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Ancient Civilisation RPG OST (OST Comp Jam 6)'s itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Composition | #35 | 3.958 | 3.958 |
| Creativity | #48 | 3.750 | 3.750 |
| Quality | #48 | 3.917 | 3.917 |
| Overall | #52 | 3.700 | 3.700 |
| Impression | #54 | 3.708 | 3.708 |
| Correlation to theme | #107 | 3.167 | 3.167 |
Ranked from 24 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Description
PLOT
A long, long time ago, there existed an ancient civilisation in which humans and monsters could live in peace. These powerful people, thanks to a clever mix of magic and technology, built a train (the Purple Train) so each and every city in their land would be connected to the others and they would all coexist as one.
This peace lasted until an alien race of humans invaded the capital and enslaved the monsters and humans within. The five elemental monster-gods of the land fought for decades a bitter war against the invaders, but they kept losing one bastion after another. Until the last one of them, the god of Ether, managed to vanquish the invaders; and, with the last bit of their power, they froze the lands in time, keeping them unchanged and away from prying eyes.
Centuries later, the rest of the world has gone on, but the legend of this ancient civilisation remains. However, no one seems to be able to find it. Until one day our protagonist encounters the remains of the Purple Train and enters them, and they are transported to the old lands of this lost civilisation, still frozen in time. One by one, they must enter the lairs of each of the ancient monster-gods and awaken them, so they can return the city and the train to their ancient glory.
MAKING-OF
To make a long story short, a friend and I have been working on a Game Boy game for the past month and we decided that I would be in charge of the OST. However, I waited until the theme of the jam was revealed, hoping that it would fit our project... and it did! The theme is time, and our story is about a lost city frozen in time and space. So, for the last week, I have been working nonstop on Game Boy tracks, one after another, until I've finished almost the entire soundtrack.
The tracks you find here are just a selection of plot-relevant favorites (I've made more tracks during the week, but I won't release them until the game is released in September). The plot I've written here is also not exactly the same as in the game, but it's pretty similar and does the job of explaining the story behind each track.
All tracks were composed in OpenMPT, then copied into HUGETracker for proper Game Boy formatting and effects, and finally imported into GB Studio. This workflow is a bit convoluted, but since HUGETracker and GB Studio don't support the use of a MIDI keyboard, and they're also pretty basic and awkward to use compared to OpenMPT, I found it was the best solution for me. It's my first time composing for GB Studio, but I made dozens of Game Boy tracks in Deflemask years ago, so I have plenty of experience with the soundchip.
The Youtube videos were recorded from GB Studio itself, but the audio in Soundcloud was recorded from a modded "pro sound" DMG Game Boy for better quality.
I hope you enjoy!
Theme:
How does it fit the theme?
In this hypothetical game, you'd visit an ancient civilisation that has been frozen in time while the rest of the world has gone forward.
Link(s) of the submission on streaming services
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLE_6MGkIqLD8La2fx8iPebunn-_LKrGAl
https://soundcloud.com/pingudroid/sets/ancient-civilisation-rpg-ost-ost-composing-jam-6
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Comments
I love game boy soundtracks, especially authentic ones written for the game boy that make good use of the 4 channels available; I want to dabble in that myself, so it's impressive to me. Ether Temple was my favorite.
Overall good OST, good job!
Thanks! Game Boy music is awesome <3 Glad you enjoyed it!
Very nice use of the Gameboy soundchip here. I particularly enjoyed Earth Temple's interesting breakdown and the variations in Fire Temple, especially around 0:42. Good old-school dungeon crawling music, nice work!
Thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed it.
I love a good game boy soundtrack, it's always impressive when someone manages to capture an interesting mood within those limitations and you've definitely done that here! I had a hard time picking a favourite temple theme as they were all great, but I think the main theme especially was excellent sets up the adventure really well. Great work! :)
Thanks a lot! I'm glad you enjoyed it! :)
Chiptune music has a special place is my heart, and I think you nailed it with this soundtrack!! Decisive and strong-melodied, each track radiated personality corresponding to what it represented within the game. Ether Temple was my favourite of the bunch - those harmonies were bliss to my ears. Your game plot also sounds super interesting - I would definitely be keen to play something like that!!
Thank you so much! I'm glad that you enjoyed it. Ether Temple is my personal favorite as well <3
Hey! My teammate and I have finally released the demo of our Game Boy game, featuring my music! I'm writing to you directly because you expressed an interest in the game. If you want to play it, you can do it directly from the browser https://minihamsterproductions.itch.io/oiopolis-eng If you do try it out, I hope you enjoy it! Best wishes. <3
Wonderful, thank you for letting me know! I will check it out! :)
Main Theme: I love the GB start up sound effect! This is a simple theme, but has great harmonic character to it with these fun and classic video game chords. I like the use of melody and countermelody and sticking true to classic gameboy music limitations.
Earth Temple: The low tones give a very earthy sound to this. Your melody work so far has been extremely well-done. The melodies have direction, and they often feel like their own little adventures in the call and answer type of style. I like the modulation upward in the B section which adds a little hope to the otherwise somber-sounding music. I also really appreciate that you are not afraid to use silence and add space to your music. That is something that I am still trying to work on in my own music.
Water Temple: The 3/4 or 6/8 feel gives a swaying sensation which works really well for a water theme! I like that you once again used the step upward modulation again, but you took it a step farther (literally!) and went up another step.
Air Temple: You are able to create a floaty/airy vibe by starting with the high melody and contrasting that with the low long tones. The high melody sounds like it is flying high up above! Again you have created such a rich sound and it’s crazy to think you only have 4 channels to work with!
Fire Temple: The use of the percussion gives this a spark and smoke like flair. I like that you mixed it up and used shorter rhythms for your melodies in this one. So far I’m super impressed that you made all of these different themes in such a short amount of time!
Ether Temple: I really like the alternate section at 0:43. The counterlines in the bass pair really nicely with the melody. It makes sense that the epic music should belong to the Ether Temple since that is the place where the frozen time originated!
Ending: Using the triads similarly to the previous track is a good way to add continuity to your soundtrack. I like that you brought back the initial theme here in a slightly different way. The tempo change gives it that sense of finality.
Overall: I was super impressed by all of this! The idea is cool and unique (would love to hear more when your game releases by the way!) and the music also is unique throughout each track but keeps a unified identity. This is some great authentic GameBoy music. Excellent work and thank you for sharing!
Thank you for the in-depth comments on each track! I'm glad you enjoyed the soundtrack and you got all these different vibes from each song. You basically described my thoughts when making the tracks haha. This is very encouraging, thank you very much <3
Even tho I am not really fun of 8-bit chiptunes I really like your OST! Very often people overdo chiptunes by simply puting too much content into them. You on the other hand keep it simple and organized. At the same time there is a lot of memorable melodies to latch on to, which is great! Thanks for sharing it with us. I am curious how the game will play out! :)
Thank you very much! I'm glad you enjoyed them!
Hey! My teammate and I have finally released the demo of our Game Boy game, featuring my music! I'm writing to you directly because you expressed an interest in the game. If you want to play it, you can do it directly from the browser https://minihamsterproductions.itch.io/oiopolis-eng If you do try it out, I hope you enjoy it! Best wishes. <3
Nice! Thanks to let me know! :)
You managed to achieve a lot of emotion using the rather limited palette. So Kudos! Fantastic job.
It's always good when the OST tells a story, I can imagine quite a lot of things happening, just listening to the soundtrack, the temples tell of different types of encounters and events. Water temple and fire temple definitely seems like the more dangerous of the bunch! And in the ether temple, the stakes just increased even further, there's a determination in this track, like you're marching towards your greatest challenge yet. I wonder then, in the full soundtrack, will there be some sort of payoff to this march, succeeding this track?
Thank you for an immersive listening, greab job! And cool cover art as well! Best of luck on the game project. :)
Yes, in the final game there will be a track or two after the final temple :D Thank you very much!
Too good to know you'll use this in a game! :D congrats!
True Gameboy stuff!
I like the use of the same motif with it's deviations in all this ost. My fav's are Air and Fire temple ;)
Thank you very much! <3
I like the productivity of entering a game jam to make a soundtrack you were already going to make for something else, and it seems that the game you guys are making is going to be pretty cool.
Using the gameboy sounds for your music is pretty limiting, but it seems that you know your way around it and can make it sing very nicely.
My favorite tracks are the last three, with the Fire Temple being my absolute favorite - for some reason it sounds very march-like to me, but i can't quite put my finger on it, except for the kind of marching snare. idk but i like it.
I also wanted to say that the pixelart looks fantastic, so props to the one who's doing the art.
Overall, pretty nice submission, it's making me kinda interested in the actual game.
Thank you very much! I'm in charge of the pixel-art as well, I'm glad you like it :)
Hey! My teammate and I have finally released the demo of our Game Boy game, featuring my music! I'm writing to you directly because you expressed an interest in the game. If you want to play it, you can do it directly from the browser https://minihamsterproductions.itch.io/oiopolis-eng If you do try it out, I hope you enjoy it! Best wishes. <3
I played the demo, and it's fantastic! Great job!
OMG thanks so much! I'm glad you enjoyed it! <3
Thank you for this great work! I really love it!
<3
I love the GB sound, and you paid due respect to it. The composition is great. I know it's hard to make such good music with this kind of limitation, so you did a great job!
Are you going to join the GB Jam as well?
Thanks a lot! Unfortunately I won't be joining the GB Jam because I won't have the time, we have our hands full with our current project! But hopefully we'll enter future Game Boy jams.
Alright, good luck on your project then!
Thanks!
I found myself hypnotized watching the patterns fly by in GB Studio. I enjoyed the chromatics and the overall dim-'n'-grim vibe, I very much got ancient civilization ruled by monster-gods. I love a chiptune but there are a lot of people drawing from the same well, striking the same tone a lot of the time. I got something new here. For me, this is the most intriguing chiptune OST of the jam.
Thank you a lot! I feel the same way, chiptune is amazing but we often treat it more like a style instead of a medium or an instrument. You can use these tools to create many kinds of music! I'm glad you enjoyed the OST.
I love this. Presentation is great, the writing complements your audio pretty well, and the chiptunes are easily the star of this game that I really want to play right now! Thanks for including a press start / confirm sound effect right at the start of the soundtrack. It is such a simple and effective way to immerse me in your world, I couldn't not mention it.
Thank you so much! I'm very glad you enjoyed it.
Fun fact, the beep at the start is actually the sound the Game Boy makes when it boots up! Since I recorded the audio directly from a Game Boy, the beep was also recorded, and I decided to keep it in the first song to provide some immersion. I'm happy it had the desired effect <3
Hey! My teammate and I have finally released the demo of our Game Boy game, featuring my music! I'm writing to you directly because you expressed an interest in the game. If you want to play it, you can do it directly from the browser https://minihamsterproductions.itch.io/oiopolis-eng If you do try it out, I hope you enjoy it! Best wishes. <3
Being a fan of 8-bit games, music and graphics, I really like this. I am not big on GB though but to me this is a perfect score from an early 80s arcade game. The music is nicely tied together and with a varied enough soundscape. Cool and nice job!
Thanks a lot! <3
From what I know about 8 bit music, this is very solid. It got layers to delve into while listening, it got certain catchiness, it got v i b e.
also i want metal cover of fire temple
Thank you, I'm glad you like it!