A few friends now have remarked that I should approach a game company about my music. What's the best approach?

I'm here as a pretty clueless 33 year old who has vary rarely collaborated or worked on projects outside of the scope of my own agenda - I've entered a couple competitions over the decades, and when I was a lot younger, contributed some music toward a game. That being said, I've always absolutely adored classic game music - often just going into the sound test as a kid and listening to songs that I loved, very rarely concerned with the limitation that it was all generated on chip, and instead falling in love with melodies and harmonies and plain cool tracks. So anyway, I have a lot of respect for the art.

I'm not sure I can post any examples of my own work (but if the mods allow it I'll post a link - I think questions about the kind of game I'd be making music for would be better answered that way). In the meantime, are there any tried and true avenues into commercial game music - or indie devs who I could approach to work with, there are tons of games (Shovel Knight, Cave Story, Hyper Light Drifter) whose music holds up and surpasses some of the best of the former.

I'm at a point where I can output music I'm happy with in a technical and musical sense. I think it's different and unique enough that applied to a certain style of game it could work quite well. Of course, I'd love to work on a classic :)

Does anybody out there have any tips / recommendations on how to get involved?

I don’t necessarily have tips for music specifically but as a small time indie dev here are two tips that helped get my first game known:

1. Have a social media presence. It sucks, I hate it, but nowadays a lot of deals start out on the internet. It’s important to have a personal website where people can find your best stuff (don’t post everything, treat it as a portfolio, put your 3-4 best tracks there), a twitter presence and, I imagine, for musicians I’d also say a bandcamp presence. Obviously that also means following and interacting the best you can with other creators, but don’t think a deal will magically happen from a twitter share. It happens, but it’s very rare.

2. Local communities, I’m in Montreal where the game creators community is pretty big. I have no idea where you live but obviously going to events and meeting creators in person is the best way to find collaborators. A musician working in my local community met a dev there and they’re now doing music games together. If you’re in a city where it happens, I highly recommend just going to events and just be generally interested in other people’s work. Don’t be afraid to tell you’re a musician. Plenty of devs need musicians!

Feel free to private message me one of your track! I’m working on a prototype for that I’m supposed to show to some publishers during the next summer! I might need some music eventually (but it’s a big “might” ahah).

In addition to BooBoo's suggestions I'd say you should build a portfolio immediately. Works best if you buy a domain, but even for free there are various websites where you can host your music on. Then choose a handful (literally only 4 or 5) of your best songs that showcase your range. You know, the songs that a potential employer would listen to and say "I want to hear more of this person." That way, you're ready to go when you make the right connection through social media or a local game scene.

Also, don't be afraid to just apply for jobs. Even if you know you have no chance at the position, or it's not exactly what you want it can be good experience just going through the process and hoping for a callback. Like, don't do it if you get too discouraged by the process, but habit makes for proficiency, even in applying for jobs.

Boombox outside the offices.

I'm not a game dev at all, so I don't know what I'm talking about, but maybe participate in game jams? Would be a good way to meet people and get your name out. Might help if you also know basic sound production / engineering stuff.