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Thanatosis OST's itch.io pageResults
Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
Correlation to theme | #103 | 3.933 | 3.933 |
Impression | #223 | 3.533 | 3.533 |
Creativity | #241 | 3.600 | 3.600 |
Overall | #250 | 3.527 | 3.527 |
Composition | #359 | 3.300 | 3.300 |
Quality | #390 | 3.267 | 3.267 |
Ranked from 30 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Description
For the first time in human history, there is reason to believe that life outside of our home planet may have once existed. Thalassa, a planet submerged in an endless ocean, possesses a bare and lifeless depths, but at the ocean’s floor lies the remnants of a civilization possessing technology and science far greater than our own. And underneath even that, past a maze of twisting waterways, lies a world that defies everything we knew about existence itself. And at its heart, there may just be someone who’s alive.
You play as Nell, a marine biologist hired as a part of a team researching the fossils and decaying life forms located on Thalassa’s floor. As the one who discovers the hidden waterways beneath the sunken city, she of course has the option to merely report the find to her superiors, and launch an official investigation of the area. Or…she could venture in alone.
The game is a 2D puzzle platformer set in an abstract underground world. It’s as if someone took an underwater paradise and scattered the pieces haphazardly – there are floating blocks of water, caves with marvelous crystal stalactites, fish and dolphins and seahorses all situated impossibly in empty space. And at the world’s heart is an enormous crystal castle, from which you occasionally hear the playing of a flute throughout the game.
TRACKLIST:
1 – Waterways:
This track plays during the game’s opening cutscene. We open with Nell traversing the hidden waterways alone, her flashlight revealing walls graffitied by what looks like the drawings of a young child. Eventually, she comes to a dead end, with the ground coming to what looks like a hole leading to the ocean below. But….aren’t we below the ocean already?
Nell jumps in. But this isn’t…normal. She swims downward, reflected by crystals that seem to just float in mid-water, bubbles that simply stay in place. She swims out of the bottom of the water, falling onto a giant pink crystal – somehow the water itself was just suspended in midair? She looks into the distance, the camera panning to show that this world stretches on for miles. And at the end is a sunken castle, from which impossibly comes the sound of a lone flute.
2 – Swimming Upstream:
An area theme, this track shows a small part of Nell’s journey through this mysterious world. It plays while she scales a river that is suspended vertically.
3 – Sunken Castle:
Nell stops to sleep before entering the castle. In her dreams, she sees the young girl, spinning in delight by the castle’s entrance, dancing with the bubbles and the fish that float around her. An old woman sits leaning against the gate, with a resigned smile as she watches the girl dance. The woman then looks up, not at the ceiling of their little world, but imagining what must be going on above it. At this point, they’re probably the only ones left.
This is another area theme, playing in the final stage of the game. The remains of the castle are one of the most intact elements of this game’s world, but that doesn’t make it easy to navigate. The areas are twisted and confusing, and a room may not look the same if you enter it from different sides. It almost seems as if someone is trying to keep you out.
4 – Plummet:
Finally, at the heart of the castle, you find the source of the flute: the old woman from the flashback sequences. When she sees you, she stares. “Mei?” she asks. But you aren’t her, and she knows it – her granddaughter has been dead for centuries, and by all accounts, she should be dead too. Nell tries to approach her and talk to her, but the woman backs off, eyes filled with fear. She starts screaming, quietly first, a pained screeching sound from a voice that hasn’t been used in hundreds of years. But as she does, the castle begins to shake…pieces begin falling away…pieces of everything begin falling away.
The Final Boss of Thanatosis is less a boss, and more of a chase sequence where you’re the one doing the chasing. Gravity has reawoken, and every element of the world is falling; including Nell and the old lady. As the player, you have to navigate through the falling debris of the world in a combination dropper/movement tech section in order to reach the woman before you both hit the floor of the world and receive a game over.
When you finally reach her, something seems to click inside. This was her world. She was keeping it alive, and it was keeping her alive. Maybe it’s time to just….stop. The camera shows her perspective, once again showing the approaching Nell as her granddaughter. The music swells, coming to a watery blip, and Nell is suddenly back in the waterway where she started. She looks around confused. There’s no entryway in the wall to the world she just spent so long in. But the look on the woman’s face says not to worry, so Nell picks herself up, and moves on. The last image of the game shows the edges of two beds submerged underwater, with two hands held between them. One from an old woman, and one from a young girl.
Message from the artist
Thank you for listening to my soundtrack! It was a pleasure to be a part of the jam!
Theme
![](https://img.itch.zone/aW1nLzE2ODk1NDA1LmpwZw==/original/cjEPnq.jpg)
How does it fit the theme?
The soundtrack fits the theme in two main ways. The watery aspects of the provided image are on display through the game’s setting, as well as the “underwater” nature of the pieces itself. Percussion with reverb, bubbly synths, and elements like the dark bubbly pad in Swimming Upstream are used to create this effect, as well as more explicit water noises like splashing in Waterways.
“Inside My World” ties more into the game’s story. This entire world you are exploring was born out of the refusal of one woman to accept that her efforts to make a haven of escape were all for nothing. The scattered and abstract nature of all the world’s elements represents how she cannot accept losing her granddaughter, but the world holds on through sheer stubborn persistence until you convince her to let go. You are “inside her world.” The world she created for her granddaughter to survive their planet’s end.
Relating to the image itself, the granddaughter is the girl dancing in the drawing, and the grandmother is represented by the human-shaped bubble lurking behind her.
Link(s) of the submission on streaming services
https://soundcloud.com/user-514960188/sets/thanatosis-ost
Number of tracks4
Genre
Soundtrack use permission
![](https://licensebuttons.net/l/by/3.0/88x31.png)
Any project
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Comments
This is awesome! Love the drums/percussion throughout - super solid! Also a huge fan of the saturation you used in the first track! Well done!
mmmm That marimba in Plummet is fantastic!
Though I think Sunken Castle is probably my favorite track!
I really like the clanking beginning of "Sunken Castle"
Love how you devided to picture the bubbles in the first track! The Take Five groove in "Swimming Upstream" made me smile but you used it to create something new and unsettling, very liked it!
shoutouts to Dave Brubeck !!
I think you nailed the "watery" soundscape that you were going for in this soundtrack overall.
I wasn't the biggest fan of the addition of the drums in "Waterways". It's such a sick ambient piece, and the drums felt a bit out of place and unnecessary.
"Swimming Upstream was a very interesting track. It branches off from the overall tone of the soundtrack a bit more drastically than any of the others do, but still remains cohesive. I do wish the melodic elements were made more of a focus than the low panning noise layer - but I can see what you were going for.
"Sunken Castle" is by far the best track of this entry. Every element fits, the transitions are smooth (when the drums cut and the bass comes in, and then the drums come back - DAMN). Sound choice in this track was incredible as well.
"Plummet" is 50/50 for me. I enjoy the sound choices in this track. The addition of some more distorted sounds was great, and added a unique character to this track. The drums in this one I feel could use some work. The level of them works well in the chorus, but in the intro the are quite loud and don't feel placed in the mix well. Adding some little fills to the drum loop in the chorus would have been great too, as they get a bit stale.
Overall this entry is great. I enjoyed the cohesion of the "watery" soundscape throughout the whole thing and the sound choices were wonderful.
Keep up the great work!
Your melodies have a lot of potential. My favorite track was "Plummet" and the synth in 1:20 was so beautiful!
the instrument choices this are great for evoking the underwater theme!! i love seeing other people who put a lot of thought into their lore and worldbuilding :D good job
Hi Foxwings!
You have no idea how many times I've listened to Sunken Castle...it's definitely my favorite!!! How did you achieve those bell sounds? they are SO beautiful.
What you've done is amazing. So on point, very well crafted and super cohesive along the whole OST!!
Thanks for the listen! The bells are the swirling bells preset from hybrid keys with a phaser and copious amounts of reverb. Hybrid keys is a godsend - got it for free with massive and used it for like 5 different sounds on the ost... lol
very beautiful stuff you composed with the little amount of instruments going in the background it gave me astroneer vibes nice work bruv 🌵
Waterways: I actually like the distortion. Great watery sounding track! I think I recognize the one flute from Massive, I love that sound.
Swimming Upstream: 5/4! Great groove.
Sunken Castle: Great bass! This sounds so cool! Nails the sunken castle theme of the name.
Plummet: I really love your rhythms. Love the section at 1:27. The effects are a lil much at that part but I really love the composition and instrumentation underneath.
Great work!
Nice ambience here! Nails that mysterious underwater mood. I think you've received some quality advice on mixing that should help. Personally, I think the ping pong panning is a bit extreme on the second track, but it does produce a memorable effect. However if I was listening to a loop of that, I might get uncomfortable. Thanks for making and sharing!
The arpeggio of first track just catched my attention, sounds very atmospheric. Great music!
Your worldbuilding in this through you instrumentation choice was really cool, and you had some super out of the box harmony choices that took me a second to get used to but honestly I love it (swimming upstream was my favourite, it took a bit to click but it was my favourite). You Should be proud! I would say to maybe experiment with drum samples a bit as these ones felt a bit... piercing? Something thats a bit more deep and less resonant might help a bit, but still excellent work.
That is really unique, some weird, distorted mixed with some bubbly water creates an interesting atmosphere, played well with that. Although the distortion, the bass are way too much in your face and the drums probably too compressed which gives some muting effects from time to time. If you fix those than you,re all set quality will be top notch
I indeed did, don't have enough tabs going on , my bad i'll edit the comment after review.
Thanks for listening! It's been super nice getting feedback on mixing and mastering from this jam - I'll definitely have a lot to look into!
I love your style! The weird synths and textures are all so cool and work really well together. You said in the server that you hadn't composed music in a while but honestly I wouldn't have been able to tell.
Very creative and fun to listen to, thank you for sharing!
Immersive synths and interesting production! My favorite track was "Waterways".
Really interesting, thoroughly enjoyed this one! Sunken Castle was the highlight for me, the melody was beautiful & the background instruments just added to it so well. Plummet was also really well done compositionally, fantastic work.
This is a great project! The music and the game concept go so well together. My fav song is song 3, what a jam. A critique I have is there is a bit too much side chaining going on in song 2 for my tastes. Really enjoyed this OST, last song gave me chills. Great work!
Interesting beats all around - the levels are really high in some places, though. Too Loud!
Instrumentation for some pieces might be better if you found something smoother as an alternative (the dist. Guitar, for example.) But the way you describe the scenario and the music that goes with it were interesting to me.
im just gonna go track by track bc i want to
1 i actually really like this clipping, bass sounds super good, great transition actually its not too fast and really distinct, some of the reverb gets a little muddy at times but it all works, love the pitch modulation on the flute, ending could be less abrupt of a hard cut tho
2 holy cow this one jumps right in, loving the panning on the ambience as well as the detune and key modulation (or you could call it just straight up chromatic stuff), sidechaining might be a bit much but it works
3 i like the phasing on the bells a lot, melody is very nice, i like the pulsing of the drone it provides a lot of driving feel, jeez thats some bass, i quite like your bass work throughout this project, this song has so much going on you can pay attention to, might be my fav, good ending too
4 very nice pingpong delay, double kick i like it, flute motif again i like it, reverb on the drums is a very nice touch, very nice distortion at the end of that section, thats a nice ass lead, gonna ask you like everyone if youre making your own synths, very solid climax to the project, tasteful outro
honestly not much i can really say against it, def fits the theme and everything is interesting, first drums in sunken castle are a little quiet but idk what else you could really do with them, maybe make them a bit louder and put a low pass on em instead, that bass is still so fat
overall i quite enjoyed it, solid motifs and everything is catchy, drums kinda stick out sometimes but i struggle with drums to the point where i cant really criticize it cause they def work, really like that lead in the bigger part of plummet, idk im rambling yeah really good
thank you so much for the feedback! definitely agreed on what you said about the drums and the muddy feeling on some of the tracks. The lead in the climax of plummet is actually mostly the inferno electric guitar sample from sytrus, alongside a saw with a ton of distortion on it lol. bass is mostly massive presets bc I don't hear low frequencies well enough to make my own, so I'm pleasantly surprised that it sounded good!
Thanks again for the review!