Moa Lenngren, from Skövde, Sweden, stands firmly with one foot in the hardrock business and the other one in the game development industry. With degrees and huge interests in both subjects she gladly combines them in everything she does. During the weekdays Moa works as a programmer, composer and audio designer at Zcooly where she develops educational games for children, and during the weekends she tours the world, shredding lead guitar, with her hard rock band Browsing Collection.
“When I talk to people about what I do for a living they always ask me – Oh you gotta play lots of video games, right? And yeah I play games for sure, but I’m more into making them, actually. I’ve always been a very creative person and I spent my whole childhood drawing, writing stories, singing and playing instruments. Rather than reading or watching movies. So when I started studying game development at the University of Skövde, we had our first assignment about analysing a whole video game. And I realised I hadn’t actually played one. My favourites at that time were Guitar Hero III, Tetris and a few mobile games, so I had no experiences at all playing more story driven games. And that’s exactly when I met Sebastian Mårtensson, who we all know as the Assistant Director of several Harmony projects. He was the mentor of my class because he studied the same thing as I did, and we became really really good friends. I remember telling him I needed help with this assignment and he lent me his Wii and one of his favourite games – Metroid: Other M. So, during the days I worked on my assignment and during the nights I stayed up, still living at my parents’ house, just to play through the game. I actually had Sebastian with me sometimes on my laptop that was turned to the TV so he could see me play, haha. It was such an intense week, and I pulled it off! I had so much fun and really loved the game. I can still feel that adrenaline from the boss fights and the exploration of new environments when I think about it. It sure made me appreciate playing video games more, and especially it gave me lots of inspiration having such a badass main character, who now of course is my favourite of all times. So, I have so much to thank Sebastian for. He’s such a kind and caring friend, great gamer and of course an amazing musician.
Shortly after that we also started making music together, and when he was working on Harmony Of Heroes I got the honour to play some electric guitar on his song ‘Echoes From the Showdown’ (Metroid Prime 2 Multiplayer). It was the first time I ever heard of this project, and I was so happy I got to contribute. Later on, when the process of Final Smash started he asked me if I wanted to tribute with my own cover and of course I said yes! It resulted in ‘Through The Blades of Shadow’, my take on ‘Shadow Man Stage’ (Mega Man). Now I’m super excited to be back on this amazing initiative with one standalone cover and two covers in the medley. I can’t wait to hear the rest of the songs! So happy to be part of this.”
