What type of scale would be good for "desert" music? Harmonic? Melodic? Also, would minor key be the best? (I'm assuming so.) What instruments would have the most powerful effect? Tempo?

not sure about the scales... but maybe oboe... and like a banjo or sumthin...

If you play the Harmonic Minor, it sounds arabic.

I think that music with a spanish style or an arabic style is good. For a scale, I'd go with harmonic minor(raise the 7th both ways). I think that a non-electrical guitar would be fine.

Good ideas thus far! :D Would you really be able to picture that music playing in a VG though? :P

^^ at the time I was thinking about that desert in Kingdom Hearts and the CAnyon in FF7

Sort of...I was thinking more or less along the lines of Gerudo Valley from Zelda: OoT.

Ethnic percussion might be another thing you wanna add, e.g. maracas, gourd drums - violin strikes me as a good instrument for that sort of music too, if you wanted to use pizzicato to create a kind of "dead air" effect :) Images of a desert tend to be of a desolate land of sand stretching out into the horizon, with perhaps the occasional cactus or lizard, so maybe minimise your instruments to match that?

Edit: Oh, and tempo - definitely fairly slow, as few things move fast in the scorching temperatures found in the desert! Very lethargic, almost ;)

:) Good ideas, thanks!

Maybe a dorian, but with imagination you can make any scale fitting for a "desert" theme.