Mikko Tarmia is a Finnish game music composer, best known for his contribution in the critically acclaimed Penumbra game series developed by Frictional Games. Tarmia had his first touch in music production in the beginning of the 90s with Amiga MOD trackers and techno music, but later on he received more and more influences from orchestral music and he wanted to improve himself in that specific field. He learned to play different instruments and finally joined conservatory to get some formal music education (bassoon is his primary instrument). After conservatory, he joined the Pirkanmaa University of Applied Sciences to study music production.

In 2002, Tarmia composed music for his first computer game project, Codeblender Software's submarine action game called DeepTrouble. He also produced music for other Codeblender titles such as Epsilon Tahari: Reign of the Machines, Rally Shift and Deep Trouble 2. In 2006, Tarmia was asked to compose some music for Penumbra, a technical demo for a survival horror game developed by Frictional Games. It gained massive popularity on the Internet and the developer decided to make Penumbra a commercial game. It was going to be released in episodes and Tarmia was commissioned to compose all the music for them. Penumbra: Overture - Episode One was released in March 2007 and in addition to an SDSI award, it received good reviews in media. Paradox Interactive published the second chapter, titled Penumbra: Black Plague, worldwide in February 2008. This game was also awarded and it received critical success - even more than Episode One. Penumbra: Requiem, an expansion for Black Plague was released in August 2008.

Tarmia also runs an independent record label called The Sound of Fiction, which specialises in bringing film and video game music to its fans. The label's latest release is AIKA, an atmospheric orchestral soundtrack wrapped around a philosophically inspired science fiction story written by Tom Jubert. For more info, visit the AIKA website.