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I think this song best captures the crystal-castle theme, not only that but it's an excellent balance. Better then all of the other songs I've listened to so far.

5 stars in coherence to theme. 👍

Interesting that this song has the only use of the pipe organ to portray a castle vibe. Listening to it now, yeah, obviously, pipe organ = evil castle, of course it does.  I'll keep that in mind next time I try to make a castle song.

Maybe somebody was more excited to play sick, powerful, room-filling chords on a pipe organ to remember the crystal in 'crystal castles' though. Unfortunately, I don't get a crystal vibe here.

But as a castle, this does very well. The use of the choir is foreboding and fills me with dread. And the latter half is like I an ascending the spiral stairs of an immaculately decorated castle. 

(also what's with the sonar-type sound at the end? Caught me off guard??)

Neat song. 👍

Damn this song is immediately different from the rest of the others. I REALLY dig the sample at 0:00 and how it sounds like it's glitching. It's kinda lofi/chillwave and that's really damn cool. It sounds like an unreleased track from HOME.

One criticism I have is the sleighbells. The rest of the song has this sorta lofi filter over it, but the sleighbells not having that really takes me out of it.

As for the theme of 'crystal castle'. In crystal-y-ness, it certainly hits it. But as a castle? I'm not so sure. That would probably mean the inclusion of orchestral or a large reverb effect to go over instruments to simulate reverberance in an large open space.

This song immediately gives a crystal vibe, at the start and at every moment in the song.

The crystal sound, seems out of tune around 1:07 and 1:58 are out-of-tune. I understand if you are just leaning in to that interentionally for the more atmospheric parts of the track. But they should not overlap with the more in-tune segments (2:05).

As a castle, well there are horns, strings and choir in half of the song. The melody at (2:05) fits very well as a royal theme, and is also kinda epic. I wish that type of sound happened more in the song.

As crystal song, yeah, it fits really well. As a castle song, well it seems to vary depending on the segment. Sometimes it's almost there, a great fit, to sounding more like an enchanted cave.

Maybe if you combined this crystal at 1:06 with high or low strings, you could have leaned into a castle theme more often during the song.

A real neat song. 👍

It sounds like a song from a film. It's grand, adventurous and exciting. The harmony has this interesting way of switching from dangerous to wondrous, in a split second. I imagine a massive crack forms in a mountain as a giant machine rises from inside of it.

The quality of the instruments is very professional, like something from a Pixar movie. ( other then a very slight bitcrushy-type effect on the really deep horns starting at 0:37) but that is absolutely not enough to give this any less then 5 stars on the 'Quality' section.

Unfortunately I cannot say the same for the coherence to the theme, 'crystal castle'.

There's not really a crystal or quartz vibe to the song. There sounds like a very faint glockenspeil sometimes in the song, but it never takes center focus.

As for the castle-y-ness. This song absolutely perfectly strikes a grand sense of wonder. But it's not quite castle. It's an orchestral arrangement, and there's strings all over the place in this song. But castle-y-ness is a bit harder to achieve.

I look forward to whatever else you make, I just hope you stick more to the theme next time.

Great song regardless. 👍

It sounds like a song from a film. It's grand, adventurous and exciting. The harmony has this interesting way of switching from dangerous to wondrous, in a split second. I imagine a massive crack forms in a mountain as a giant machine rises from inside of it.

The quality of the instruments is very professional, like something from a Pixar movie. ( other then a very slight bitcrushy-type effect on the really deep horns starting at 0:37) but that is absolutely not enough to give this any less then 5 stars on the 'Quality' section.

Unfortunately I cannot say the same for the coherence to the theme, 'crystal castle'.

There's not really a crystal or quartz vibe to the song. There sounds like a very faint glockenspeil sometimes in the song, but it never takes center focus.

As for the castle-y-ness. This song absolutely perfectly strikes a grand sense of wonder. But it's not quite castle. It's an orchestral arrangement, and there's strings all over the place in this song. But castle-y-ness is a bit harder to achieve.

I look forward to whatever else you make, I just hope you stick more to the theme next time.

Great song regardless. 👍

I was worried that I was a little too careless and harsh in my criticisms! But it seems you really took like a champ. What a relief!

So far I've noticed in game jams that people I know compete in, everyone is too polite to give feedback that could be valuable. That's a shame, I would like to see people improve, but I don't want to be jerk.

It actually seems to require some balance and practice to do well. I can see why people just flatter other people's works.

Although, I have distaste for non-specific feedback like that. It's like how I imagine being told 'you're beautiful' as a woman vs something more specific and heart-felt would be.

And yeah that's a completely reasonable choice not straight up naming you drug trip of a song meth haha.

It's a shame that you forgot to add those effects at the end. I am very interested in what a song combining your style and the theme of a crystal castle/other upcoming themes would sound like. There's a masterpiece hiding somewhere in there.

Hell yeah, a groovy song. As soon as it starts, I'm treated to a steady rythym.

It's harmony is pretty good too, it captures a perilous, threatening feeling as well as brief hope in other parts. I can imagine it playing over a crystal obstacle course.

This one immediately captures both crystal and castle. Most of the songs I've heard have this problem where they struggled to combine the two, and balance them. This one has no such issues. Strings and to capture the castle-y-ness. And the the reverby crystal sound for the crystal. As well as harpsichord, which kinda covers for both now that I think about it.

If I were to criticize it, I would say, that you could have modified the crystal with more reverby sound, and more overlaying crystal sounds to picture the castle as this massive sprawling and sparkling space. Or maybe to include more orchestral instruments, to portray a more royal vibe. But maybe that isn't what you were going for.

Great work. 👍

Okay first of all. Bad-ass. I think this is the first intensely dramatic song I've heard. It sounds like the soundtrack to an alien horror film. It's like I was fleeing from a xenomorph and fell into a mysterious hole, and in that hole I discovered some horrible truth.

 I thought at first it wasn't going to fit very well with the theme. But later on in the sing, I think it does the best at capturing a 'crystal' vibe.

The other half of this jam's theme - castle. I'm not really feeling a vibe in that area. If you included cello, violin, strings, or something like that you could've captured the other half of the theme. Around 3:00 there's like this (flute?) but it sounds more Japanese then anything castle-royal.

A very relaxing track with an ethereal vibe. Towards the end it's even romantic.

I can picture two good friends walking through the snow as they banter.

My main criticism is at the start of the track, the strings jumpscare you. The bass is super quiet, which lured me at first to turn up my volume, at which point I was shouted at by disproportionately loud strings (seemingly louder then any part of the song????). If you just made the bass in this section loud enough to hear, and the strings more quiet (like they are at 0:26) I could give the quality category the ammount of stars this elegant song truly deserves.

How interesting. This songs sounds just like the soundtrack to something christmas-y and simultaneously splendoroislt royal as well. Such a cheery upbeat song.

This song does seem to lean more into the 'castle' of the 'crystal castle' theme this jam had going. There's not very much crystal-y-ness. Although this does song like a Christmas song, and in my experience crystal-type sounds have a lot of overlap with cold sounds, so maybe not idk.

The square synth surpisingly sn't out of place with this orchestral song. It makes it sound like it's out of adventure time or some kind if cartoon.

Pretty cool. 👍

This one is hard to criticize, telling just from the name. It's goal is different. Although this was entered under 'crystal castles' so I can constructively criticize it in that way.

The jam's theme was 'crystal castles'. Listening to this song. Royalty,  luxury,  medieval fantasy, orchestral, or castle-y-ness doesn't ever come to mind. Kind of the opposite as much of the instruments sound out-right electronic or alien.

Okay, well what about crystal-y-ness? Well the entire song has this sort of crysral-bongo sound? Is one instrument enough to give like a sparkling, echo-y, reverby, vaguely cold vibe though?

Of course the goal of this track (I assume) is to be groovy, ambient and weird, 4:10 in the long version is my favorite part because of the rhythm. I actually listen to stuff like microtonal music every now and then. I also like the high-pitched synthetic at 1:40 in the long version.

Maybe if you sampled crystal-type sounds, and orchestral instruments and stuck more with those, I could rate this song higher on coherence to theme.

I saw the video of you fiddling around with whatever lovecraftian digital keyboard you had while you were making this. I have no idea how you would music like this. Completely Unrelated but it was really cool to see.

One more very minor criticism here, hardly related to the song actually. The file name is just Crystal's castle. If the waves name were changed it would be easier to sort through all the songs in files.

Never expected microtonal music to get in here but damn I'm here for it. Thank you for the surprise. Probably the most stand-out song here. 👍

Probably my second personal favorite. The harmony in the piano around 0:30 and 1:40 is dark, elegant and beautiful, sometimes feeling threatening or hopeful.

One criticism I can give is that, the 'crystal' part of the theme is hardly there. The selection of that single instrument to represent the crystal, being all that really seems to represent half of the theme. If you just replaced more instruments with marimbas, xylophone, rhodes pianos, had more high-pitch synths, I could've given this 5 stars under the 'coherence to theme' category.

As a castle theme though? HOT DAMN, I feel like I am infiltrating the bad guy's castle right now and It's epic af. Even if I don't think of crystals listening to it, It's still a menacing track. The percussion really gives this song a steady energy and movement that none of the others seem to have.

👍

My personal favorite for all the 20 songs submitted. The harmony is the best of all the songs so far. The arpeggio at the start is my favorite. I love the fast notes over what sounds like harmonic minor. Personally, I would have leaned more into that sound and style that for the entire song. It stands out quite a lot. Another constructive criticism, only after re-listening to the song several times do I hear that ostinado that was in the start. I would've preferred it to be more noticeable in the rest of the song's segments. Maybe replace it with a marimba or something high-pitched so you can hear it.

My personal favorite for all the 20 songs submitted. The harmony is the best of all the songs so far. The arpeggio at the start is my favorite. I love the fast notes over what sounds like harmonic minor. Personally, I would have leaned more into that sound and style that for the entire song. It stands out quite a lot. Another constructive criticism, only after re-listening to the song several times do I hear that ostinado that was in the start. I would've preferred it to be more noticeable in the rest of the song's segments. Maybe replace it with a marimba or something high-pitched so you can hear it.

You can watch this video I uploaded if you don't want to download the song.