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A jam submission

Dreamspire OSTView project page

Submitted by jurquia — 13 hours, 41 minutes before the deadline
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Dreamspire OST's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Correlation to theme#4383.1903.278
Composition#4633.0823.167
Creativity#5013.0823.167
Overall#5182.9963.078
Impression#5242.8662.944
Quality#5692.7582.833

Ranked from 18 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

Description
Soundtrack style: 16-bit SNES style, with orchestral elements.
Contains music for: a title theme, Hub world, a dungeon called the Dreamspire, battle music, and 2 cutscene music.
Full description on project page

Theme

Inside my world

How does it fit the theme?
My theme involves a society where its citizens are trapped in an idealized reality under control by a dictator. The protagonists must climb up a tower called the Dreamspire, to somehow break everyone free of this fake world.

Link(s) of the submission on streaming services
https://youtu.be/3Ny3e1DZJkQ

Number of tracks
6

Genre

Orchestral
Ambient
Synthwave/Retro

Soundtrack use permission

Yes (CC BY)

Any project

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Comments

Submitted(+1)

Nailed the SNES vibe - the chosen patches and voicings really brought me back immediately.

Tower of Illusion feels multifunctional - I could imagine in it in an intro, as a title theme or a track that kicks off right as the player gains control before setting out on an adventure. Great choice of voicings here - it has a triumphant kind of tone to it but not a distinct fanfare, if that makes sense?

Living in Paradise is a great follow-up; feels exactly like what I'd expect to follow the previous track. Ambles along at its own pace with some nice melodies and progression. I love the occasional cheeky trills and arpeggio bursts here in particular - a little bit of extra ear candy!

Journey Towards Reality is gorgeous - the change in voicings here hits hard. Really nice choice of patches and layering here. The wind melody feels comfortably lost amidst the accompaniment and slowly comes to the top before dropping out in favour of the piano. I think this may be my favorite of the bunch, honestly.

Mystical Power does a great job of striking a balance between awe & wonder and a slight sense of tension or perhaps trepidation is better. Befitting of the title as it feels as though the player has discovered something massive and there's this equal sense of curiosity and wariness that comes with approaching it and learning more about it. Really nice arrangement here - I love how the various melodies weave around one another without the mix sounding crowded.

Conspiracy, by contrast, abandons that balance and is up front about how it wants you to feel. Great orchestration here to really set the tone and make no allusions about the thick tension present here. I think you killed it with this one as 16-bit era games had a very specific way of going about ambient, dark kind of tracks that I can't quite put to words but you've managed to emulate perfectly. It's a weird mix of light sound design, drones and some use of chromatics to subvert expectations of where the mood is going.

Finally, Encounter is gorgeous! This has a fanfare kind of flair to it; the big battle has finally come and the player must now put their skills to the test. Again, really nice orchestration here and I love the piano work that comes in and out in this. Great use of dynamics in this as well - the arrangement swells and backs off multiple times, emulating the flow of a final encounter.

All in all, great work - this is super solid. Brought me back and makes me nostalgic for a game that doesn't exist! Nicely arranged, well produced and with some fantastic choice of patches and voicings. 

Submitted(+1)

Heh... this soundtrack sounded menacing at some points... I like it!

Submitted

Really got that snes-era sound!

Some beautiful melodies, motifs & harmony. Great sound selection/design.

Submitted

Really cool retro vibe, I feel like this soundtrack could easily be in a childhood favorite game of mine! Fun listen, thank you for sharing!

Submitted

Solid and complete OST. Good job overall on the writing!

Submitted(+1)

YES, another Reaper user!

I love how Conspiracy starts out tense and then that tension progressively dissipates.

Very solid OST, well done!!

Submitted

Really complete soundtrack!

Great Job!

Didn't like when you flash banged me with white at the end ):

Submitted

Liked the dynamism in the last track! I may have liked a little more rythmic takes but good job!

Submitted

got huge ocarina of time nostalgia vibes from this OST I love it. Mystical Power is my favorite, good work man!

Submitted(+1)

Great soundtrack! Really reminds me of those old school RPGs and the days when I would spend hours creating little stories in RPG Maker as a kid. So much nostalgia... I really liked Journey Towards Reality and Mystical Power. Conspiracy was a nice tone change. Encounter was really cool too, a bit more dynamic, but I feel that for a battle theme it maybe should be even more impactful/powerful, because I've heard some similar tracks that are actually area/location themes, but that really depends on the type of game. Also I think that Living in Paradise lacks a leading melody, while there actually is a melody it's played by instruments that seem kinda in the "background", so I think it's not as clear as it could be and as others already said the mix is a bit muddy sometimes. But overall I really enojoyed all the tracks

Submitted

Journey Towards Reality really has a DS-era Pokemon vibe to it! Really cool sound! I think my favorite has to be Encounter, though I wish it was longer ;) 

Submitted(+1)

This was super cool! The composition was excellent, really neat ideas. Personal favorite had to be Journey Towards Reality, the different instruments handing off the melody to each other was a really interesting idea and it was executed well. Have to agree with encode that the mixing and samples used held the soundtrack back a bit. Parts of the soundtrack that had several instruments in particular got very muddy. But overall super cool! Love the 16-bit inspo, and also felt a lot of pokemon mystery dungeon in there too.

Developer

Thanks for the comment! I'm still relatively new at mixing and mastering, and wanted to give these samples a try since I've used them quite a bit. I'll definitely try listening to other's submissions for inspirations and how to improve!

Submitted(+1)

Very much captures the vein of SNES era RPG soundtracks. I do tend to agree with encode42 about the instruments fighting over each other a bit.

Outside of that I think you did a good job!

Favorite Track: Living In Paradise 

Submitted(+1)

I love how nostolgic these tracks feel--even from someone grown up on relatively later generation nintendo. Feels like there's a lot of quirks of that kind of music you've captured well. I especially like the vibe from 'Conspiracy', but as encode said, each one definitely stands out

Submitted(+1)

At times, it felt as though instruments were fighting over each other, sometimes even over themselves. However, this does not mean these tracks don’t sound great! I definitely felt the SNES-era inspiration. Each track, despite theoretically being limited to the soundfont’s instruments, sounded unique amongst the rest and kept me interested. Mystical Power would likely be my favorite track due to its powerful ambiance and emotional composition.