Thank you for such a great review!
Okay, I now have a playlist of about two and a half hours of music from the Eternum OST to listen while I'm doing something else. Thanks a lot!
Now that I listen those music without the game's ambience, I realize that some of them reminds me OST from other games. For instance, Another Round gives me Prof. Layton vibes. Some others sound like they could fit with Nobuo Uematsu's work on Final Fantasy.
Oh, fun fact: due to a misclick, I added Lindsey Stirling's Carol of the Bells to the playlist and… I thought it fitted perfectly with the others tracks. So now I wonder how it would look if she appeared in the game, for instance if Orion invited one of the girls to see her in a concert. As her clips looks like she's visiting a distinct Eternum server each time, it could match.
More seriously, can't wait to listen what you'll put on The New World, pirate-themed things looks promising. Oh, and could we please come back to Valley of the Kings? Those Who Love is cool, but I would love some more egyptian-themed music (Eternum: come for the sexy, stay for the story, ask for more for the music :-°)
And, I wonder… could it help you if I link some ambient music released under Creative Commons (or other licences allowing to reuse it)? There's a few of those I enjoy that may sound cool in the game, but as I don't know how you work for this, I'd rather ask before spamming :-)
Let's go, then !
First of all, there's a great turn-based strategy game called Battle for Wesnoth, that is fully (so, including the music) released under free licences. Some of the musics (especially the elvish theme) may fit for med/fan servers. Sorry, I don't know any link to directly listen them from the browser, but you can download them with the game or from the github repository. Here's a summary:
https://wiki.wesnoth.org/Available_Music
Then Laei made some calm, a bit sad ambient music that could fit for nostalgic or introspective moments, like when Alex is remembering her grandma. I personally find “Petit pantin au cœur de glace” (french for “Little puppet with a heart of ice”) particularly fascinating.
https://laei.bandcamp.com/album/eponyme-i-a-soundtrack-for-my-life
Now, let's come to Dogmazic. That's the website of a french association promoting music released under Creative Commons and other free licenses. There's a lot of really good things here, so I suggest you to search the whole site, but here's some pointers:
Greg Baumont released an album called “Wood”, with various ambient music. I especially like “La sixième porte de shanaaghar” (“the sixth door of shanaaghar”, don't know what shanaaghar is supposed to be) and “The blue star”.
https://play.dogmazic.net/albums.php?action=show&album=670
Dogers made an album called “Contes à la lueur d'une bougie” (“Tales by candlelight”) that can easily be used as a soundtrack for table role-playing game or for some good old RPG-maker game. My favourite here is “Un bien étrange marché” (“a very strange market”) that can fit for visiting curious places, but “Profondeurs” (“Depths”) and “Confrontation” can also work for worrying situations.
https://play.dogmazic.net/albums.php?action=show&album=8997
Ehma has uploaded several albums of various genres on the site. I especially like “Pizzicato”, for instance for a journey sequence, or “La porteuse d'eau” (“The water carrier”) where the intro gives me vibes of coming home after a long trip.
https://play.dogmazic.net/albums.php?action=show&album=441
If you're looking for tropical, jungle themes, maybe Philippe Mangold's work can do the job too, with tracks like “amazonia”.
https://play.dogmazic.net/albums.php?action=show&album=1946
Well, I'll stop here for now, that's already a lot of things. But as I said, don't hesitate to search through Dogmazic, there's really a lot of gems here.
Hope some of this will help!
You're welcome, thank you for the game :D
Now I'm even more curious to play the next chapters, I wonder if I will recognize some of the tracks while playing ^^
Don't hesitate to post here if you choose to use some of them, thought: that would help to wait until the next chapter is released.
…which makes me wonder: how do you work on it? Do you start by writing the plot/dialogues, then render the images, then add the sound effects, for the whole chapter? Or do you work scene by scene? Do you sometimes select the sounds for a scene first and then adjust the images to it? I'm a bit curious, but of course no problem if you'd rather not answer.