved, but it's with music that I can express them in a way I couldn't before. I'm able to have control over portraying emotions in my music. Melancholy is a common theme in my music—that feeling of longing for something more. Often, too, my music is somber or bittersweet, sometimes even dark! But one specific emotion I've tried to include in almost all of my work is the feeling of anemoia, or nostalgia for a time you've never known or an experience you've never had.Looking to the future, I continue to experiment and toy with what I do, always having new ideas and aspirations. One major goal of mine is to one day score Minecraft itself, the game that got me passionate about life. But dreaming smaller, I hope to score an entire game soundtrack by myself. Even if it's just a small indie game, to score a game at all would be an honor. It's a privilege to get to work on any project, and not a day goes by where I don't appreciate everyone and everything that has gotten me to where I am today. My many, many thanks go out; this has changed my life.
Music
The Minecraft modding community has created some of the most fascinating projects I've ever seen, and growing up It inspired my creativity in so many ways. When I make music for a Minecraft mod, I'm giving back to the community. Often I will find a mod, and see the passion and creativity going into it, and I want to let that shine, to enhance it. Usually it's smaller developers creating their passion project. Here I've compiled a list of some of my best work, and short descriptions of the projects they were for.
Over a years worth of work, time, and effort were put into this singular album. Over two and a half hours long with 35 individual tracks. This was made for a project my team and I are still working on. This mod would add a new dimension called The Hiemal, a cold barren wasteland of giant rocks in the shapes of icicles. With magical elements, souls, and the damned.
An album made for Nature's Spirit. A biome mod adding many beautiful new biomes to the overworld. This album has me experimenting with the Noire Felt, as well as instruments from EastWest ComposerCloud. I wanted to know what I could do with a more natural, acoustic sound, rather than soundscape or synth instruments. I used pianos, music boxes, even kalimbas!
These tracks were a commission for the mod
The Bumblezone by TelepathicGrunt. The tracks on top were made as music that would play while exploring the world. The track on bottom was made for when you're exploring an ancient bee temple, and would play on loop. I had to capture two different moods of what the bumblezone was. When I first started modding, this was actually the mod that got me into doing my own worldgen, and I owe a great deal to it for that. So when approached by TelepathicGrunt I knew I wanted to give it my all, and I think these three tracks are some of my best.
This album was made for the mod The Corners, which is a mod that turns Liminal Spaces into procedurally generated dimensions. Liminal Spaces are fascinating as they can make a viewer experience anemoia. The mod's OST brings out this feeling of anemoia (Nostalgia for a time you've never known), and translates this into music. I get to experiment with a very specific kind of ambient music.
This album was inspired by C418's Excursions. When writing this album, the first thing I did for every track was lay out the background ambience, to guide the mood of the song while writing. And the music just flowed naturally out of me, whatever needed to be there found its way there quicker than anything else I've ever written. This may not be my best or most clean album, but it stands out to me.
This was my first debut album, my first whole project, released in December of 2020 only six months after I started writing music, and I still believe it to be some of my best work when it comes to environmental soundscape design. Maybe not so much music as the album is over three and a half hours, but I focused on how this made you feel while exploring such a place like no other that of The End dimension in Minecraft. Extrapolating a whole soundtrack with such little to go off of proved to be a challenge.
The following tracks aren't attached to anything specific enough to warrant its own section, but I feel are still worth showcasing here.
I do have many more tracks and albums for other projects, but I can't show them all here. If you want a more extensive list, you can check out the playlist I have on YouTube. These are some of my best work for other projects. I show these tracks in particular as they give an example of the wide range I can go with the themes and vibes of my music. If you want to see all of my work, everything I have is listed on my Bandcamp page. You can also find me on streaming services under the name LudoCrypt.
Contact
I appreciate that you want to get in contact with me! You can easily do so by either filling out the form below, or emailing me directly! The email button at the bottom of each page should direct you. If you would like me to work for your project, send me an email! I will try to respond to as many as I can!