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Minute Man: The Quest Against Father Time's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Overall | #3 | 4.432 | 4.432 |
| Correlation to theme | #4 | 4.480 | 4.480 |
| Quality | #5 | 4.560 | 4.560 |
| Impression | #5 | 4.400 | 4.400 |
| Composition | #8 | 4.480 | 4.480 |
| Creativity | #11 | 4.240 | 4.240 |
Ranked from 25 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Description
I have written the OST for the "game" Minute Man: The Quest Against Father Time. This game would be a puzzle platformer akin to early 2000s flash games, featuring platforms moving to the beat of the track currently playing. All tracks were written in FL Studio mainly using NESPulse and tb_peach. I took a lot of inspiration from Super Mario World, and used a melody-first method of writing. It felt really nice to be able to follow my ear and combine it with theory for the first time! My favorite track to make was Cuckoo Forest, simply because it felt great to write.
The tracks submitted along with their descriptions are as follows:
Minute Man:
Everything was peaceful in Clocktown until Father Time attacked! Greedy and powerful, Father Time began to steal time away from the land. When all seemed lost, the unlikely hero Minute Man steps up the challenge, ready to defeat Father Time once and for all!
Secondhand's Shop:
Suddenly, Minute Man encounters a small wagon with a sloppily written sign nailed to its rear, reading "SeConDhanD'S sHOp". A strange eccentric person springs out of the wagon holding what appears to be random clock parts. "Would you care to purchase my fine wares, Traveler!?"
Cogwheel Plains:
Minute Man embarks on his quest to save all time, stepping foot into the cogwheel plains. Massive brass cogs jut out of the earth, rotating in sync with one another in these rolling green plains.
Cuckoo Forest:
After trekking across the Cogwheel Plains, Minute Man finds himself confronted with the Cuckoo Forest. Dark and canopied, one can find themselves easily lost within the wood. Small wooden birds flutter between the clock faces embedded into each of the trees. Some say you can even hear clock chimes echoing from further within...
The Hour Tower:
After blazing a trail through the Cuckoo Forest, Minute Man stands before his final challenge: the Hour Tower, Father Time's Lair. Time seems to move slower here, it seems this is Minute Man's finest (and only) hour left!
Battle With A Timeless Foe:
At the top of Hour Tower, Minute Man finds his final challenge: Father Time himself! Two clockmen enter, only one leaves. The final showdown awaits!!!
Message from the artist:
Congrats to everyone who submitted! I'm really glad that I was able to participate in this jam, and I am really grateful to everyone who gave me critiques and tips over the past week. I look forward to jamming with everyone in the future!
Theme:
How does it fit the theme?
To reflect the theme "Tick Tock", each track contains subtle clock ticking sounds. Some of the tracks also feature alarm bells and chimes. Each area of the game is based on another type of clock, with Cogwheel Plains being about alarm clocks, Cuckoo Forest being about grandfather/cuckoo clocks, and Hour Tower being about an hourglass.
Link(s) of the submission on streaming services
SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/brett-page-269928310/sets/minute-man-the-quest-against?si...
Youtube: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLuxT874JVoCq6OnVECGTP3eohw4f5WYGu
Soundtrack use permission
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Comments
I like your album because very poppy it’s a rarely in this theme. Bright and fun.instlements are singing all.
Hi, glad to see you again! Lovely songs too :D
Minute Man: You make very nice 'chiptuny' songs. Nice upbeat, has a great rhythm and melody to it. Fun to listen to!
Secondhand Shop: I wonder how you make it so recognizably a shop song. Delightfully goofy, but I don't know how!
Cogwheel Plains: A nice 'entry to adventure' song. Feels quite fitting.
Cuckoo Forest: It must be hard to make a forest song in NES-style, as you have limited 'instruments' available. I envision the high-pitched notes as cuckoo-screams, it's adorable. And I Love the speedup at 0:23! Simply adding more drum-beats in there has a surprisingly large effect.
Hour Tower: Very clock-y and ominous. This song has a lot of interesting effects and sounds, I love it!
Timeless Foe: Fuck yes, battle theme time!! This is the first song where I really felt the leitmotif come back from the 'Minute Man' song. I liked the start of this song a lot. Lovely triplets, nice softening in hypeness using the silences (e.g. at 0:30) and the calming of the drums (0:33), and increasing it back at 0:43 in an epic way.
Great entry! Also, I like how you made a lot of small songs. That way, it doesn't take me too long to hear them all, yet it allows you to give me a variety of feelings!
really great chiptune music!!! each track was so unique from all the others, i'm impressed how you managed to make so many separate tracks in such little time.
i love the variety of 8-bit instruments you used (i particularly like the wobbly one in "Cogwheel Plains"), and when you added in non 8-bit sounds, they worked really well! the clock ticking and the clock bell you added sound perfectly in place in your songs.
very well done my friend :))))
This is a great chip tune entry! I have a tendency to become cautious when I listen 8bit music as I might have been used to hear not so good ones in fangames or small indie games.
But this one is really fun and the composition is super cool! Amazing chords progressions, dissonances, polyphonic melodies... Every track has distinct yet engaging impact on the player. Congratulations!
The composing is masterful on this! Cuckoo Forest is my favorite, followed by the back half of the album, The Hour Tower Battle and with a Timeless Foe. They have a real dramatic escalation to them, from a quirky and charming start to a power struggle at the end. There’s a feel of a real adventure here and I love it!
Very nice chiptune vibe! Well done!
Minute Man: This is a great theme and makes me feel like Minute Man is a hero whose story I want to follow along with. The melody is memorable and fun with a great rhythm in the same way that many classic Nintendo games are.
Secondhand’s Shop: This sounds reminiscent of classic Mario water level music, but is given its own identity with the fun bass line and quirky melody. I also think the title for this track is really clever!
Cogwheel Plains: This is a really great “World 1” theme as it sounds upbeat, but still holds a feeling of mystery or curiosity. My favorite part is the echoey part which makes me imagine echoes bouncing off the many metal cogs and gears across the landscape.
Cuckoo Forest: Great job representing cuckoo clock sounds in chiptune style music. The seventh chord pads give a sense of unsettled calmness and have a really cool effect. I like the transition into the more upbeat section where the percussion drives things forward, but you use a more prominent minor sound.
The Hour Tower: The duet of the main two melody instruments in the latter half sounds really beautiful in this haunting atmosphere. The pulsing chords are reminiscent of a chiming clock, and paired with the ticking clock sounds gives a strong sense of time looming over the adventure that is approaching its end.
Battle with a Timeless Foe: You have a great sense of how to bring variation into a battle theme. The tempo is perfect for a driving battle and you have a good balance of when percussion is used and when to give it a break so that it sounds fresh when it returns.
Overall: This OST sounds very professional and would fit to be game-ready in a gameboy game as it stands! I really enjoyed listening all the way through. Great work and thank you for sharing!
Very well crafted chiptune! Sometimes people tend to overdo such music but you do it just right!
This whole thing is a gem and that's the first time I am saying it about a chiptune! Great work!
Can't believe Minute Man still isn't a Megaman boss.
Thanks for reviewing! Just wanted to let you know I am a dev, but I am busy with another project right now. Definitely interested in making this a game though!
These are so fun to listen to!! Awesome melodies, cool rhythms, and I'd have to check those VSTs out...
Also, the last track is an absolute banger.
You absolutely nailed the vibe! I think we also can sense that you wrote the melody first as it makes the tracks very natural to follow along which I liked a lot! Your tracks go perfectly with the description and the entire soundtrack feels like a complete story. Great job!
Your soundtrack was an absolute joy to listen to! The nostalgic, catchy chiptune melodies had me grooving along big time. I replayed "Battle With A Timeless Foe" a number of times because it was such a bop. "The Hour Tower" was my second favourite - foreboding yet playful; it's a VIBE. If this were an actual game, it would be one where I stalled in certain areas just to absorb the songs. Really nice work! :)
Such majestic vibrato
Orchestration is spot on.
Minute Man: What a fun, cheery opening soundtrack! Love love love this retro chiptune vibe-- and thanks for keeping the chords varied and interesting. Also-- props to whomever made that fantastic album artwork!
Secondhand's Shop: what a unique track! It's better to have shorter tracks that are packed with unique sounds, as opposed to a long track with frequent repetition, in my opinion. Using Lydian inflections to denote whimsy is classic-- you've clearly got a sense for what musical elements convey certain characteristics.
Cogwheel Plains: another fun, bouncy melody! Here I see a skill exhibited that's very crucial: the melody passes from one voice to another. That's an effortless way to create more interest in a track. Well done! Not to mention, a really cool ending progression to propel the listener into the repeat.
Cuckoo Forest: fun use of non-chiptune instruments here! When I compose video game music, I usually will have one or two chiptune lines over orchestral stuff, so adding the bells over otherwise chiptune-only sounds was a cool touch.
The Hour Tower: fun, subdued melody-- I heard some Phyrgian inflections there, along with some unexpected modulations. Way to keep things fresh! I am impressed beyond words.
Battle with A Timeless Foe: this is quintessential battle music right here! Love the funky bassline.
My comments may have become sparse as the soundtrack goes on, but that's mostly because things I wanted to say would have become redundant. All of the tracks were short, but feature-packed, and often had really exciting melodies, harmonies, transitions, contrasting sections, etc. etc. etc. Undoubtedly my favorite soundtrack I've reviewed so far. Excellent work, and keep writing!
I can't really relay how much this response means to me, so all I can really say is thank you! I'm glad you caught the tricks I used in each track, you mentioned just about everything. Although its not the best of my skills, I made the album art. Again, thanks for your time!
Great stuff! Retro & chiptune aesthetic definitely on point! Short tracks is also a good choice!
Amazing OST!The themes really came through clean, the chiptune aesthetic was a good choice to really let them shine. Some of these melodies are really strong and the tying into the common leitmotifs across the album, I'm really blown away. Bravo.