Play music
Dark Crystals's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Coherence to the Theme | #4 | 3.833 | 3.833 |
| Overall | #9 | 3.444 | 3.444 |
| Creativity | #11 | 3.250 | 3.250 |
| Quality | #12 | 3.250 | 3.250 |
Ranked from 12 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Difficulty Level
Beginner
For those who have just started composing
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Comments
Overall an enjoyable listen. I'm a sucker for nice minimalistic stuff just wallowing in nice string chords, so I really liked 0:24 onwards especially.
I can see that you are trying to build up/mix up layers of motifs (forgive me if I'm wrong on that assumption). The triplet harp works very nicely while using the held string chords, because it adds that gentle momentum that you otherwise wouldn't have with static chords, and the dialogue between the glock and the pizz strings is a nice touch, but I have to say I think the re-inclusion of the harp triplets in bar 9 felt quite forced and didn't gel as well as other sections. I think its worth keeping in mind that you can still nod to that harp motif without playing it note for note. For instance you can change the scale you're using, or fragment the motif, or change the rhythm but maintain a similar melodic shape. It can be those kinds of careful adjustments that, I believe, allow a piece to flow naturally from section to section.
Nevertheless, nice work and it would've been great to see how the track developed if you had had more time. Always glad to see another musescore user :)
Really nice short piece, feeling very organic. Loving the playful vibes of the bells and plucked strings, joking around against the string section being oh so serious and mysterious. Are these all musescore sounds? Impressive. I tried it some years ago and the quality was always far from other DAW VSTs, but I see they have improved a lot.
They are all Musescore sounds, yes! Musescore is starting to be quite good with those.
Nice work!!! I think you could’ve used a little more air time to develop motifs since you have a couple different sections in there. Though I’m all for short and sweet!
Thank you!
Really well composed track, it was very enjoyable and I wish it was longer. I think the pizzicato string need to be brought forth just a little bit. I'm wearing headphones and I can barely hear them.
Ah I see. I'll make sure to mix with headphones next time! Thank you for telling me!
super cool - gave me kind of a kingdom hearts/disney vibe which is right on theme IMO
Thank you!
It definitely feels like a song I’d hear in a crystal castle. I really liked the 'question and answer' interplay between the strings and the bells. Personally, I’d trim the silence at the end of the piece, but other than that, great job!
Ah yeah, I completely forgot to bounce out the audio at the correct spots. Probably as I was in a rush to submit haha
powerful start, would have let drag out longer, before soloing with what sounds like xylophone with echo, which communicates distance to me. These works great as a theme for scenes with the character. to let the player know the difference between play time and cut scenes.
particularly a cut scene where the player enters a crystal castle with his guard up. Dont know why but this reminds me of the original jak daxter classic with pre-cursors.
Good stuff!
whoa timeout are you using musecore? thats impressive! i struggled with that program, but its been while. I dont practice reading music enough, so when i tried the program it was fresh off a music theory course where all the knowledge was fresh in my mind. Do you have any training for music? did you use midi? or input each note?
Letting it drag out longer is a good idea, thank you! I was mainly rushing it since I realised I only had like less than two hours haha, which is also why I used musescore (I'm still slow with Logic and I'm having a problem with my sounds so I think I need to redownload it anyway, so). I do have training for music, and I've been using musescore for years now. I input each note! Sometimes I'll use musescore then export it as midi into Logic, which helps because sometimes I like the musescore sounds more at times, and I don't have a proper set up for Logic yet so it's more time-consuming to put in notes. I find musescore to be the easiest note program so far! But that's probably because I've mainly used that one over time, haha.
String harmony was beautiful. I enjoyed the call and response between the triangle and pizzicato strings (though the triangle was a bit loud compared to the rest of the mix). Bass was simple and worked well. Song overall creates a mysterious vibe, good job. On the mp3 version (didn't check the wav version), there is about half a minute of dead silence at the end of the song.
I will admit it took me a minute to realise why there was half a minute of silence at the end- I forgot to specify the spots I wanted to export, haha (oops). Probably because I may have been rushing slightly to finish it in time. Rookie mistake- thanks for letting me know! I'll try to prioritise mixing more next time! Thank you!
Very nice! Love the string chord change and the chord voicings there - well written strings will pretty much sell me on anything.
Thank you!!
Forgot to say mention that I was fearing "the skeksis" would jump out at me in the piece.
oh god haha very fair