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A jam submission

Dreams of Delusions OSTView project page

An OST for an imaginary game!
Submitted by TheMagicalMa — 4 days, 13 hours before the deadline
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Dreams of Delusions OST's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Correlation to theme#194.2864.286
Creativity#2063.6673.667
Overall#2203.5903.590
Composition#2823.4763.476
Impression#2953.3813.381
Quality#4403.1433.143

Ranked from 21 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

Description
With the theme being, "In My World", and the image being dream-like, with a little girl holding the hand of a mysterious humanoid figure, I thought of a simple story of an adventure game, in which you play a little girl in search of her dead mother in a dream-like world! Basically, I saw the dreaminess in the image as a delusion of sorts. Deep down, she knows that her mother is dead, but she creates these fictional idea that she can still be saved.

"Dreaming" is the first song that plays in the game. It's a cut scene in which there are constant brief shots of a dream that our main character is having. For simplicity sake, let's name her Jimmy! Jimmy is dreaming of her mother and where to find her. I made the song mysterious and semi-ominous in order to kinda show that this dream isn't good. Despite the fact that it gives Jimmy a hope of finding her mother, it's a false hope. No matter how this game is gonna play out, finding her mother won't do her any good. A fun fact about this song is that it was the first one I made, and I made the story kind of revolve around this song making sense.

"Searching" is the general over world song. I wanted it to be calm and upbeat. The calmness was just because I didn't want it to distract the player, and I think calmness just tends to work with dreamy atmospheres. The upbeat-ness comes from the false hopes that Jimmy can find her mother. She is excited to be able to meet her again. There is one portion of the song that isn't upbeat and out of place though. This is representing the doubts that she feels as she is on this journey. A part of "The Truth" plays in this ominous segment, showing that deep down, she knows that this adventure is just a delusion. "The Truth" is quickly overtaken by happiness as Jimmy tries to stay positive. The next segment of the song uses the melody of "Dreaming" in a major key, showing how she is trying to use her dreams as a method of staying happy and pushing away the truths that she does not want to bear.

"Death" is the try-again screen song. Whenever you get a game over, this song plays. The importance of this song isn't really seen until "The Truth".

"The Truth" Jimmy has just realized that there is absolutely no way that her mother is still alive. This is when her dreamy world starts to fall apart. The main melody that plays in this song is the death theme, showing how she now knows for a fact that her mom is dead.

Message from the artist
This was a lot of fun! I really enjoyed drawing for this project funnily enough.

Theme

Inside my world
Picture theme

How does it fit the theme?
I interpreted "Inside my world" as saying that she had morphed the world that she lived in to be more pleasing inside of her head. The picture theme further confirms this. The music plays into this story.

Link(s) of the submission on streaming services
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E74mp8Vmrrc&list=PL3SmnZjLtHUOqSlWJjEjSSp2yYH0c4wA6&index=4

Number of tracks
4

Genre

Orchestral
Ambient
Experimental

Soundtrack use permission

Yes (CC BY-NC)

Any non-commercial project

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Comments

Submitted(+1)

Very cute submission! I really like how simple and honest it is!

Submitted(+1)

"Oh yeah, "Dreaming" and "Searching" sound lovely!"

reads lore

"Oh..."

Submitted(+1)

This soundtrack feels very dream-like and I like the instruments, especially the tuned percussion instruments. The reversal effect on some of the instruments is nice and fits well into theme, also gives a mysterious feel. I am reminded a bit of Ib from this soundtrack, which helps in the thematic sense too. It was nice listening to this, Great work!

Submitted(+1)

I loved your lore (albeit tragic) and your progression from track to track. A really nice package overall, I enjoyed listening to it. Plus your own custom picture, that's really nice!

Submitted(+1)

Very solid entry. I like the slightly anxious vibe I get that slowly increases as I progress through the album. Pretty solid arrangement and sound selection as well. My favorite track is Dreaming. Overall, pretty solid submission. Keep it up!

Submitted(+1)

Good work! I really like how it starts more positive, and then sadness and tragedy seep in with each track. You did a good job with the musical storytelling! I really enjoyed it, I would play this game and be very sad... 

Submitted(+1)

Nice work on these!

I don't think I've heard another submission yet that's leaned so much into horror and it pairs well with the dreamy feel you've got going throughout. There's lots of little techniques you've used in the production and melodies that really give it an appropriate mood for that that I really like.

I'd agree with FoxHyode that the mix could use a little work but on the whole it's still pretty solid and the slightly unbalanced and muddy nature of a few of the tracks kinda plays into the horror feeling but I think that aspect could be played as strength better if it was executed in a more controlled manner?

Good choices of instruments throughout too,

Developer

Yeah... The muddiness wasn't intentional. I'll definitely pay more attention to the mixing in the future.

Submitted

Eh, it's all in the practice with these things. These tracks sound quite fine, I've definitely heard way worse.

Submitted(+1)

Nice cohesive, heavy mood throughout. I think FoxHyode gave good mixing advice. I think compositionally the tracks could benefit from a little more variation but as I said they do a great job at conveying the suggested mood. Thanks for making and sharing!

Submitted(+1)

Dreaming - Good start! But the bass in the left ear is loud...

Searching - This is the PERFECT music for looking for missing pens on your desktop... (I found them, by the way. No joke: Thank you!)

Death is a very broken composition... Cool!

The Truth - sounds like a good ending to the soundtrack

The story turned out to be very heartwarming and sad... And the soundtrack perfectly complements the story! Thank you very much for the emotions!

P.S. A careless childish drawing for cover art is very cute)

Developer

I'm glad you found your pen. o7

Submitted(+1)

i liked the vibe this was going for! i liked all the reverse sounding stuff, and overall sounded good as well!

Submitted(+2)

Interesting take, I think the best is the last one - The Truth you got some nice ideas using some reverb/reverse sound, I always like that approach.. I would watch the mix on all the tracks, alot of mid to low mid range have some big frequency thats making the entire track either sound muddy or too loud with the accumulation of sounds.  Death is way louder than all the other tracks, tone it down a noth and all the tracks will be at same volume. Well done !

Developer

Thanks for the advice!

Submitted(+1)

ooo did you use any n64 soundfont on this?? it sounds like a game i would've played as a kid so you did a great job at capturing that sense of childlike dreaminess

Submitted(+1)

I thought it was Maya Fey on the cover art at first.

very nice use of reverse audio as well it really sold the ethereal vibe.

Submitted(+1)

A very catchy soundtrack! Good job! (Its amazing how you made this all in bandlab)

Submitted (1 edit) (+1)

Good work, I enjoyed reading about your process behind creating the songs. Good choice of child-like instruments as well. I found that "Searching" stood out to me above the rest and it was cool to learn why exactly that was. I also enjoy the drawing you used for the album cover a lot.

-Chey