Last post, I talked about evoking an emotional response in the player around their return home. I said: "Maribeth's music and Paul's art both help with that." I was just listening to the London theme that Maribeth produced for us, and I remembered it was actually her third attempt, after we proved to be completely blithery about what we were commissioning. An unedited excerpt from my mail to her.

"So wait! look the thing is... we're actually not sure what we want for this one. I asked you for 'grand bustling labyrinthine... but also eerie' and that is exactly what you gave us. But we've realised there are two different things we want to do.
(i) when the player returns to London after a zee voyage, we want them to see the lights of the docks and hear something to reinforce the sense of homecoming to a safe and bustling place after the loneliness of the zee;
(ii) but - Fallen London is also well-established as a locus of twilit baroque Gothic wryness - the game art reinforces this - and we're nervy about starting the game with a cheery bustling tune. Nervy, rather than against - because the arc of Sunless Sea is about starting in the (relative) light, crossing the water in the dark, returning to the light. But it may be that what we want is fundamentally irreconcilable.'

Maribeth went away and did both those things: a piece that is wistful and comforting at once, and sounds to my non-Portuguese, non-Welsh ear like saudade or hiraeth. Oh bugger I can't link to it. But it's lovely. Buy the game (or the soundtrack, COMING SOON) and hear it.