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A jam submission

Faithful JourneyView project page

Submitted by Colin5887 — 9 hours, 26 minutes before the deadline
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Faithful Journey's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Correlation to theme#314.0674.200
Impression#743.1633.267
Composition#773.1633.267
Overall#803.3053.413
Quality#853.0983.200
Creativity#943.0343.133

Ranked from 15 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

Description
These tracks are for the imaginary game "Faithful Journey". A girl who starts a tough journey to save her father. She sails through the day, and night, meet the fairy, and saves her father at last.

"Journey Started (Main Theme)" is for the start of the game. At this point, the player should be a bit worried about the life of the father. The music is a bit depressing and concerned. The cello is used to show that.

"Peaceful sunny day (Day Calm)" is for the say sailing scene. I want it to be positive, relaxing, and bright. Yes, the father is still sick, but everything looks fine by far. It should be relaxing.

"White visitors (Day Battle)" is battle music. When the enemy (seagulls) in the game appears, the game will fade out the Day Calm and start playing the Day Battle. These two tracks have exactly the same tempo, duration, and melody. This will make the music transition a lot smoother.

"Moonlight on the sea (Night Calm)" is for the night. Compared to the "Day" music, it's more relaxing. I try to make it warm by adding some woodwinds.

"Slimy tentacles (Night Battle)", well, similar to the Day Calm and Day Battle, it can be transformed from the Night Calm as well.

"Blessing of faith (Fairy)" is for the final cutscene. The girl eventually meets the fairy. It’s a little deep, mysterious, and uncertain at the beginning because she doesn't know if the small creature can save her father's life. Then, with white light and the sound of a cymbal, the girl finds herself at home. The fairy saves the life and the music is a lot more comfortable now.

Theme:

Picture theme

How does it fit the theme?
It's a sea sailing game and half of the game is at night.

Link(s) of the submission on streaming services
https://soundcloud.com/colin-cheng-605923909/sets/faithful-journey-soundtrack

Soundtrack use permission

Yes (CC BY)

Any project

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Comments

Submitted

The chord progression is tooo cooool in Journey Started !! I love this track !

I like how you modified the day and night themes in battles ones, it would just add that little pressure in game without being completely out of nowhere giving the player a sensation of continuity.

Then on Blessing of faith, what you wrote totally fits with the music, i could completely imagine the mysterious and uncertain atmosphere until the cymbal sound accompanied with a flashing white light comes to comfort the player, end of story. Beautiful Ost, congratulations ! And thank you sharing this :)

Submitted

Journey Started: The use of the glockenspiel in the arpeggiated pattern feels like dancing stars which is great imagery. You have such a unique chord progression that I think you should be commended for since it meanders like an adventurer might wander on a journey, with many different ups and downs. There really isn’t any part that feels exactly the same, even though I think that it loops somewhere (I couldn’t pick it out though!).

Peaceful Sunny Day: This is a very peaceful track and the marimba and doubled synth feel like they are gently rocking me on the sea. The melody in the guitar fits thet bright vibe. I wonder if you have the velocity turned up on that track because the hits seem to maybe borderline on being a little too harsh. If they were softly plucked, I think you would preserve the brightness while allowing for more gentleness. The melody itself is well-written though!

White Visitors: I think it’s creative that you are thinking about adaptive music in your soundtrack because smooth transitions in an unexpected fashion is what sets video game music apart from linear media. I like the change to the short string pulses for the melody because the sound almost sounds like a sound a seagull would make.

Moonlight on the Sea: The woodwind melody line, high string pads, and the harp feel calm and relaxed in a way that fits a night theme well. The bass feels like it is moving a lot and I wonder if sporadically using longer bass lines would add to the slower pace and tranquility? I really like the chord progression you used for this theme!

Slimy Tentacles: In this version, it makes a lot of sense for the bass to be moving more. I really like when the percussion picks up speed into 8th notes which adds more energy and drive to the track.

Blessing of Faith: The first part feels like we are in a cave with how echoey it is and how your harmony draws parallels to the Mount Moon cave theme in Pokemon Red and Blue. The cymbal then feels like we are opening into light, and then I agree that it feels much happier afterward. I wonder if crescendoing into that new section would help make the transition feel a little smoother? I’m so happy the girl’s father was saved! I like that you were thinking of all the elements that would be needed in your soundtrack to be game-ready. Well done and thank you for sharing!

Submitted

This is a really cool OST! I particularly  enjoyed blessing of faith, the vocal effects in there are really cool.

Submitted

Great work! I like the different versions of the themes so that way it can be programmed in as an adaptive soundtrack while the player sails. Nice job!

Submitted

great collection of tracks!! i think they really set a strong identity for a game through your composition.

some of the tracks felt repetitive after a few minutes in, and i think a larger change in dynamics or orchestration would help alleviate that, but “Blessing of faith (Fairy)” was definitely my favorite in how it finished off the story with a climactic ending - great job overall!

Developer

Glad you like these tracks.

For the "change in dynamics" of day and night tracks, it is intended to keep them low. The player may keep sailing for 10 or more minutes in that scene. Keeping a lower contract between sections is a method not to get bored.

Also, as ambient music, it is designed not to add sharp changes to the music. The best ambient music for a game, is, well, just like white noise. It makes some noise and not that noticeable to the player. Honestly, compared to "Elder Scroll", my tracks are not that "ambient".

Submitted

Great collection of tracks that fit into the game you've outlined and give it plenty of character. Well put together. 

Submitted

Nice work!  I think that the way you have the music set up to fade between low and high intensity moments is cool and a great usage of dynamic music in a format that wouldn't necessarily call for such a thing.

Submitted

Well done! I think all of these did a great job of creating the atmosphere you describe in your story. My favorite is probably the Night Battle!

Submitted

Great atmosphere! I like how you reused some themes. I particularly noticed the Night Calm theme in the Night Battle, very appropriate. I also like the Fairy theme. The augmented fifth chords in the intro make it somewhat mystical and uncomfortable, then the fairy voices are a huge relief.

Developer

Glad you like it.

For the Night Calm and Night Battle, that's not a re-use. It's by design. In the game, when there is no enemy in sight, it plays the Night Calm. But when the enemy (tentacles) appears in the screen, it will fade into the Night Battle from exactly the same point. The same design goes with Day Calm and Day Battle.

Submitted

Gotcha! I've been wanting to learn how to make dynamic transitions of music like this that depend on situations. If you know how to prepare soundtracks for this purpose so they can be actually worked into a game let me know.

Developer

It definitely needs help from programmers. It is them to control when and how to play the tracks. I know very little about this part.

As for the soundtracks, just make sure the tracks have

  • Same tempo
  • Same melody
  • Same duration

My experience is:

  • Create a track first, do whatever we like at this point
  • Make a duplication and change the instruments, the broken chords, and increase or decrease notes by octaves.
  • Mixing and mastering.

In the last GMTK jam, I made one track with 5 variations so they could fit 6 different minigames. You can find the game and soundtracks here: https://basswastaken.itch.io/gamejam-2022-entry

Submitted

Thanks for these pointers! Will definitely look into this.