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Colors Of Recollection's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Correlation to theme | #25 | 4.242 | 4.242 |
| Composition | #59 | 4.061 | 4.061 |
| Overall | #70 | 3.952 | 3.952 |
| Quality | #116 | 3.909 | 3.909 |
| Impression | #119 | 3.788 | 3.788 |
| Creativity | #159 | 3.758 | 3.758 |
Ranked from 33 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Description
Orchestral/Piano soundtrack
---Story---
The Color of Recollection follows Kiiro, who’s depression manifests and traps her in an imaginary world of an aquarium. Initially, the world is completely blue. She must find and collect goldfish scattered around the aquarium. Each goldfish collected triggers a memory sequence of happy recollections, and gradually introduces new colors into the aquarium.
---Description of Tracks---
1. Title
The menu music for the game, orchestrated sparsely with a piano playing over cricket chirps and tambourines. I wanted this piece to balance happy and sad vibes, so I borrowed notes from outside the main key to create unexpected points of dark and lightness.
2. The Aquarium
The light reflects off the water and casts everything in blue. The stone floor is cool to the touch and rings out as Kiiro navigates through winding corridors flanked by glass walls. Schools of fish swim past, indifferent to her existence. To evoke the feeling of being adrift, I used a fluctuating tempo and a rapid rippling piano + harp accompaniment. The theme is supposed to feel somber and slightly eerie.
3. A Glimpse of Wonder
Every time Kiiro catches a goldfish she witnesses a fond moment from her past and brings back color to the aquarium. I opted for a lighthearted waltz to convey the cheerful and child-like quality of her recollections.
4. Drowning...Don’t Close Your Eyes
As Kiiro nears the last goldfish the glass walls shatter around her and she is plunged into the water. With only the light of the goldfish to guide her, she chases it deeper into the depths. The panic of drowning is accentuated by rapid string and woodwind parts, and a distorted synth leading the melody. However, the music subsides into lighter sections with the harp and celeste as the world goes dark leaving only her and the goldfish. Near the end of the segment, a defiant brass line breaks through as Kiiro triumphs.
5. Summer Night Festival
Upon catching the last goldfish, Kiiro is transported back to a festival she went to as a child. The night was cool after a sweltering summer day. Hidden crickets sang from bushes and moths danced in the air. Fireworks lit up the darkening blue sky in bursts of yellow. The presence of the aquarium fades in the morning sun. The main motif of this piece can be heard in some form whenever the the festival/recollections are alluded to ( Glimpse of Wonder, slow parts of Drowning, Distant Recollections)
6. Distant Recollections
A piece to match the rolling credits … There are periods of time when you feel lost and adrift in the blue. But you hold in yourself the goldfish in the water, the sun in the sky, the fireworks in the night.
This Soundtrack was made with Traction Waveform
Message from the artist
Thanks For Listening!
Theme
How does it fit the theme?
---Theme---
The game can fit both the image and text theme, although the image was the main inspiration. The setting of the game is a reflection on Kiiro’s emotional state, giving a perspective of “her world.” The contrast between the blue and yellow in the painting was very important to me and created the bases for the emotion/color thematic of the game ("kiiro" means "yellow" in japanese). I imagine the girl to be a young version of Kiiro in her clothes for the festival as she leads the ghost (present Kiiro) towards the yellow foreground. To fit the festival vibes in my track, I made the crickets and tambourine a recurring sound in tracks where Kiiro is remembering.
Link(s) of the submission on streaming services
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yh9w5LQad1A&list=PLkAXv9MTPryf-3Idm9PyuREnOS2Sy4On9&index=2
Number of tracks6
Genre
Soundtrack use permission
Any non-commercial project
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Comments
Good... it's a great soundtrack that made me want to feel like an aquarium fish, heh)
A magical and high-quality sounding sound! The sounds of the sea, ambient sounds, instrument sounds, sounding whales sound cool!
Sounds...
sounds.......
Title: I love the chord changes, that subtle piano melody with crickets in the background made me smile, very cute!
The Aquarium has a menacing quality with those fast arpeggios in the background. Sets a vivid scene.
Glimpse of Wonder. Love the Waltz feel. Some very cute motives too. I like how the theme moves between different instruments, and then the crickets again, haha, such a nice touch.
Drowning: Powerful and menacing sounds like panic. Love the buildup around 1:20, and the soft mallet section in between. This track has so many ups and downs. Never gets boring!
Summer night festival: More crickets! (would expect them here the most). Great choice of instrumentation here for the "folk fest" vibe. Once again very engaging call/response patterns with the melody in different groups. I would have totally been happy with something simple here, but you take this track in so many directions, that's awesome!
Distant Recollections: Makes me feel warm and sad at the same time. Choke full of nostalgia. Subtle strings create this effect I think. And there are our crickets again, ha!
Fantastic soundtrack. Tells a vivid story and I enjoyed every part of it. Very well finished too, I think I can learn a lot from such examples. Thank you for sharing!
Title: Obligatory "hey that's LABS". Pretty intro.
The Aquarium: Great arpeggios and very tasteful subtle percussion. Loving the progression with the added ♭5s.
Glimpse Of Wonder: Waltz! Lovely.
Drowning... Don't Close Your Eyes: Feeling more serious now. Great timpani. Great mix of moods in here.
Summer Night Festival: Nailed that festival feel with the traditional Japanese feeling composition and instrumentation.
Distant Recollections: Pretty end to the OST.
Great work!
Great use of FX in your tracks as it added to the ambience! My favorite track is "Distant Recollections" because I enjoyed the soft piano tones.
The piano playing in the Title Theme is great; soft and gentle. Good choice of chords below, the lead lines weave around them really nicely.
The choice of instruments in The Aquarium is gorgeous - I love how you've arranged this piece in particular. It never feels too busy but there is a lot going on the more you listen. Nice lead melodies on the winds which are accented by the mallets, and fantastic orchestration beneath it all. The way this piece develops is really cool.
Glimpse of Wonder is whimsical off the bat. The waltz-like rhythm on the keys does a great job of setting the stage here. Really nice use of repeated motifs here - the middle section has a melody repeat across three different instruments but it doesn't sound repetitive at all. I think that can be hard to pull off, so kudos for that!
The change of pace and tone in Drowning...Don't Close Your Eyes was an unexpected but wholly welcome surprise. The intro is jam packed with urgency and panic, but that middle section is almost ethereal in the initial quiet - a kind of calm-before-the-storm vibe. Great use of various articulations as this progresses, some really neat ideas in here.
Summer Night Festival's use of SFX in the beginning before getting into the arrangement is clever and does a really nice job of immersing the listener. Loving the introduction of some new instruments here, leaning fully into the festival vibes with not only the stringed and woodwind instruments but also the percussion too. Perfectly befitting of the title.
Finally, Distant Recollections feels a little like a return-to-form; bookending the soundtrack with another piano driven piece. Loving how delicate the playing is here, and the string accompaniment is beautifully handled - just as gentle as the piano playing, bolstering it wonderfully. The latter half opening up the mix was a great way of adding more substance to the piece and then bringing it back to the beginning once again by ending on the piano.
Great work - this was a delight to listen to. A lot of really cool pieces here, all of which are arranged wonderfully. Production throughout is good, and as a whole the soundtrack sounds really cohesive.
This is a great work!!! It was very beautiful to listen to, thank you!
I think you handle the piano arrangement with orchestra very, very well. It is one of the few works of the jam that don't go only with orchestra but seeks to add different colors/instruments (and even crickets 😄) so it was very refreshing to listen.
Drowning...Don’t Close Your Eyes is my fave. You have managed to perfectly evoke what happens in the story. Drama, tension, it's all there. And there was even room for calmer places like 0:48, 1:36. Plus that percussion a men choir surprised me! Very well crafted.
AMAZING!!!
This is a fantastic submission! Your composition is excellent, and each track is full of emotion and clever instrumentation. I love the game idea, and you represented it perfectly through music. My favourite track is probably Summer Night Festival, it’s surprisingly dramatic but it really works as a cathartic ending to the game!
Overall brilliant work!
Great submission! I really enjoyed the production, I thought your mixing, choice of instrumentation, and use of ambient noises in the background was really impressive. You wove such a nice narrative with your music, that absolutely fit the narrative that you described with your text.
Really neat OST! You were able to capture a wide range of textures and emotions from cheerful to somber. Nice job!
Cool collection of some pretty versatile and sweet Ideas with a splendid soundscape (especially for "the Aquarium"). Really liked the structure of your songs. Everything sounded quite cohesive with a good arc. Bravo!
Great work! The variety of ambiences and instrumentations are greatly done. If I had to choose a word to describe the whole of your story, It's "poetic"; equally on the music, the story and the chosen theme! "Summer night Festival" really pleased me, I liked how we can imagine being in a Matsuri in Japan!
This is amazing. There are so many tracks and none of them feel rushed! Great orchestration and great job overall.
Lot of nice melodies, the texture in 'Aquarium' is beautiful! Love the creative instrumentation in 'Summer night festival', and 'Drowning...Don't Close Your Eyes' works in a very film-score-like way. Cohesive tracks, awesome job on this!!
Beautiful OST. Each song is unique in tone from one another, but still keeping the underlying mood of mystery and wonder that persists throughout the soundtrack. All in all, you represented the theme of “inside my world” very well with these songs, and were able to tell your own story just through music alone. Nice work!
Top of the jam. Beautiful cover, and the tracks are superb. You did an incredible job getting so much music done and with the amazing production quality... just amazing!
Wonderfully done. I love the ethereal feeling with each track, bringing the feelings of memories that are just within reach. Very nicely done to connect with the overarching theme :)
I really like that you used the instrumentation to enhance the story telling. It really adds to the theming when more than just the vibes of the song reflect the intentions.
Wonderful soundtrack filled with emotion! Love how mystical the first two tracks sound with the beautiful and bubbly underlying soundscape! Some excellent orchestration and arranging for Drowning... Don't Close Your Eyes. I love how it contrasts with the first to tracks on the soundtrack! Well done!
Title: Such a relaxing theme that colors the soundtrack with a serene nocturnal vibe.
The Aquarium: I absolutely love the oscillating harp arpeggio giving the impression of being underwater. The arpeggios seemed to be outlining major chords, but the melody certainly was not telling the same story, leading to an interesting blend of emotions that is hard to pin down, but that really intrigued me about how this environment functions and made me want to explore.
Glimpse of Wonder: The contrast between this track and the previous one is as stark as the color gold is from blue! The mallet melody gives a sense of youthfulness which helps convey the idea that the memory is from when the main character was younger.
Drowning…Don’t Close Your Eyes: This track is so cool! I would love to be playing the game chasing the goldfish with this playing in the background! The story-telling and the energetic vibe of this track make it my favorite of your collection!
Summer Night Festival: I love how you were able to get this tto sound like what you may actually hear at a festival! The panning for spatial effect works very nicely. My favorite part is when the energy picks up at 1:25 and the melody clearly rings out!
Distant Recollections: I really like the melody-writing in this track. In my opinion, great melodies should be able to be sung and you had the right amount of repetition to get me singing along.
Overall: One thing that I really appreciate about your soundtrack that you not only told a story with your music, but you also represented the theme of inside my world with a very intimate sound that wasn’t too big or reverberated. I felt compact and inside a small space. Super cool to experience the theme on different levels like that! Well done - thanks for sharing!
There were some really nice melodies. I especially enjoyed Distant Recollections. Great work!