Play jam submission
Dream, Awake's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Correlation to theme | #216 | 3.654 | 3.654 |
| Overall | #354 | 3.338 | 3.338 |
| Creativity | #355 | 3.385 | 3.385 |
| Composition | #358 | 3.308 | 3.308 |
| Quality | #404 | 3.231 | 3.231 |
| Impression | #436 | 3.115 | 3.115 |
Ranked from 26 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Description
To match the theme "inside my world," I imagined a game involving a young girl, Arietta, who has vivid dreams which represent the events and people in her life, with each person or event making its own dream world in a similar fashion to Psychonauts (though with a wildly different vibe). I was pretty busy during the jam but managed to crank out a few pieces, all to do with two potential areas.
First is Arietta's Bedroom, a hub world of sorts and the place where all the dreams happen. Depending on the time of day the music changes, but all three tracks are based on the same theme.
Then I scored two tracks that would be used for the final level. This final world represents Arietta herself, and begins as a space battle where your mission is to rescue yourself, a hostage deep within a space fortress ("The Great Extraction"). But when you reach the prisoner's quarters, you find instead a machine. Going inside the machine takes you into a deeper dream world that involves fixing this machine, which is going rouge. I did not get to scoring this one. Finally, within the machine you find a dream version of yourself, Arietta, and enter her mind and go into an ever deeper layer of your own mind, which is a lonely road lit only by the stars ("The Heart Of It All"). The two tracks for the final level that I managed to get done have very different sounds but do use the same melodic material. Within "The Heart Of It All" is the audio from "The Great Extraction," with heavy reverb and delay, slowed down to 33% speed, and pitched down an octave, and mixed to be in the background.
Message from the artist
thanks for listening, you're a champ
Theme
How does it fit the theme?
The bulk of the game would take place within the mind of the main character, thus "inside her world"
Link(s) of the submission on streaming services
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLck-BRI8MDg1LdhuPbckqz70Ere8PTR63&si=jeiGPGyXpC-on6-t
https://soundcloud.com/michael-matlock/sets/dream-awake
Number of tracks5
Genre
Soundtrack use permission
Any non-commercial project
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Comments
absolutely magnificent!
Thanks!
the smile on my face i had throughout all of arietta's room. this soundtrack is great, and you've used some really interesting techniques to portray the worldbuilding - nice work!!
Aw, thanks! Glad you liked it!
Hey! It was magical! Diverse, atmospheric, and in the end - dynamic, then - melancholic... I like it!
My favorite track is Arietta's Room (Night). This is exactly the atmosphere of the night that I usually imagine when I think about night walks in the park ...
Thank you!
Thanks so much!
The Great extraction reminded me of Zack And Wiki which is a super obscure Wii game but man this really reminded me of it!
Thanks! I'm not familiar with Zack and Wiki so any similarity is a happy accident. Glad to be named among the greats.
Great soundscapes and ambience. Also good writing. Such an atmospheric work, great!
Nice take on the theme here.
The three tracks definitely feel appropriate for a child's bedroom and a hub world, they have just the right amount of playful and are nice variations on a theme. I especially like the inclusion of the "la la" vocal sample. The final one feels quite sinister, I assume the game will be taking a dark turn by that point. Nice reuse of the melody in that context, it being so child-like makes it extra ominous in that context.
Final two tracks do a little a little disconnected from the first three but I feel like they're not so far that in the context of a full soundtrack they would feel out of place, they still have a similar sort of feeling despite that. I especially like the eerie mood you got on The Heart Of It All, that one may be my favourite.
Thanks for listening! I do enjoy a childlike melody over sinister ambience. Glad you enjoyed it!
That was really interesting to decline the same theme/place in the three situations, great idea!
Overall the soundtrack is well thought and the ambiences and orchestrations well chosen.
Good job!
Thank you so much! Glad you enjoyed it.
Impressive work!!
Arietta's Room (Night) is my favorite. Dark, unsettling, skillfully crafted!
Well done!
Thank you! The night one was a lot of fun to compose as well. That ambient style is a bit out of my typical writing style so it was nice to experiment.
Really cool ambient sound selection throughout. The night theme was so cool to listen to and actually kind of made me anxious. The leitmotif being used 3 times back to back throughout the first 3 tracks didn't get stale at all because of how you composed everything surrounding it. Good work, might have nightmares from that night theme though dude.
Neat! Glad you liked it.
This is still a lot of output for being busy haha! The songs evoked a dreamy vibe that fits your lore. My fav was Afternoon because that one has a lightheartedness in it.
Thanks so much!
Cool idea to have different versions of the same theme! I also really liked the idea of having "The Great Extraction" in "The Heart of it All" by using the reverb, slow, and pitch shift was really unique and turned out great.
Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it!
Great variations on Arietta's Room(s). I haven't seen anything like Afternoon in all the submissions I rated until now, the voice was a creative touch. I loved Night's theme as well, it has a sort of tension that just makes you shiver! Enjoyed relaxing while listening to The Heart of it All. Nice job!
Thanks! The voice is me, pitched up :D
great music man, love the work you did here ♪ ♪ ♪ and thanks so much for hearing my song too x♥
yw! Glad you enjoyed it!
Great amount of music in such a short time! Motifs are entertaining and memorable which I love :)
The great extraction might use a little modulation every now and then but otherwise really good job!
Neat! Yeah like any music jam the instant I submit I'm thinking "can I edit this some more," but I'm happy with getting anything out the door. Glad you liked it!
love the great extraction! Great job
Thanks! Glad you liked it.
i loved all the little variations you did on arietta's bedroom!! they all felt distinct from each other while still carrying the same melody
Thank you much :)
I'm really no pro at much of anything, but it's almost a shame the music was compressed so much because otherwise, I really, REALLY like how you played with your theme and then the 2 other songs were great too.
Great job though, definitely a great submission!
Interesting you also went for the interactive music with Arietta's theme on different time of the day, the night is really something else, I don,t know if thats the vibe you wanted to but the contrast is super different. Otherwise I think The Great extraction, composition wise its nice but the mix is super compressed with too much low end.