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Mirage's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Correlation to theme | #131 | 3.872 | 3.872 |
| Overall | #231 | 3.559 | 3.559 |
| Impression | #236 | 3.513 | 3.513 |
| Composition | #242 | 3.564 | 3.564 |
| Quality | #303 | 3.462 | 3.462 |
| Creativity | #355 | 3.385 | 3.385 |
Ranked from 39 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Description
The game starts when the protagonist awakens in their dream. They have no recollection of who they were when they were awake, and they will forget everything about the dream when they wake up. The game follows them as they explore their dream world in an attempt to recover their lost memories and figure out who they were.
"Boat" - A track that plays in the background as the protagonist approaches the first city area of the game. The beginning arpeggio would loop for a bit, and then the section with the drums, bass, etc. would begin once the player gets close enough to the area.
"Anemone" - An ambient track that loops while the player explores a more remote and scenic area of the game.
"Janus" - A story focused track that plays at the end of the game, as the protagonist wakes up from their dream but also forgets everything that happened over its duration. This would be the only track in the game with only piano and no synths to reflect the major change in the story and the player's environment.
Everything was composed in Reaper.
Message from the artist
Any feedback/criticism is welcome and greatly appreciated :)
Theme
How does it fit the theme?
I interpreted both the picture and word theme as something relating to dreams. The game I am making the soundtrack for takes place in a dream. The music reflects this by generally having a peaceful feeling (no strong tension or intense rhythm) while still feeling surreal or disorienting (odd time signatures or lack of consistent chord progression).
Link(s) of the submission on streaming services
Soundcloud: https://on.soundcloud.com/dVWHjeAKn6foKPFMA
Number of tracks3
Genre
Soundtrack use permission
For game jams only
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Comments
I like your use of odd time signatures to imply disorientation.
Minimal, and yet that minimalism becomes core to the beauty of the soundtrack. Lovely use of harmony and space. Janus might be my favorite. Beautiful soundtrack!
Glad you enjoyed and thank you for the comment!
Beautiful electronic sound design: I love those minimal sine wave arpeggios, really beautiful. Perhaps I would have brought the drums of the first track a bit more forward in the mix (personal opinion). All three tracks fit perfectly with the descriptions you provided and are really well thought out as background music for a video game.
Thanks for the feedback! I went back and forth on the drum volume for a while when mixing. I definitely agree that I might have made them a little too quiet though.
Some really nice and gentle music throughout but still with plenty of stuff to hold your attention.
Really liked the sound palette you used and your approach to melody + harmony & etc.
I did think the soundtrack as a whole was quite quiet? I had to turn up my speakers a lot more than I have with most other submissions to hear it clearly, but within the tracks themselves they was a good balance between instruments and all the tracks felt at a similar volume level to each other.
Thanks for the feedback and I'm glad you enjoyed! I don't think I've ever noticed the volume issue, I thought SoundCloud automatically normalizes the volume of everything. Do you know of any way to make sure that the volume is more consistent?
Yeah sure!
Easiest thing to do first is to just compare your track to a few existing ones you know and like in the same style as yours and see if they're around the same volume, then make yours louder if they're not (and then also any others ones you're releasing it alongside if that's the case).
Then if you're still finding your stuff isn't sounding loud enough but you're hitting 0 on the meter in your DAW and getting clipping, use a limiter to prevent the clipping.
From there you probably want to look into using compression, limiting and saturation in general to increase how loud it sounds if you still need an extra boost. I'm pretty sure you'll already have at least one compressor and limiter in Reaper, not as sure about saturation but there's probably something :)
Thanks for the help. I'll try and figure all of that out as soon as I get the chance :)
No problem!
Beautiful and serene composition, I loved the speed of the final track.
Really calming vibes, that was a pleasure to listen to your submission!
Nice vibes I love that !
Lovely OST! Mirage suits perfectly with the cover art. The calm yet mysterious aura of your music is well settled and I truly enjoyed listening to it.
Great work!
Very beautiful opening track. the piano adds so much gentleness to the track, plus the reverse used throughout this track as well as the other tracks sounds very pleasing to the ears. Janus is really beautiful as well, the piano that sounds almost happy, depressed, cluttered, and blissful all at the same time really makes for a beautifully confusing vibe. Good work!
Thank you for the feedback! That confusing vibe is exactly what I was going for with "Janus" so I'm glad it translated well
Admittedly, I am a sucker for dream world settings, and you definitely pulled off a beautiful & atmospheric dreamlike sound in this OST :3
Forgive me as I don't really know technical terms for describing things, but I really like how the warm/calm atmosphere is complimented by the slightly eerie/disjointed parts that really sell the dream environment!
I am also a sucker for big plot points being reflected clearly in accompanying music, so I love your idea & execution for 'Janus'. The gentle, bittersweet melancholy feeling of the track perfectly represents the scene you described :D
Thanks for listening. I'm glad to hear that I managed to convey that mix of calmness and disjointedness well. Its also great to hear that you liked "Janus." It was my favourite one to make, but I was worried my piano playing wouldn't do it justice.
Boat: Vibes! Love the chords. Reminds me of Omori somehow.
Anemone: Nice and minimal atmosphere.
Janus: Love the unsteady, dreamy rhythm. Nice piano work. Some more cool chords.
Great work!
Glad you enjoyed! I definitely did take a little inspiration from the Omori OST when I was working on everything.
this was so good, i could fall asleep to it!
Nice ambient tracks, especially the last one! Transported me to another world. :)
Love the beautiful contrast of the plucky sines and reversed samples in the first track. The ostinato does a great job at grounding the track and gives plenty of room for the eerie pads to shine. Beautiful soundscape in the second track, agin with the reversed lines! You’ve really captured the dream-world you’re going for! Well done!
Love the atmosphere, really chill vibes and tickles my brain in the best of ways! Awesome!
So pretty and peaceful! The dissonance in Janus is exquisite, Boat is so interesting melodically, such an amazing work! This is getting downloaded and put on a playlist, thank you for the superb submissions! Following you on Soundcloud, I'd love to hear more from you in the near future!
Thank you so much for the kind words! I'll try my best to make more stuff of the same quality in the future :)
I absolutely love the vibes on this one! You really nailed the dream-like atmosphere.
Boat is my absolute favorite, it gets me into such a peaceful state of mind, like I'm exploring a deep, misty meadow that comforts the player but also hides some aspects from familiarity. Love the percussion and chord progressions!
Anemone is chill, the disperse sounds and melodies really add a lot to the liminarity that our dreams can sometimes feel like. Personally, I feel like it could use some subtle variation, maybe some hint of another instruments here and there, reflecting how our dreams can sometimes have unusual events. But it's still a great track!
Janus is a good ending track, having that kind of "bittersweet" feel from the chord progression and chaotic intervals present in the melodies. Nice job!
Thank you for taking the time to give such detailed feedback. I definitely agree that Anemone needed some more variation. I was considering adding another instrument or two but ran out of time unfortunately.
Peaceful feeling acquired, I definitely feel peaceful listening to this, it has a very Philip Glass minimalist vibe, I like the time signature variation in Boat, nice to not have 4/4 all the time.
It fits the theme very well! The soundscape/sound choices are well-crafted with emphasis on etheral, dream-like qualities. Love the chord progressions in Boat and Janus. Great work!
This definitely sounds like the soundtrack to a dream. I really like Boat’s progression. To really emphasize that “dream” feel, the percussion could use a bit of reverb.
Anemone gives me OneShot vibes, though I couldn’t explain why. The “dreamly exploration” vibe is totally there.
To end the story, Janus does it great. After the dreamy nature of the previous tracks, this one feels focused and “awake”. It’s still chaotic, so that it fits with the theme laid out by the tracks prior, yet goes in a new direction.
Great job! This fits with the described game very well.
Thanks for the feedback. I agree that the drums felt like they were missing something in Boat, but never thought of using reverb. I'll definitely give that a try when I get the chance.