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ObScurus - Survival Horror Music Pack's itch.io pageResults
Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
✨ Soul | #2 | 4.714 | 4.714 |
💖 Heart | #3 | 4.286 | 4.286 |
Overall | #4 | 3.964 | 3.964 |
🧠 Mind | #4 | 4.000 | 4.000 |
💀 Body | #20 | 2.857 | 2.857 |
Ranked from 7 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
What did you revive?
The essence and spirit of Late 90s Silent Hill clones through a conceptual album titles "ObScurus", which tells of a game that which after failing to launch successfully, remaind lost media until 2023, in where it is being released as part of the Revival Jam (Fictional concept)
I attempted to revive a style of music composition developed by Silent Hill Composer Akira Yamaokay that was replicated to this day. A style in where Sampled sounds and libraries are generated through long stretches of processing to create entire sounds, pads, and in some cases even tracks.
Did you use any modifiers? If so which?
The first three tracks, I'll admit, were done before I knew of the Jam's existance.
However, Tracks 4-25 were procuded entirely between Monday the 16th and Today (Saturday the 10th).
What was your goal? Did you succeed? Any noteworthy lessons?
My Goal, before the jam even began and with the initial three tracks, was to study and replicate Akira Yamaoka's philosphy on sound design. I believe, honestly as bad as this sounds, you can truly hear the improvements as the Album goes on....a lot of the precussion / drum sample throughout the beginning is quite off and intentionally jarring because my approach was still my own experimental thought process, but after stumbling upon and interview with Mr. Yamaoka discussing the importance of linear movement throughout a track and the stylistic choice to not resolve chords to generate texture I began producing quite differently right after Apple (Track 13)
I believe I succeeded, at least in the sense that today (Saturday) I feel accomplished. I wish I could have done more but having 25 tracks that show my progression during an entire week feels outstanding.
Noteworthy lessions, I have so many of. Primarily to check my already owned libraries before spending 300$ on CD Keys for things I already own. Fun fact every sample CD library I purchased for this project / found on Archive.org was a library I already owned through Omnisphere and Omnisphere 2. I was quite upset but had a good laugh about it.
Who all worked on your submission?
Just me.
Did you use any noteworthy assets in your project? If so what?
Copy and Pasted from the project page -
Each Track consist of roughly Two to Four different sound samples all of which have been stretched and modulated in ways Akira Yamaoka would have done so himself. Long tape delays, looped reverbs, and constant over tracking all create a mix of horrific soundscapes and beautiful ambience ObScurus uses some of the most iconic 90s sample libraries, all of which were used by Akira Yamaoka. To credit each individual sample used would be tedious, so instead I will list the libraries I used which can all be found on Archive.com Drum ans Bass Interface Distorted Reality Spectrasonics Zero-G Bizarre Guitars East West Sounds XTortion Pandora's Toolbox Ghost in the Machine .
- When I say Tedious, I mean it would take me (probably) another day to go back and source / list all the actual individual samples used. A lot of tracks, especially the ones with Atmospheric / Ambient Pads, quite literally just had a ton of low EQ'd sounds put in to mud out the low end of mixes. A lot of Drum loops I also split through other loops to generate different delays and reverbs. I listed the Sample Libraries that can be found for free on Archives.org, everything else can be assumed to be included with Omnisphere 2.
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Comments
Reading your submission and listening through was a game history/music lesson for me, so thank you for that already! I can see your point about how you improved from tracks 1-25. The notes in '08 Cerberus' were almost upsetting to listen to, whereas later tracks felt like they had a much more controlled sense of foreboding to them (tracks like '17 Remember'). Honestly, though, the whole thing sounded great to me. Texture and Atmosphere are words that definitely came to mind while listening.
I appreciate this reply very much.
It's funny ou mention Cerberus. Cerberus and Apple (Track 13) were written at a point where I wanted to incorperate notes as to when the song would play and what it's purpose in the Game side narrative would be but decided to drop that idea. Both tracks felt like they leaned to much into that whole part of the submission. They were basically "boss fight" tracks, or tracks that would accompany specific creatures.
Sleepers, GlassTraps, Touched, and Butcher all fall into that category too, with the exception that I felt those could stay because they also just worked really really well as ambient tracks.
At the end of the day I put probably a little over 30 hours into this project in a week and didn't want to cut any tracks even if I personally no longer had interest in them.
I’m a sucker for Silent Hill and this totally scratched that itch for me. Forgive and Butcher are my fave tracks, but they’re all enjoyable!
Thank you.