Play soundtrack
Downside-Up: Marnie's Bizarre Adventure's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Creativity | #37 | 4.129 | 4.129 |
| Overall | #144 | 3.742 | 3.742 |
| Correlation to theme | #153 | 3.806 | 3.806 |
| Composition | #184 | 3.710 | 3.710 |
| Impression | #233 | 3.516 | 3.516 |
| Quality | #276 | 3.548 | 3.548 |
Ranked from 31 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Description
Welcome to Marnie's Bizarre Adventure! This is a game about my one-eyed little orange cat, Marnie, as well as a tribute to two of the furry members of my family that are no longer with us.
Please see the project page for the full description and accompanying story. The tracks are in order of the story and are each linked to a specific chapter. Below is additional information specifically related to my vision, composition, sound design, etc.
This soundtrack was made with Reaper, using only MIDI that has been (in most cases, time-permitting) meticulously adjusted to enhance realism. I was going for an overall sound blended a Modern Rock/Metal-inspired sort of vibe with a lot of heavy synth instruments and just a little bit of strings to top it off. Many songs go back and forth between "real" drums and electronic ones throughout the songs.
-----Themes and Story tie-in----
There are a few consistent themes that were used throughout the soundtrack:
A) The most obvious is the two mirrored tracks "Her Light's Embrace" and "Her Shadow's Touch." These are character themes for two very polar opposite characters. "Her Light's Embrace" is the original version of the theme, "Her Shadow's Touch" uses vinyl record style distortion, detunes some of the instruments and changes the key in some parts of the song to create an anxious feeling and contrast the warmth of the original song. (Honestly, I may have overdone it a bit in trying to make the song sound dark ahaha.)
B) The theme from "Under the Bed" is re-used in "Out of Hiding," which shows Marnie's growth from the beginning of her adventure where she often scared and anxious into the courageous adventurer that she has become by the end of her story. Whereas "Under the Bed" has an anxious feeling to it, "Out of Hiding" is triumphant; playing as she traverses the final level to face off against the evil ceiling fan.
C) The instruments should feel familiar throughout the soundtrack, with some of the synths or pads even repeating similar sounds from previous songs to create cohesion. The title theme's opening riff is repeated in "Where the Wild Worms Are." The title theme's guitar breakdown was originally intended to be revisited in the ending theme, "Safe & Sound," but that track was cut due to time constraints.
---Music Creation---
VST instruments used: A ton of Serum, Shreddage Hydra, Shreddage Jupiter, Stroh Violin, various Kontakt libraries, Battery, Shreddage Drums, etc.
For mixing/mastering/etc, I used mainly Ozone with a few of Reaper's built in plug-ins (Reacomp, ReaEQ, ReaDelay, etc.)
Message from the artist
---Credits and thanks---
A) Special thanks to my wife for the cover image, the missing poster, and the her drawing of an evil wiggly worm with ominous ceiling fans looming in the background. She also makes cute perlers and stickers, you can check out her art here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9MBJqNRmEA
B) All of the music and the rest of the art are done by me, albitrary.
C) The camera photos are mostly of Marnie (3y/o), but also include her stoic companion Leo (4y/o) and old man Izzy (17y/o.) There are a couple old photos of the late Puff and Sophie included for reference, who left us in 2020 and 2022, respectively. If you squint, you can also see my dog Willow in one of the pictures, who is probably like 100 years old or something (no one really knows, veeeeery spooky)
D) Thank you to Lone Rabbit for this jam, I spent months looking forward to it and even planned my vacation around it. Honestly, I put WAY too much effort into this, but I had a ton of fun and got a lot of fulfillment from doing it. Also a very big thanks to them for allowing me to submit my entry a little late, after NOT ONLY losing my entire finished story script the night before, but then thinking the submission deadline was actually 12 midnight EST on Sunday night, not 12 noon.
Theme
How does it fit the theme?
Marnie's Bizarre Adventure shows the world through Marnie's point of view. Her world is full of wonder and anxiety, and it's also just kinda silly.
Link(s) of the submission on streaming services
https://on.soundcloud.com/XfuFJ8o5Ba9FJxfXA
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZ2zZC18mAX3bO2Exw1s6-IyPFIAGnwjN
Number of tracks9
Genre
Soundtrack use permission
Any project
Leave a comment
Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.
Comments
Wow, that's a lot of supporting text.
There's a lot of passion here, and while I don't necessarily dig the music, I can tell the sound design is in there and remains consistant; I can tell that there's some kind of complete set of music for a game and story.
If I could imagine the kind of game this would be, I'd love to say Cave Story based on the music and sound, but I am not sure.
Overall - really solid work, here.
Thank you! I was so wrapped up into the story that I forgot to put what kind of game it was. I was thinking something action/adventure-esque; a Metroidvania like Cave Story would feel right at home!
This was so good and clearly had lots of love and passion for your cat! Minions of the Ceiling Fan was my favourite but the whole thing was super well done.
Thanks for the listen! Minions of the Ceiling Fan was probably the most fun I've had working on music in awhile. :)
dang this one good, fire emoji
This whole soundtrack is a testament to your passion for this. I can see how much work you put into this project, and it most definitely paid off! I love how creative and interesting each track is, and how you reuse motifs in interesting ways. My favorite track personally was “Out of Hiding” because it takes that awesome melody and pairs it with pounding bass and a good beat! If I had any advice to give, it would be on the track “Out of Hiding”. I noticed that the virtual violin had a “startup” period before the note is heard, so it results in a delay when playing. My advice would be to start the note a little earlier than the beat so that the notes line up with the beat. Overall though, awesome soundtrack!
Thanks for the listen! Good catch on the violin, I definitely hear it now that you mention that. I burned through these tracks so fast that I definitely missed some details ahahaha