heartwarming soudntrack, so beautiful. The borrowed chords and dissonances in the title theme give the music a bittersweet quality. It's a simple story but so effective !
Love your username by the way.
Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
Correlation to theme | #54 | 4.091 | 4.091 |
Composition | #161 | 3.758 | 3.758 |
Overall | #187 | 3.648 | 3.648 |
Impression | #188 | 3.606 | 3.606 |
Creativity | #297 | 3.485 | 3.485 |
Quality | #378 | 3.303 | 3.303 |
Ranked from 33 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Description
This is a soundtrack for a story game, all detailed on the project page!
Message from the artist
I am excited to take part in this Jam again, and nice to see that the community has grown significantly!
Theme
How does it fit the theme?
I used both the description and picture theme, and crafted a story of a girl child who is fond of bubbles and has a vivid imagination inside her own dream world.
Link(s) of the submission on streaming services
https://on.soundcloud.com/oUheV89SZscAamF38
Number of tracks7
Genre
Soundtrack use permission
For game jams only
heartwarming soudntrack, so beautiful. The borrowed chords and dissonances in the title theme give the music a bittersweet quality. It's a simple story but so effective !
Love your username by the way.
2. I liked the sparse instrumentation and time stretching effects to give a nostalgic dreamy effect
3. Playful melody. Good percussion choices.
5. Leaning into synths was a nice break after the mallet centered pieces before it. The driving accompaniment creates a sense of urgency without having to go into the darker atonal field of music
6. Great waltz. however, I think the main violin could be more expressive with the cc
7. Leitmotifs!
Title Theme - The scale and elegance of the introductory theme are amazing... heh)
Sleep and Dream - Juhu! Music box time!
Cunnybobbler Island - Hey, it sounds fun and beachy!
Grandma's House is Cute. Comfortably. I love it!
Escape the Dream Eaters - I like some of the peculiar dynamism and "distortion" of this track... sounds interesting!
Dance of the Ducklings - QUACK
Ending Theme / Credits - A beautiful, slightly crazy ending theme (I brewed coffee for myself under it, so +100 respect)
Thanks!
The Title Theme is a great example of layering; starting off simple but gradually growing more detailed and rich as it progresses. Kudos on the production here, getting everything to seamlessly fit as it is gradually being added can be tricky but it is working really well here. As a whole it reminds me of something I might hear back on the early-to-mid PSX era, á la Croc or something similar.
Sleep and Dream plays even further into that vibe; loving the carry over of instrumentation here and the thoughtful approach of less-is-more at the beginning of this. Leaving space for the melody to breathe and then gradually grow more filled out is great. Having it strip back toward the end and function as a loop if necessary is great planning ahead.
Sunnybubble Island drives that Croc comparison in even more for me personally - game has a stellar soundtrack, varied and well thought out. This is no different - I love the island and tropical influence coming in full force here. Changing up the rhythm and pace around the half-way mark is great for preventing fatigue, and once again the set up for the loop is perfect.
Grandma's House has that gentle, soft approach that comes with writing something homely. Loving the use of mallet instrumentation as the primary driving force; turning the instrument itself into a motif. Nice and pleasant melodies here, particularly around that half-way point again; the extra lead tones in the background do a great job of embellishing the whimsy of this track.
The change of pace in Escape the Dream Eaters sets the tone immediately. Having a filter oscillate from opening and closing on the piano is a genuinely great touch here - feels like it is playing along the lines of trying to stay conscious and protect your dreams from being devoured. The rhodes(?) layer that is present at the beginning acts as a great contrast to the piano itself as it feels like a malicious lullaby, effectively having both the bespoke instruments 'fighting' one another.
Dance of the Ducklings has this 'cheeky' kind of vibe to it - I can't quite describe it. It's mischievous in a sense, but not maliciously so. Great idea switching up the rhythm in this one and leaning more into a waltz. The orchestration here is on point and there are a lot of great uses of differing articulations. I could imagine this functioning in a variety of games, and for some reason it actually gives me more of an N64 vibe than the others. (Granted the systems are mostly interchangeable but you get me)
The Ending Theme leaning back into the motif (in both senses of the word) is genius and the use of a familiar rhythm here does a great job of driving it forward whilst keeping it downtempo. The change of instrumentation and direction about a third of the way in was really cool and a nice throwback once again. This track is really going through the paces and exploring a lot. Great ending section here - brings it all home and wraps it up in a neat little bow.
All in all, fantastic job - super solid submission. Arrangement throughout is great; nice and varied, nicely orchestrated and well thought out. Production is on point, all the tracks feel cohesive and belong, and the use of motifs is really clever. Great work, this was a delight to listen to! :)
I really like how your main theme is used in the first two tracks. Nice job maintaining the same quality all along the soundtrack!
Personally I like the “emptiness” or silence in your first two tracks. I think it relaly highlights the emptiness of the real world. Also it really is interesting how similar our takes were on the prompt!
I absolutely love the celesta in the title theme! It gives it a very dreamlike quality. I can almost see the bubbles floating in the air as I listen. And do I detect a little nod to the Mario water theme?
I really like your story you made and the instrument you used! I think the middle tracks between the title theme and the ending theme could do with more instruments though because they feel a bit empty a lot of the time.
Feels like a pretty solid real OST, great job nothing really to say, it all flows pretty well!
This gave me some heavy super mario sunshine vibes, especially your track Sunnybubble Island. I liked the tropical sounds and instruments you incorporated into these tracks and how they help tell the story. Thanks for sharing!
I liked the aesthetic choices you've made. I think they reflects very well what's happening in the story! I enjoyed the vals you compose for Dance of Ducklings ☺
Everything is so simple yet so effective. You did a fantastic job of painting the picture of your story here, and the end result is brilliant. Well done!
Wow, I love this! I love the Title them and second song most. So chill and wonderlike! Good work.
Very good, loved the composition, especially in those first two songs with the more "simple" diatonic phrases happening along side more nuanced and chromatic/modal harmonies. The descriptions for each track are also very imaginative and bring even more meaning to each track.
I love your use and variation of the motif between "Title Theme" and "Sleep and Dream." It helps to push the narrative you're aiming for. "Grandma's House is a fun and cute track - perfect for the mood you're trying to capture. Overall, great job with this OST.
Really nice bit of music. As a few people here have already said, with some better samplers and a bit less quantisation (it's a little robotic at times) this would be really amazing. I'd also recommend when working with those strings to move the start of the note a bit earlier, since the attack is a bit slow to come in and it can feel a bit delayed. but yeah overall a really good set of pieces.
Yeah I am using BBC Symphony Orchestra strings, they are wonderful for anything soft but incredibly sluggish. I did shift them by 20ms already, but could probably use even more, you're right. Some sections I just typed into the piano roll and quantized them to make them fit. With some more time I should redo this with more care. great advice, thanks!
What a sweet and lovely album, really nice. I think with better strings samples and manipulation the title theme would be fantastic. And imo some tracks need some sort of percussive element I think it would add a really nice touch. well done !
The music was quite fighting for the chosen theme and game. They were also very varied in style and arrangement. However I feel like the production site left something to be desired for me. Some of the instruments (especially the strings) sounded very static and midi. While it could be part of the style you were going with, I realy thing there could be added something here. Nether the less it was a very cute soundtrack with quite a variety of sounds and themes that were more than fitting and coherend.
Thanks! I also wasn't perfectly happy with some of the sounds, and especially the the strings, but given the short time I used 80% 20% rule.
I used BBC Symphony Orchestra, which is probably as good as it gets for a free VST. Problem was they did not work at all for Dance of the Ducklings, they are so sluggish that it is almost impossible to play anything shorter than a quarter note, so I had to fall back on kinda crappy sf2 strings from Kiarchive. Came close to what I had in mind with the melody but I wish they were a bit clearer and less obviously midi...
If you can recommend a library for strings please let me know. I think I am ready to spend some money on this. I am also trying to learn how to make instruments sound more realistic, and I have pretty much no idea about mixing and such, so if you could recommend any resources or tutorials on this that would be great.
Thanks for listening closely tho. Means a lot!
Hey there Staccatosaurus,
I’m glad I didn’t unsettle you with my somewhat harsh critic. Getting sampled instruments to behave right can be quite an art of itself (that I haven’t mastered ether) and depending on the provider it needs multiple Midi-CC commands like CC-1 for Dynamics CC-11 for Expression (Volume) and other CC for vibrato or Filtering. Also depending on the sample provider the usable range of the CC-Command can vary. Spitfire for example uses a pretty broad range for CC-1 so you are recommended to use CC-11 in tandem, while VSL feels more cramped for CC-1 where CC-11 isn’t necessary.
In my experience Spitfire always has some jank in their products ether audio balancing or GUI or whatever. However they always have a quite intimate and close sound.
VSL can be very detailed and pretty sounding. However they often lack that intimacy and sound somewhat cold and distand to me.
Depending on if you want to dabble in microphones VSL special edition can be a great choice. However their Sound is somewhat fixed in stone since you cant change the miking.
If you can live with a bit of jank and a bad GUI I can also recommend the cheaper Spitfire stuff. However the sound is always a mixed bag, depending on what you want to do.
As for recommendations. Id say the best way is having first hand experience. It can be somewhat fun trying to play the real thing and try to understand it’s working. How they really sound and what a player needs to think of. For example the flute having its dynamic range linked with the sound they are playing (needing to blow harder (overblow) to get the higher notes).
For Mixing it is pretty hard to recommend anything specifically. Most tutorials on YouTube seem to be very broad or unspecific. Or don’t really show how the sausage is made. “Virtual Orchestration” seems to be a competent but broader source of cool information. But sometimes you can also get lucky, like Olafur Arnalds breaking down his Sessions or having some tutorials on specific instruments or terms in mixing.
TLDR:
It’s hard and tedious, but oh so wonderful the same time. I hope the wall of text didn't scare you.
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