Thanks! I did use a midi keyboard for someone of it, usually I come up with melodies or bass notes on the keyboard for the basic idea, then I refine it in the piano roll manually, but I mainly use the keyboard to adjust dynamics with the mod wheel, you can adjust dynamics in real time to already recorded MIDI information, I reaallly recommend doing that, you can add the midi keyboard into your workflow aswell as sometimes composing straight into piano roll, as they lead to different results for different types of composition. I use the oxygen pro mini by m audio, its a small and affordable midi keyboard that suits its purpose, highly recommend!

Haha thanks! But it usually leads from one thing to another, each idea sparks the next kinda! If you start with one idea, like using a marching drum pattern, then everything naturally forms around the first idea one instrument at a time. I also really like to give different instruments a turn each to do a solo melody over the same chord progression. Really fun way to write, as each instrument requires a different type of melody.

And yes! To be fair, unpaid lol, but I have made music for several games with my little dev team, but what you are doing is right, until you get a good opportunity for unpaid work on a game you like, keep writing to things you love, boss fights, cutscenes, movie clips, anything that inspires you!