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A jam submission

A Journey Far And WideView project page

Submitted by Sunshine — 1 day, 23 hours before the deadline
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A Journey Far And Wide's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Correlation to Theme#263.3953.545
Listenability#363.3073.455
Composing Quality#363.3513.500
Overall#403.1263.265
Execution#423.0463.182
Overall Uniqueness/Creativity#483.1333.273
Overall Uniqueness/Creativity (double field for weight)#502.5242.636

Ranked from 22 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

Link to Streaming Service
https://on.soundcloud.com/MwvNMw92JmGRxXYV7

Description
Hey Everyone!

This is what I've imagined for this jam and I'm really excited to share my work with everyone and see what you've all come up with too.

I took a lot of inspiration from so many different places for this little soundtrack I came up with and I imagined it could work great for a little Indie adventure game. Something along the lines of Neva, Zelda or adventure games that have many different environments is what I imagined for this project.

Running off to Adventure, is a song that's meant to evoke the excitement of starting a new journey and the rush as you run off towards your goals.

What Lurks in the Dark, is meant to elicit some uncertainty and fear as you walk through the unknown darkness of the world you never knew was below your feet.

The Journey By Your Side, is inspired by a scene between Sam and Frodo at the end of The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. I rewatched the movie recently and this moment just really stuck with me. This song is meant to evoke a sense of friendship, compassion and gratitude for those who have travelled with you through thick and thin.

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRVu-6yU0as&ab_channel=SallySwan%27sMagicMovieWorld

Overall, I'm pretty happy with the results but of course I know there's lots of room for improvement too. I'd love to hear any comments or feedback if you'd like to or be willing to share.

More specifically, I know I'm not the best at mixing and I know my harmonies or chord progressions can be a little funky sounding sometimes, so if you have any suggestions on improvements in these areas I'd really appreciate hearing them.

Most of all though I hope you enjoy listening!

Screenshot of DAW (required, but it can be uploaded shortly afterwards)
https://imgur.com/a/yXdAcXN

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Comments

Submitted(+1)

I particularly like the second piece, I think you should develop that further. It was a cool combination of textures!

Submitted(+1)

Running off to Adventure: It feels grand but light-hearted, with a hint of etherealness to me. I think the drum panning is cool and they have nice rhythm, I feel the drums overwhelm the other elements though; They could be lower in volume or more centered(not complete center though) if that volume is what you wanted , but I'd like to emphasize I really enjoy the rhythms you went with in the drums! I think the piano and flute parts compliment each other well too, and the triplet usage is especially nice!

What Lurks in the Dark: The guitar is very nice sounding, and to me the repeating nature of its melody gives a feeling of "despite the uncertainty and fear, there is something to guide through" . The strings, pianos and drums all add nice depth to the track. I think you could have been a little more adventurous in the composition given that it's meant to invoke uncertainty and fear. One example is, I feel it could use more inconsistency rhythmically(not often but just a little bit), or added silence, to give the listener less to hold on to, but that's subjective and mostly specific for this jam, I still think you did nicely achieving the feeling you wanted to go for, especially with ambient sounds in the beginning and the heart-racing piano.


The Journey By Your Side: This song is nice and heart-warming to me, I think the composition is great in this one. I like the two flutes you've used here, it is like they are speaking to each other. I don't have any criticisms here that others haven't already mentioned. I like the inspirations you used for this track as well!

Overall, I think this is a really nice soundtrack, and it explores a nice variety of emotion. Nicely done!

Submitted(+1)

Hi ! i really liked all your tracks, especially th e2nd one that fits a more serious and ambient vibe. 

I think that you could try to play more with the velocity and volume of the notes for example the harp in your third track is repetitive ( which is good ) but with a little more variations in the volume, expression and stuff it could give it an other sound. ( kinda same with the piano on the first one )

Hope i could help you with this feedback :) have a great day !

Submitted(+1)

Really enjoyed the vibes on all 3 tracks. I especially loved the sound of the flutes in the 1st and 3rd track, and the piano texture on the 2nd track.

A minor thing, but I think the brass rhythms in the 1st track clashes a bit too much with the piano and violin, and feels a bit out of place since they are not heard again in the 2nd and 3rd track. Brass sections tend to be very bright sounding and will draw listener attentions to them, which could overwhelm the other melodies if not mixed correctly. Maybe try swapping them with cello/violin staccato or pizzicato for the rhythms and see if you like it, but this is just my opinion.

Overall I think they are wonderfully done, and I look forward to hearing more of your work! 

Submitted(+1)

I love the melody in the first and third pieces, they really evoke images I get from RPGs like the Zelda series. Post-processing aside, I loved the usage of common motifs throughout the soundtrack!

Something minor I noticed throughout the tracks is that you use a lot of period and double periods (which is good, everybody loves hearing repetition of phrases), but it also ends up creating the feeling of your pieces existing in small, separated chunks. I think utilising some sentence forms and connecting phrases between your periods would help a lot in this.

Well done overall, you definitely evoked the feelings you were describing in your description! I felt some strong emotions especially on the last piece :)

Submitted(+1)

I think everyone said it piano playing MIDI like and don't be shy on the reverb if controlled well I promise it will enhanced x1000 your tracks.  I like the composition, its a nice arrangement nothing that was out of place and the texture also fits the theme. Pretty unique percussions overall I like the patern that is moving left and right. Good job.

HostSubmitted(+1)

Love the open sense of space.

Though, the piano sounds a little dry in the mix. It also sounds fairly midi-ish in that its volume doesn't change much. Piano is tough if you don't have a midi controller.

Second track I like that you open not on the tonic - that scores you some creativity points from me! :)

I think the strings still are a little midi-sounding - reverb can help this a lot. One trick with strings is to actually start the next note early so that the attack overlaps with the release of the previous note - this should help the constant muting/attack sound.

Last track:

Similar issues with the strings, but it is also a nice composition.

Well done!

Submitted(+1)

Really charming, strong composition on display here. Something I would recommend to help out with your mixing would be to layer an instrument that you want to really define the EQ of, assuming you don't use expensive EQ software.

Layer one with a regular EQ, how you think it should sound, how you're aiming to EQ it. Then on the second layer, run a LP or HP (Low pass / High Pass) and cut it until they bleed into each other in a balanced way. You don't need to do any fancy side-chain stuff or anything crazy. Just curve them out as if they're one composite track.

This helps create a sense of depth and texture, and the LP / HP layer also helps you pick out frequencies in the standard track that you want to close in on. 

The flutes in the last track are a great example, there's some loose high end, cut out all the highs and slowly just bring them up as one filter / pass until it sounds right, then match that range in the normal layer and just very subtly blend them.


This is a great OST, really solid work.

Submitted(+1)

This is a really good submission. I am not fond of the first one, but the two others were really good! 

Refering to what you say in your description, I think you're a lot better at mixing than you think.

 Well done :)

Submitted(+1)

The composition for the strings here was absolutely phenomenal, especially the background pizzicato plucks in the second track. love it!

Submitted(+1)

Hey there! Really liked your songs, and it was cool to know that another person was in the same "headspace" as me when composing, being that I did all 3 acts in 1 song.

Great job, one of my favorites so far! :D