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Elsewhere - Original Game Soundtrack's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Composition | #72 | 4.000 | 4.000 |
| Impression | #107 | 3.816 | 3.816 |
| Overall | #138 | 3.751 | 3.751 |
| Creativity | #152 | 3.776 | 3.776 |
| Quality | #155 | 3.776 | 3.776 |
| Correlation to theme | #345 | 3.388 | 3.388 |
Ranked from 49 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Judge feedback
Judge feedback is anonymous.
- You have a good sense of development, I think-- each example seemed like it always knew where it was going, telling a coherent little mini-story in musical form. Moreover, I didn't feel like you got stuck in a rut-- I always felt engaged and interested in the new textures and melodic ideas that you were bringing to the table. Balancing variety while still keeping the whole coherent can be very difficult, and I think that this is a good example of how to do it-- variety with a core of similar elements that tie everything together. Very good choices and writing. Even with looping music, you can still writing endings for the music-- if you're really clever they won't even need post-editing to make the loop work. I think that it is worth doing because it forces you to complete the musical thought fully and can make a surprising difference on everything leading up to it. Thus I do encourage composers to write genuine endings, even if the idea is to eventually loop the music. Additionally, I think some of the tracks here are a bit too brief-- I think this submission would have been better had it had less tracks with more extended tracks like "Dream Home" which to me was extended enough that it said something substantial but didn't overstay its welcome at all. My only other comment is that the correlation to the theme strikes me as a bit stretched. For all the delightful music here, I struggled to connect it back to the theme except in a very general way. I appreciate that the text is quite open-ended and so I certainly wouldn't say that this "doesn't fit" the theme, but it didn't stand out as very obviously fitting in either. Overall, however, there is a really lovely attention to the sonic palette that really elevates the music here-- I can tell you're experienced with making these instruments and samples gel together, and overall I was very taken with the style and very human feel of the music.
Description
This is a soundtrack to a fantasy life sim with JRPG combat elements, titled "Elsewhere". It's a game rich with mechanics, including farming, fishing, crafting, relationships, and of course combat. The goal is to live peacefully in your hometown, but this cannot happen unless you defeat the Fears - monsters of the mind that spawn so long as the denizens of the world are troubled.
For the music itself, I relied on folksy and acoustic compositions for town life, soaring orchestrations for overworld exploration, and high-energy rock and metal for battles and Fear-related events. These each have leitmotifs associated with them. Woodwinds and acoustic guitar were notable pieces of the puzzle - woodwinds were present in my last OST Composing Jam submission in lesser quantities, but they're everywhere this time around, to lean heavily into the peaceful fantasy setting and provide a sense of familiarity. My previous submission did not have acoustic guitar anywhere in it, though, which I opted for this time around to capture warm homely vibes. For the most part, I also tried to avoid synths and electronic instruments outside of battle and Fear themes.
All tracks were made in Reason 12, my DAW of choice. And a note to those of you who are rating submissions - I know I've made a lot of tracks, but all of them loop, except for one! And I don't believe any loop is longer than 2:00 at most. So feel free to just listen up to the loop, then continue onto the next track. Hopefully that abates any worries with rating this soundtrack.
The tracks represent the following:
1. Utopia - Title Screen
2. Imagination - File Select
3. Past Life - Opening
4. Someplace - Town Theme
5. Dream Home - Home/Farming Theme
6. Phantasy General - Shop Theme
7. Illusion Lake - Lake/Fishing Theme
8. Cloudland Tavern - Tavern/Job Board Theme
9. Elsewhere - World Map
10. Face Your Fear - Battle Theme
11. Déjà Vu - Victory Theme
12. Eternal Sleep - Game Over
13. Fear of God - Boss Theme
14. Well of Wisdom - Ending
Message from the artist
I have been immensely busy with music work outside of this jam, and was worried going into this that I would not have the energy to last the full nine or so days. In fact, towards the beginning of the jam, I was struggling to motivate myself and get excited about my idea. I was concerned that I was just rehashing my previous jam submission, and thought my correlation to the theme would be my downfall. But as I kept pushing forward, I grew more attached to the sound I had chosen and world I was forging, and those worries slipped away. I hope people see the vision in what I've crafted and give this a chance - I really challenged myself and came away with a body of work I'm very proud of.
Theme
How does it fit the theme?
The story of the game, as briefly outlined in my description, revolves around the player's state of mind as well as the collective state of mind of the town. When that's shaken up, the Fears manifest - a physical embodiment of what's inside your mind.
Many of the names of locations in this game also suggest an imaginary reality, something that can only exist inside your head.
Link(s) of the submission on streaming services
https://soundcloud.com/mediamonochrome/sets/elsewhere-original-game-soundtrack
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLxqCS6LidLmvuvRYR-45ZYH45A9EX0AJy
Number of tracks14
Genre
Soundtrack use permission
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Comments
After listening to the whole thing and writing out my review, I want to say that the issues I had were so incredibly minor/niche that they should mostly be viewed as relative to me. In other words, you did a fantastic job overall, I'm just giving you a few bits that popped out to me and my ears so please don't take them as significant criticisms. Your use of the main theme throughout the soundtrack was masterfully done, even working it into the final boss theme in a way that I myself could definitely learn from! This is an excellent submission overall!
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Right off the bat, Utopia sets the stage beautifully. The guitar melody that makes up the main theme is simple yet powerful, and will no doubt be coming in and out of my head throughout the day.
Your instrument choice is great throughout the soundtrack, with the pizzicato strings in Imagination painting the picture that you outlined in your description perfectly.
One very minor grievance - I would have liked if you had put the description of the songs (file select, opening, etc) in your Soundcloud track titles so I didn't have to go back and forth. It bothered me enough that I realized I should go back and do it on my submission, as well ahahaha
Half way through your soundtrack, everything thus far has served the purpose you set out well, and feel cohesive as an album while still being diverse enough to avoid anything blending together. The shorter length songs are an excellent lesson in keeping things short, sweet and to the point. There are no wasted notes, everything is just long enough to establish its intended purpose and move on. In that way, it is very reminiscent of older SNES jRPG or PS1 soundtracks in style and composition. Lufia II comes to mind for me due to your instrument choice, specifically, but this soundtrack would have fit at home in a Tales or a Dragon Quest game as well.
Illusion Lake continues to keep things just varied enough to be interesting with a nice piano lead. The chords you used here were deceptive in that my brain immediately went to "dungeon" (ala FFIV or Octopath) but the main theme comes back in afterwards to remind me we are just relaxing and fishing. An alternate version of this track as a dungeon theme that continued the path the piano laid out would be really interesting to hear!
Your battle theme sounds great! I can definitely tell it's not a real guitar on the higher notes, but that's not an actual criticism; more a detail that only matters an idiot like me who goes through way too much effort to make their MIDI guitars sound realistic lmao. For your acoustic guitars up to this point - it was realistic and genuine enough sounding that my ears never really dwelled too much on if it was an actual recorded guitar or not. Also, did you layer a clap or something similar on top of your snare? I only noticed it on the first listen, and it doesn't sound bad, it just caught my ear for some reason as sounding a little strange the first time I heard it. Regardless of these minor details, the battle theme slaps - it has a great hook, builds up nicely and has a lovely little break around 0:40 that keeps the hype flowing. Very well done!
Maybe I'm picking here, but Deja Vu sounds like the drums are a tiny bit too forward for it's intended purpose? I checked back halfway through listening to see what it's intended purpose was, and tbh I had to listen to it a couple times to get a picture of Victory Theme in my head. I get it, now, the first few notes are perfect; but something about the bass or the drums feels like it's a little strong - the track overall feels more like world map music or something to my ear. That said, the rest of what was going on in the song outside of the low end felt pretty on point for victory music.
Eternal Sleep ends on a chord that would make me very depressed if I got a game over and heard this ahahaha. Great job!
Solid work on the final boss theme! The main theme popping up again is done so well here, it feels like a payoff for the whole soundtrack. It feels related to the battle theme while not being too far removed from it, and for the most part appropriately upgraded in magnitude. my one critique here is that I might have brought the strings between 0:45 and 1:07 more forward to keep the overall energy of the song high. That's probably the weakest part of the song, imo, the rest of it definitely feels "final bossy" enough.
Overall, definitely the most musically thought out submission I've heard so far. Excellent work!
wow, thank you so much for the in-depth feedback! sorry about the descriptions thing though haha
means a lot that you're drawing comparisons to all these venerated jrpgs, a good number of them served as inspiration for the sound. regarding the clap thing, it was a snare flam hit - i'm not a drummer so idk if that was a sensible choice, i just did what i thought sounded alright lol
for deja vu, i can see the bass being a bit overbearing. the composition itself was inspired by bravely default, though, which had sort of a marching band-type of victory theme. i thought there was a certain whimsicality to that, which is why i went for it... though listening back i don't know if i captured that same whimsicality lol
and i do agree that the strings at 0:45-1:07 could have been boosted, hell, maybe i could have just added more melodic elements in general, it sounds a fair bit empty now that i'm playing it back.
This was a lovely listen! I loved the way you morphed and molded your Main Theme's motif to adjust for different areas of the imaginary game - heck, it sounds too good for it to be "imaginary", I definitely see the vision of it and hear it being used in the stories you tell with these songs. Absolutely wonderful soundtrack! Fav. track: Imagination
Just wondering by the way, what's the guitar-like sound you used in Cloudland Tavern? It sounds oddly familiar but I can't put my finger on it, as if I'd used it before or heard it somewhere else in another album.
thank you! i used an acoustic guitar by orange tree samples for the main melody, but i also used this thing called a mandolin guitarophone as well, i got no idea what it is but i really like the sound lol
Really enjoyed listening to this album. I could clearly picture the scenery of the game in my head. The contrast between the styles of the area themes and the battle themes made it easy to imagine the peace getting interrupted, so I think that was a good choice. Illusion Lake and Well of Wisdom are both gorgeous.
tysm, glad you saw the vision with the sytlistic contrasts!
Ok, hell - that's a lot of music in a week. Well done! 😁
Love that they are all nicely interconnected and tell one story. Only thing I would improve is the sample quality/programming. But other than that this is a fantastic job!
thank you! definitely could have focused more on sample realism and performance realism if i had more time, my main focus was to get melodies down and have as fleshed out of a soundtrack as i could have though.
I lost my huge comment unfortunately... I had filled it up with stars mostly so that's okay.
Nothing to see here, just goes straight to my top 5, freaking incredible job! I'm amazed by having done this much work in a week. Amazing!
man, that's high praise, much appreciated!
The JRPG vibe is on point on this one too ! It's not easy to keep so many tracks coherent and interesting, yet you did. Truly video game music too ! A lot of submissions are great music for films or standalone, but this one really feel like I'm playing Xenoblade or The Last Story all over again.
xenoblade was a notable inspiration for certain tracks, particularly "elsewhere"! thank you!
A truly magic journey, one of my favorite listening experiences thus far in the Jam
tysm, and thanks for the stream reaction too, really enjoyed seeing that live!
Just overall showing what a team effort by a bunch of true professionals can do. Enjoyed every minute of it. Fantastic work.
hah i'm only one guy! thank you!
Nicely done, lots of content impressive. Well written, mix is pretty nice there is some tweek to fix but who doesn't anyway. The only thing I would change is in illusion of lake the piano chords all stacked on left hand with melody on right, you can change the voicing of your chords in both hands to make everything sound wider and cleaner. Well done !
yeah, illusion lake was definitely not super thought out in terms of the piano playing, i kept it very simplistic. thank you!
You nailed it with the RPG vibes! Setting the mood, carrying a leitmotif, and even pushing to 14 tracks! I could definitely imagine this soundtrack coming from a real game.
thank you, that means a lot coming from a fantasy composer like yourself lol
I'm impressed by this if for nothing else then the sheer amount you managed to get done, and still have everything sound really clean!! I love the use of leitmotif and how natural it is, helps you keep a very strong through line in this. Really encapsulates the JRPG style, so you should be super proud of this. I wish i had the energy to go through and talk about every song more in depth individually but as it stands i don't have that in me rn, but i might revisit later. I think Fear of God is ultimately my favourite, Your instrumentation and arrangement really peaks here and feels like the most full and complete song of all of them, if anything I think you should aim to try and make the rest of your songs feel a little bit more full, so that even in the more quieter and relaxing things you can have something to keep everything flowing, using more instruments and taking advantage of their full range as well as panning to create a wider sound can really help flesh out your ideas. YOu do this very well with a thinner instrumentation in well of wisdom, the use of the ping pong delay on that main melody with a bit of contrast with where the piano is directly placed in my ears makes it incredibly compelling despite a relatively thin instrumental. You should be very proud of this, I hope the feedback makes sense, feel free to pop me a dm on discord or something if you are confused lol cause this got kind of rambly
OH YEAH QUESTION WHAT FLUTE/WHISTLE PRESET DO U USE I NEED TO KNOW
thank you for the praise! i do agree that some of my tracks weren't as full as they could have been, i'd just chalk that up to me moving fast and getting a little sloppy. as for the flute/whistle vsts, a number of the tracks used impact soundworks' ventus ocarinas, some others used an embertone whistle.
This submission nails the folk JRPG vibe perfectly. It reminded me of Pokemon at points, Final Fantasy at others, while also sounding like something entirely new. I’d love to hear these arrangements with recorded instruments!
thank you, i'm flattered that this reminded you of those games! i definitely think these instruments not being recorded live was a major potential hindrance in terms of achieving that sound, but looks like it wasn't too big a deal for you and other people, which is a relief
Wow, there's so much variation here! The composition and production are so beautifully immersive and effortlessly transport me into the world you've crafted. I have very little to criticize, so I'll try and go into detail about what I loved. First of all, the guitars heavily present throughout this OST were a very pleasant surprise. I really enjoyed the atmosphere of your third track, Past Life. Face Your Fear was a jaw-dropping head-bopping boss track. Overall, an absolutely incredible submission that just might deserve to stand in the Top 20. Great job! :D
wow, top 20 is a pretty bold statement for this little thing, thank you!
Awesome, Awesome, Awesome!!
I thought you would run out of ideas and variation by like track 4 but there’s always something new right around the corner! Lots of variation in style, but still all one musical identity, which is super impressive. I don’t know if I have something to say about every track, because everything is super catchy and there’s always something there to keep you pulled in! I couldn’t help but listen to everything in full despite your warning about the length in the description, it’s just so juicy!
ah thank you! i am relieved that it didn't come across too repetitive as a good portion of the soundtrack was largely in the same folksy style, and I definitely milked my motifs for all they were worth haha
Toot, toot, toot, toot, toot, toot, toot, toot, toot
I listened to the whole soundtrack (and some tracks several times. They are very beautiful) The lack of a detailed description of what moments these tracks are for, gives the imagination free rein!
The orchestration is top notch. You can feel the atmosphere of the fantasy world)
Utopia - Light... Oh, my God. It's beautiful! The abrupt transitions between calm and edgy are brilliant!
Imagination - Cute)
Past Life - Wow. That's, uh. Atmospheric Guitar?! I feel like I'm sitting by a campfire!
Someplace - Percussion! I love percussion everywhere.
Dream Home. Home cute home.
Phantasy General - Oh. This seller must have either navy or hunting experience. Accordion (It's an accordion, right?) multiplies the atmosphere by a factor of 2!
Illusion Lake - ... I wanted to go fishing (Also, I don't know why, but this is the track that reminded me of the Slime Rancher soundtrack.... heh)
Cloudland Tavern - just a tavern (probably some madman picked up a flute and started seducing the ladies).
Elsewhere - Nice contrast to the previous tracks! (Can I say about the drums? They're grrr good!)
Face Your Fear - I thought I said Elsewhere had a good contrast.... so... I take that back! Face Your Fear has even better contrast! Very groovy composition
Déjà Vu - I'm... won? Hip hip hooray!!!
Eternal Sleep - ZZZZZzzzzzzzzz....
Fear of God - Epic! Hot! (Another track from this jam that had me getting up out of my chair and doing folk dances. No kidding)
Well of Wisdom - A nice cute note to end the OST.
What I want to say in conclusion... You managed to create your own, unique and interesting world! These half an hour was filled with a lot of emotions and adventures..... Thank you for your OST! It is really suitable for fantasy RPGs!
PS: I am waiting for new works)
thank you for such detailed feedback!
Nice JRPG vibes, cool range of sounds from metal to beautiful folk stuff. Enjoyed pretty much!
many thanks, i did my best to display range that would be considered reasonable with the game genre
Good stuff man. Well of Wisdom, Face Your Fear, and Utopia were my favs.
thanks! those guys are definite standouts for me too!
I listened to the music before reading your story, and I immediately thought of JRPS, which I love. You NAILED it. Great job.
thank you, glad i hit my mark!
You have a very classic sound! I hope you don't mind the comparisons but I'm getting Bravely/Octopath out of these! Excellent stuff.
i'm honored to be compared to those games' soundtracks lol, tysm
Fantastic as always!
you're the best lol