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Inner Reality - Long Forgotten Memories's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Creativity | #60 | 4.000 | 4.000 |
| Correlation to theme | #63 | 4.042 | 4.042 |
| Overall | #115 | 3.817 | 3.817 |
| Quality | #161 | 3.750 | 3.750 |
| Impression | #161 | 3.667 | 3.667 |
| Composition | #217 | 3.625 | 3.625 |
Ranked from 24 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Description
Game Story : Explained (with illustrations I made) in more details on the project's page
Game Genre : Adventure /3rd Person Narrative Game
Genre : Orchestral/Ambient/Rock/Electronic
Inspiration : Another Code/Ecco/Donkey Kong Country/Vangelis
What each track represents : Different levels/narrative situations
Software used : Studio One, NeuralDSP amps (Archetype Petrucci/Gojira/Rabea, Darkglass Ultra), Spitfire Labs, Massive synths
Gear used : Steinberger Spirit (Bass), Schecter C6 (Guitar), Korg Nanokey2 (Keyboard), UAD Volt 2 (Sound Card), Jazz III picks, Medal coin (as a pick), Ebow
LINK FOR THE DAW RECORDING : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckNCDohRgFI
Message from the artist
IMPORTANT : Check the project's page for the full narration and illustrations I made to illustrate the different tracks (I hope you will enjoy browsing through it while listening to the tracks) !
Theme
How does it fit the theme?
The theme is contexualized in the story and illustrations presented on the project's page for more details.
Inside My World : The protagonist dives into her past memories/her inner world throughout the different tracks
Picture Theme : The protagonist is the one in the picture exploring a world of memories (like the bubbles being the reflections of one's self) taking place mostly underwater
Link(s) of the submission on streaming services
https://soundcloud.com/valerian-dubois/sets/inner-reality-long-forgotten-memories
Number of tracks5
Genre
Soundtrack use permission
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Comments
Echoes From the Past: The music box and/or vibraphone in this track feel very reminiscent. And the rolling swells give an ethereal feeling. I can feel what the character is feeling in your story!
Raging Sea: I love the use of the 12/8 time signature. It makes the percussion feel really interesting. The feeling I get when listening to this track are a haunting and ominous feeling.
Aquatic Perseverance: I hear the Donkey Kong and Vangelis influence strongly in this track which is my favorite of your OST! The now-driving rhythm feels like there is now more intention in the gameplay. I really like your instrument choices in this track, in particular the delayed mallets, electric guitar, and choirs work really well together.
Drowning Into Despair: The dark ambient vibes describe your story perfectly and the image you made for this track is my favorite. I like how you use many instruments to create a feeling a deep stillness.
Acceptance: You have great mixing, especially the panning of the piano. I love the voice swells, it makes it feel like a somewhat reluctant acceptance.
Overall: The way you presented the story and the images you made to accompany the story help elevate your OST to give full immersion into your story. You have a unique array of influences, and they meld together nicely in your distinct style which was a pleasure to listen to. Well done and thank you for sharing!
Hi, thanks a lot for the thorough review and for checking out the project's page too (not too many people have done so recently as it seems, so it's great to see it being noticed) !
The various things you have noticed are pretty accurate to what I intended (influences, story/gameplay intentions, instruments used...) so great job picking up on that !
Raging Sea is actually fully in 4/4 with a 140BPM tempo, although I used triplets on the slap bass parts to give it a bit more variety and tension to the rhythm.
For Aquatic Perserverance, I indeed intended to give it more energy for something more dynamic on the gameplay front, similarly to the end section of Gris when you're dashing through water sections compared to the slower pace of the game before reaching this part (I still wish they did more with it in Gris because the gameplay finally gets a great flow to it until it suddenly ends 30 minutes later, oh well).
Anyway, thanks for listening and checking out the project, and glad that you enjoyed it !
Why does it have so few ratings?!
It was an incredible journey filled with great live sound of musical instruments, interesting ambient and... beauty!
I liked. Thanks!
Thanks a lot, glad that you liked it !
Cool soundscapes you created here with pads guitars and all sorts of pluck instruments. There is a couple of harmonic and melodic inconsistencies in Echoes from the Past and Acceptance, I don't know if it was intentional for an experimental vibe but I think you need to look at the correlation between the chords and melody that is being played. The textures are great though, layering is well done. Good job !
Thanks a lot for your comment !
That is pretty true indeed, I did try to use chords a bit fancier than usual to spice up the tracks without looking much into it on the spot, looking back into it I definitely should have done so to avoid those inconsistencies (along with some changes I made at the last minute in the tracks' structures, which has contribued a bit too by not lining everything up perfectly).
I'm currently in the process of learning about more melodic phrasing on guitar based on songs' chords structure, so I think I should be able to remidy this in my future compositions by making the process a bit more thought out and intentional.
Anyway, thanks for listening and commenting !
Hi Vaanrile!
The way you combine different styles is incredible! and also your entire soundtrack sounds so cohesive, that's amazing. I've listened to each track 3 times now and it's very difficult for me to choose my favorite, so I'll tell you my favorite things/moments of each one:
Echoes From The Past: the different lines of bell sounds (core of this track) and sound contrast that it generates with the guitar.
Raging Sea: Again the guitar and this time the percussion as well took my attention. Very well crafted, each instrument comes in at the right time.
Aquatic Perseverance: This one has a brighter overall sound and contrasts well with the previous tracks.
The mysterious vibe in Drowning Into Despair
Acceptance: incredible track to close album!!
I have the doubt if they are real guitars or an incredible guitar plugin that I don't know haha anyways
AMAZING SOUNDTRACK!!!
Hi, thanks for the detailed review and glad that you enjoyed it so much !
The guitar playing is indeed legit, I used my Schecter guitar and my Steinberger basse through my audio interface with NeuralDSP plug-ins to simulate guitar amps (there are tons of effects for various guitar sounds, also a piezo emulation for more acoustic sounds since I didn't carry my acoustic guitar on vacation).
Anyway, thanks for listening and for the comment !
Love the guitar, also amazing soundtrack!!!
Thank you very much !
Great guitars, layering, ambience, percussion! Subtle little elements in each track make them interesting to closely listen to :) Totally captivated by Aquatic Perseverance and Acceptance!
Thanks a lot (those were my favorite tracks to work on as well, glad that you liked them the most) !
Great guitars! Really liked your sounds and effects on it! The theme is well transcribed! Good submission :D
Thank you very much !
My favorite track was Aquatic Perseverance! The guitar reminded me of Risk Of Rain which can only be a positive!
Thank you very much (haven't played Risk Of Rain though I heard nothing but positives about its soundtrack, so thanks for the comparison and might as well check it out at some point) !
i saw the wide array of genres you had selected on your submission and was excited to listen!
i love the intensity of "Raging Sea!" your melody in "Aquatic Perserverance" gives Leina Raine, which is always a fantastic thing!
your strength really lies in creating ambient tracks, as each ambient track sounded fantastic. great work, i'm glad i had the chance to listen!
Thanks a lot for your comment !
I did think of her work for this track, along with Aquatic Ambiance from DKC, Two Tides from Ecco : Tides Of Time, Vangelis' synth sound and Shine On You Crazy Diamond for the guitar part (there might have been a few more I can't remember for now).
Also yeah, ambient sounds is really fun to design, I always try to implement it whenever I can (having experience in games SFX creation/implementation and making musical soundscapes for slower paced adventure games can help when trying to see what kind and quantity of sound works for the kind of experience you want to convey), so anyway, glad that you enjoyed !
in the best way possible, this is such a pretty soundtrack to fall asleep to
Thanks a lot for the comment !
I certainly wouldn't say that I made the album with this specific intent (especially on Raging Sea, how can you able to fall asleep to that ?), but sometimes when you present a piece of work to a wider audience, they can connect to it in ways you hadn't foreseen initially so it's always interesting to hear (I might see my album in a different light possibly now if I listen to it again) !
Fantastic reverb and delay on the guitar in Echoes From the Past. Personally i always struggle with the delay balance but this sounded great. Well done!
Thanks a lot !
Oh the guitar on this is INCREDIBLE my only criticism is that there ISN'T MORE TO LISTEN TO!
Thanks a lot for the comment !
There is actually quite a lot of guitar playing outside of the obvious melodic lines (the pick scraping with a medal coin on Raging Sea at 33s between the slap bass lines, the coin tapping at 52s, using an ebow on Raging Sea/Drowning Into Despair and also tuning/untuning my bass while playing an open A on Drowning Into Despair), I like a lot finding unusual playing methods fo fill the sonic soundscapes (coupled with tweaking the parameters on my NeuralDSP plugins also).
I might lean into a more guitar oriented sound next jam (if the theme is compatible with it), it could be fun too !
I love the story you represented in the project page and the different tracks for the protagonist's different situations by each chapter. The fact that you linked the image theme as the final track about acceptance is amazing along with its accompanying track.
Thanks a lot for your feedback, indeed based on the different themes I was going for, I thought it would make sense to end on the image theme (it is a nice switchup compared to last jam where I interpreted the image as the beginning of the journey).
Although I guess you could argue that the image theme simultaneously is the beginning AND the conclusion of my story in some way (with a slight variation on the acceptation aspect though).
Wow that's pretty! Beautiful mix of acoustic, electronic and orchestral. The writing is quite exceptional, I hear Ghost in the Shell :) Lovely OST, one of the top stuff I've heard actually!
Thanks a lot !
Lovely ! Really well executed, the concept is so cool and the OST are all really nice ! I don't have much to say except that I really love your layering and the sound choice you made. Pertinent.
Thank you very much !
Echoes From The Past: Cool rhythm and unexpected chord changes with that bvii usage.
Raging Sea: This perc is so cool. Dat bass tho.
Aquatic Perservances: Great atmosphere and sound choices.
Drowning Into Despair: Love how this starts off so foreboding. Great atmosphere and subtle electric pianos.
Acceptance: Guitars so good. Satisfying conclusion to the OST.
Great work!
Thanks a lot for the detailed review, always appreciate it !
This gets a 5 in creativity for that project page alone, it's so beautiful! I remember the one you made for crunchtime also had cool drawings and stuff as well. As someone else said, the guitars sound really good, for me personally I love how they sound in Acceptance. I think the tracks fit the chapters of your story very nicely! So nice work again.
Also you weren't lying about our stories being very alike damn. I've seen a few other submissions with similar plots as well, where the main character lost one of their relatives and goes looking for them.
Thank you so much for your reply (and for checking out the project's page and appreciating the presentation too) !
For the guitar sounds I used exclusively NeuralDSP amp simulators, quite flexible and can produce very convincing sounds so I can recommend for all things guitar related (they have free trials too).
Concerning the stories, I guess most people who didn't go through the whimsical interpretation of the picture saw similar motifs in it (family figure, reflections in the bubbles, brevety of a bubble's lifespan...), so it is only natural that the end result would end up quite similar in that regard.
To go with the theme of my story, I can also say that there is a reason why there are specifically 5 tracks that are named this way and why the chapters' stories are describing these different situations.
Some beautiful guitar playing and love the eerie pads in the first track! You’ve got a knack for creating some lovely ambiance and soundscapes in your tracks! Well done!!
Thanks a lot for your feedback (the pads are a mixture of Spitfire LABS choir instruments and Native Instruments Etheral Earth library, they are pretty nice free plugins that I can recommend easily) !
Love the soundscapes you paint here! Your instrument choice and layering are really top notch, and evoke the different feels of the ocean extremely well. The transition from the feel of the land based first track to the rest of it is also really cool. And thank you for the art and story beats! You've married those together really well!
Thanks a lot !