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To Overcome's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Correlation to theme | #21 | 3.762 | 3.762 |
| Overall | #83 | 3.190 | 3.190 |
| Quality | #88 | 3.190 | 3.190 |
| Impression | #96 | 2.952 | 2.952 |
| Creativity | #96 | 3.095 | 3.095 |
| Composition | #99 | 2.952 | 2.952 |
Ranked from 21 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Description
To start off, there are 7 tracks, all within ~30-90 seconds and they were all created through Reaper
*Repeat of project description*
Nia is having trouble escaping from the depths of her anxiety. It makes it impossible for her to raise her head and see the world for what it is. Throughout her story, she is moving through the mental seasons and facing her anxiety head on.
From summer all the way to spring, Nia will encounter many of her demons in hopes to conquer them. Will she be able to find a way out of her anxious mind and begin to see the beauty of the world again? No one knows, because the game isn't real! The soundtrack is definitely real though.
Tracks:
Nia's Theme (broken and revived): At the very beginning, we have Nia's broken theme, which is used to express her current mental well being, and can be quite eerie. However, at the end of the game, her revived theme will be played, which is a copy of the broken theme, with a playful and light turn to it, essentially restoring it to a positive feeling.
Summer Waves: Summer is the first theme, and so it represents the beginning of a journey, which leads it to be very exciting and playful/upbeat.
Fall Blues: After summer, we are left with hope that things can change, and so Fall Blues gives us a groovy feeling and makes us believe we are capable of anything.
Winter Storm: Difficult, seemingly insurmountable challenges start here, and with no remorse, this song leaves you feeling cold and afraid. This is where Nia begins to falter.
Seasons Change: After the climax of a storm, this song is the 'low point' transition to fighting your demons and taking back what is yours. This is where Nia makes her last push to overcoming her anxiety.
Spring Beauty: After overcoming her demons, this song is a light and slow piece, designed to represent new beginnings and a positive attitude.
Although the vibes of these songs were all quite different, I decided to use very similar sounding instruments, in order to keep the theme intact (piano and lead were only slightly altered throughout). Also, all the seasons were made using the key of either E major or E minor, in a further attempt to keep things connected. My instruments were either from Serum, or from piano software. As for percussion and possible sound effects like rain, I have free (available for commercial use) sounds, including both free and paid.
Theme:
How does it fit the theme?
For "Story of Seasons", I made the soundtrack based around all 4 seasons. The seasons in the game would not literally be what we know them to be, but as stages for Nia to challenge her anxiety.
As for the image, I used the character and the purple 'void' as inspiration to create the main character Nia. Battling her anxiety was taken from the 'void' as well, and the seasons are to be her stages of challenging it.
Link(s) of the submission on streaming services
https://soundcloud.com/user-601009925/sets/to-overcome
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Comments
Each of these tracks is catchy and is great as stand-alone themes. I think that the music matches your narrative very well. I’m a big fan of the ticking clock in Seasons Change. I also like that the energy transitions smoothly from one track to the next making the music tell a logical story on its own and enhancing the ideas that you have laid out in the description. Great work and thank you for sharing!
Springtime is when my inner demons shut up too. Nia's story of overcoming her anxiety with changing seasons is captured really well by your soundtrack, especially with the final version of Nia's theme with a more positive vibe and no demons to be heard. I'd love to hear that theme as a longer song!
Altogether a great soundtrack, though Seasons Change does steal the show :)
Sounds great: I really like your choice of chord tones and progressions and how they drive the music forward, and with basically no repetition: I found this approach very expressive, particularly in Winter Storm and Seasons Change. Great work!
This is great! Winter Storm and Seasons Change were my favorites
I really liked the use of motifs in this soundtrack, and how each track tells the story while being very distinct in tone. I don't normally like voice instruments but this worked really well I think.
I also loved Summer Waves, it felt very Sega!
I was thinking the same thing about Summer Waves after I'd written it haha. Thanks for the comment
this soundtrack was quite a journey! my favorite part was how in Seasons Change, you can clearly tell that it's sort of the dramatic "climax", and i also like how it transitions into the next song where there's some cheeriness that picks up again after Nia overcomes her inner demons
clever writing!
thank you!! I appreciate the comment :)
Reading your description for the theme of your game was kind of crazy to me, since I feel like we sort of came up with the same concept independently, and we both used Reaper which made it almost feel like I was seeing an alternate dimension version of myself haha. That being said the feel of our OSTs definitely sound much different.
Overall I enjoyed it, I think Winter Storm is my favorite due to the dramatic harmonic minor type stuff. It would've been cool to see some of these fleshed out a little more, but I totally understand how the time constraint can make that difficult. The instrument choice sounds nice as well