Play jam entry
Scheduled for Demolition's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Impression | #69 | 3.550 | 3.550 |
| Correlation to theme | #81 | 3.450 | 3.450 |
| Creativity | #81 | 3.500 | 3.500 |
| Quality | #88 | 3.500 | 3.500 |
| Overall | #91 | 3.400 | 3.400 |
| Composition | #126 | 3.000 | 3.000 |
Ranked from 20 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Description
SCHEDULED FOR DEMOLITION:
"The year is 2098, and college student Marc Xenon's summer plans have been wrecked by an intergalactic empire of jellyfish-like aliens (known as the Scyphozites) who have scheduled planet Earth for demolition. Even worse, they've decided to rub it in by installing a giant, neon doomsday countdown in the middle of the city. This is most non-radical! Marc must team up with his classmates R-4D the Ranger and Zirco the Mage in a retro-scifi Metroidvania adventure to save the Earth, and many other planets, from the ravages of the Scyphozitan empire!"
The soundtrack is intended to be in a synthwave genre with a slight heroic theme to it.
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Musical genre(s): Electronic, Synthwave, Cinematic.
DAW (Digital Audio Workstation): Cakewalk by Bandlab.
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Musical inspirations: Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse, FourFox, Risk of Rain, Dead Cells, various synthwave-based video game soundtracks.
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Track descriptions:
1. Title: The title screen.
2. New New York, New New York: The city/hub area of the game. Originally just titled "City"
3. Our Origin Story Begins: The heroes get into their first fight with the Scyphozitan empire.
4. Worst Marksmen in the Galaxy: The heroes get into a full-scale battle with the empire. Whether "worst marksmen" refers to the heroes or the Scyphozites is up to you.
5. Really Fast Mart: The shop area of the game, where the player can purchase weapon upgrades, provisions and keys to new locations. Originally titled "Just Take My Money" in loose reference to the Futurama meme, 'Shut up and take my money!"
6. system42: The heroes encounter a robotic foe stopping them from infiltrating the empire's headquarters.
7. (The) Office (in) Space: The heroes infiltrate the imperial alien headquarters. They must make sure not to get caught as they sneak past the seemingly invincible security drones.
8. Impending Doom Approaches...: The journey's end is nigh. Face the emperor of the Scyphozitan empire, defeat him in battle, deactivate the sinister device of demolition and save the world! But, you know, no pressure.
9. Good News, Everyone: The credits play. The universe is safe at peace, thanks to you! An animation shows our heroes and their friends at a humble pizza place. Though proud of their success, they're just happy to be home. The End!
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Message from the artist:
I hope you enjoy this entry! :D I really stressed over this jam more than I'd like to admit, but this soundtrack was a blast to create. Most of the track titles contain some kind of pop culture reference; I hope they're obvious enough, because I'd rather not explain them all for the sake of the humor.
Thanks for listening, God bless and have a great day!
Theme:
How does it fit the theme?
The OST's theme involves a giant doomsday countdown floating above the city. I occasionally used woodblock sounds to represent the time ticking away; The ticking is completely absent in the credits music. Said credits music uses a cymbal in a triplet rhythm, going against the time signature to symbolize the destruction of the foreboding timer.
Link(s) of the submission on streaming services
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Oy7QnJxgH4
Soundtrack use permission
Any non-commercial project
Leave a comment
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Comments
Title: I actually heard this song last, and it feels like a nice summary of the other themes ;)
New New York: Your 'synthwave' is quite nice. I loved the resolution at 0:35, and the other chord changes at 0:42 and 0:45! It feels really soothing and calming, yet futuristic and sharp. And when you were dangling on the edge of being a bit repetitive with the synths, you cut it off temporarily at 2:50, which I think was a smart move (I just wish there were a few more).
Our Origin Story Begins: Feels perfectly like a 'start-battle': the beat is there, but calm enough not to give me 'FINAL BATTLE' vibes. The brass also adds this 'epicness' to it, I like it.
Worst Marksmen: Already feels a bit heavier than the previous song. You always know the right time to add variation, which prevents you from overusing one particular theme. Another nice one.
Fast Mart: Simple and cozy, fitting a shop. Here I would feel like I could relax a bit, yet still feel the pressure of the city in danger. Soft~
System42: Ooooh, me likey this! A simple beat, a nice instrument, sounds great!
Office Space: Nice introduction of a sneaking theme, yet still feeling this synthwave theme. Soft, with lots of silences, and with a nice melody. I like the bongo-drums and the 'water-drop-ticking' (I don't know my instruments). Really well done!
Impending Doom: Starting to simple, and immediately building up into a great battle theme. Nicely done! The drop at 2:35 was very nice, coming from a moment of calm-down. My favorite part was still 0:00 - 0:20, it was very nice.
Credits: Surprisingly, although I am sure you use major chords, it does not sound too major at the start. Something about those synths sound intrinsically minor to me or something xD. The trumpets do sound congratulatory.
But God, what many and long songs... took me a while to get through this one! Very nice though, well done :D
Thank you so much! I really appreciate your compliments and feedback. I apologize for the incredible length of my entry lol. I got a bit excited trying out a genre that was somewhat new to me, and I had so much fun that I forgot to trim stuff down.
No need to apologize, I'm glad you enjoyed making them as that is most important! And they turned out really well, especially for a new genre! See you in the next jam ;)
Scheduled for Demolition: The ticking sound sets the stage for the time element. Those synths are huge and give such a full sound! This is a nice main melody theme as I can hear it in my head even after the song is over.
New New York, New New York: Those big synth pulses feel like the neon glow of the giant clock in the sky shining down. The sound of the city sounds content in general and I wouldn’t mind walking around and exploring to this. This track has some Vangelis-like sound to it - great synth work!
Our Origin Story Begins: Despite the drums fitting nicely into an even 4/4 time signature, you’ve created a melody that sounds like it belongs to some other time signature. This is a cool effect! The high string and brass melody gives an epic and heroic vibe to this track which is fitting for the beginning of an adventure!
Worst Marksmen in the Galaxy: The driving yet pounding beat keeps me very engaged in this track and feels like a march into battle! I wonder if the high melody is meant to represent shooting back and forth at each other? I really like this theme and it works really well for background music of a large combat scene.
Really Fast Mart: This calm theme would be a nice break from the fast-paced battling and would also serve as a place where I could give my controller-fingers a break for a minute!
System42: This electronic melody with lots of reverb works really well for the theme of a large computer enemy. The delay is very nice on that lead instrument - that is my favorite part of this track!
(The) Office (in) Space: Haha, clever title. :) This has a spy-theme-like quality to it. I really like the percussion you use. The bass theme feels authentic to the spy genre too. Nice job!
Impending Doom Approaches: These heavy drum beats have me ready to battle! I really like the fast synth melody, especially when it is countered by the xylophone.
Good News, Everyone!: Triumph! This is a really chill victory theme that sounds about as nonchalant as I would expect from three teenagers eating pizza after saving the world.
Overall: Wow, so much music with such a fun story! I think you just barely missed an opportunity to make your entire OST length exactly 23:59 like the big clock on your cover image! Glad I got to hear the extra minute though. Great work and thank you for sharing!
Thank you so much! I will say that, though I’m glad the music turned out the way it did, a lot of the stuff you pointed out was kind of unintentional, mainly the 4/4 drums versus the melody. I honestly just don’t pay much attention to the difference between 4/4, 8/8 and so on, when composing. Anyway, I’m so glad you enjoyed my entry and I greatly appreciate the detailed feedback! :D
Big 80's vibe! Maybe you could improve some tracks by adding more variations and dynamics if this can help, sometimes it felt a bit lacking of momentum if that makes sense.
I allow myself to say this as I enjoyed listening to this work and expected a bit more of it! It's a huge amount of music for the time given and I still had fun :)
Hope this helps, keep up the work!
Thank you for your feedback! Glad you enjoyed the entry.
From all the submissions this is the longest I have heard. Impressive what you have created in only 9 days! First chord and boom, instant Blade runner feeling. Nice! :)
Only thing I personally think might need some improvements is more variability in terms of harmony and instruments/sounds...
Overall I enjoyed listening to this a lot! :)
Thank you very much! The variety thing is something that’s been pointed out a lot in the comments, and I’m really glad it’s been called to my attention. It seems to be something I could work on in a lot of my music, although this one sort of had an excuse as it was my first major attempt at the synthwave genre.
Don't worry about it! IMHO is still better to not have much variety as opposed to go berserk. By berserk I mean composing chaotically, throwing theme after theme, melody after melody... It's always easier to add something new than to take something out. At least this worked for me :D
Good to know. Thanks again! Just out of curiosity, which track would you say struggled the least with variety? I’ve seen ‘Impending Doom Approaches…’ being named a favorite by some of the comments, but I’m curious as to which one was most dynamic, specifically.
I would personally say System 42, which is my favourite.
But in general I found two things among the whole OST which made it feel little bit repetitive. First is that bassline stays on one tone most of the time in the songs. Unless it was a goal (which can be of course) I find it a little lacking - too stable to say. Second is that the sounds are more or less the same through the whole OST. For instance: you can induce more variety in one song by repeating the melody and harmony but giving the melody (or even harmony) to another instrument each time, thus making slight change in overall feel while not having to redesign the melody altogether.
But take my advices with a grain of salt, I am no music theory expert, nor teacher :)
That makes sense! The bassline was a goal though; I’ve found that to be a recurring element in typical synthwave music.
nicely done!!! very clear style that each song has really glues the whole thing together. i could definitely hear the spiderverse inspiration lol
good job :)))
Thank you very much! :D
As a listener to this in its place in a future, if fictional, video game, I am glad for the longer tracks, if I'm playing a game for a long time the less a track loops, the less likely I am to get brain rot. As a reviewer in this jam where I'm trying to average 8 of these an hour, I can see where having these ideas in more of a showcase style vs presenting them in their entirety might have been a wise move. That being said, the tracks themselves have a strong flavorful point of view, exactly the accompaniment to an adventure featuring Marc Xenon, Ranger R-4D, and Zirco the Mage (I loled at these names btw). I'm picturing some kind of lost vikings situation where you have to switch between all three and use their unique powers to progress to the next level.
Thank you! I appreciate the feedback.
I really like synthwave. And with your OST, we are served!
There are some excellent things. For me, the best is the intro to "Impending Doom Approaches...".
I took the time to listen to the whole thing, and in the end I came away with the impression that it was a bit long. Some of the music stretches a bit too much sometimes, yet the themes sound good. But either the variations are maybe too timid, or there are too few of them.
I'm just one participant among 150 others, and my opinion only applies to me, but I think you could do with something shorter and richer.
On a positive note: I was pleasantly surprised by "Good News", and I liked the arrival of the brass section.
I hope you don't mind for being so direct.
Thank you! And don’t worry, your feedback is greatly appreciated!
The repetitiveness of the themes was pointed out to me in another comment. Upon reexamining the songs, I agreed. Making the songs shorter would be a good option, but I personally think I should’ve just put more variety in the themes of each part. I think the reason “Impending Doom Approaches…” seems to be the more popular track in this entry is because I didn’t skimp on variety; I didn’t reuse too many themes and I gave different composition to different parts of the song.
Anyway, I’m glad you still enjoyed my entry despite all this. Thanks again! :D
Title: Epic and dark intro with a synthwave vibe. Effective intro!
New New York, New New York: I love this city theme. Instrumentation sounds dark while the composition is brighter.
Our Origin Story Begins: I love where that higher plucking synth comes in. Cool stuff!
Worst Marksmen in the Galaxy: Another cool battle scene!
Really Fast Mart: I love how this shop theme is chill while still fitting into the cyberpunk vibe with that bass.
system42: This one brings in some brighter textures, love that high synth.
(The) Office (in) Space: Sneaky vibes. I love the percussion.
Impending Doom Approaches...: More intense than the previous tracks, cool boss theme.
Good News, Everyone: I like the title reference lol. This is a very pleasant vibe and a nice credits theme.
uh: That moment when forgot to cut tail on export rip
Great work!
Thank you for your kind words and detailed feedback! :D
Certified bangers dude!! Unique submission.
P.S. The description is hilarious!!
Thank you very much! :D
Been meaning to set some time aside, no pun intended, to hear this. Synthwave! Let's gooo. It definitely gives me an 80's retro-futuristic vibe, and it wouldn't sound out of place in an action sci-fi movie from that era. I like your approach to conveying a sense of impending doom through repetition and downtempo synth-laden grooves.
If I had to share some feedback from a compositional standpoint, I would say that each musical idea tends to exhaust fairly quickly. I suggest layering more theme variations or adding more synth layers on top to keep me hooked a bit more. Nice job, overall!
Thank you so much! I appreciate the feedback.
Honestly, the main theme(s) were probably my least favorite part of this OST. The first leitmotif was quite rushed; I didn’t have much motivation or ideas for it other than ‘make it sound dark in some way.’
I hadn’t really considered making more variations of the themes, though. That would’ve helped a ton, especially with how loop-based a lot of the songs are.
Really cool sounding tracks! You did a great job of building up a sense of tension and urgency in your music. It's impressive you managed to complete so many tracks in such a short space of time! I also enjoyed your game concept. :)
Thank you! :D
Sounds really deep! The synths were really well blended!
That’s great to hear! Thanks!
My synth sibling :) Great job here! Impending Doom Approaches... especially is a perfect capstone track for the album.
Thank you! Glad you enjoyed it.
Love the premise of the game, it sounds totally off the wall and great fun. The first track really sets the tone - an alarm and then a futuristic sounding electro beat. Its hard to single out any particular tracks - they all sound fantastic and evocative - but I will say Impending Doom Approaches was great.
Thank you very much! :D