Play soundtrack
A Year to Remember (OST)'s itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Correlation to theme | #9 | 4.000 | 4.000 |
| Composition | #31 | 3.760 | 3.760 |
| Creativity | #38 | 3.600 | 3.600 |
| Overall | #39 | 3.592 | 3.592 |
| Impression | #49 | 3.480 | 3.480 |
| Quality | #90 | 3.120 | 3.120 |
Ranked from 25 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Description
I used a combination of the title and artwork for inspiration for the soundtrack. I’m kind of imagining a light-puzzle game that revolves around someone reminiscing about a relationship that begins and ends within the span of a year. They meet in spring and the relationship begins. They spend happy days together in Summer, but by the end of Autumn they grow apart, and the relationship ends. During Winter, the player navigates feelings of resentment and disillusionment, and withdraws into quiet solitude, before finally coming to terms their adventurous year. Each stage of the game revolves around one of the seasons and involves small puzzles that are based in a sort of dreamland that is constructed from the player’s daydreams and memories of the events of the year.
Musically, I wanted each season/stage to have a unique identity: I used mostly a common ensemble of instruments across the season, but each season has it’s featured instrument: flute/oboe for spring, banjo/marimba for summer, a cello for autumn and celeste for winter. Instruments also appear in secondary roles in their adjacent seasons. I compose primarily in Musescore, using the General MIDI/FluidR3 soundfonts, and then performed some basic mastering in Audacity.
Theme:
How does it fit the theme?
See above.
Link(s) of the submission on streaming services
https://soundcloud.com/user-349094787/sets/a-year-to-remember-ost
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Comments
Beautiful music. Great for Fairy Tale's OST, wonderfully done!
The Choice of instruments were great! I enjoyed all four very much. Aces in my book,
I like the style given by the classical instruments! The Luigi's Mansion theme in The Ice Spider was very funny to listen to! Great job!
Absolutely nailed the Seasons brief, with impressive instrument choices to lend individual character to each song. My fave of the bunch was Warm Days.
Thanks!
love it! sounds like something that could fit in the game called A Short Hike
love the cheeriness of the whole soundtrack
my favorite track was definitely autumn
Thank you!
Track 1: Woodwinds, percussion and pizzicato strings are a lovely way to convey the playfulness and youthful vibe of springtime. The flute/pizz flourish that happens is a lovely way to add more interest to the music, and I wish it lasted a bit longer honestly! Those breaks in the repetitive texture help drive the music forward, so excellent job there. (And as a violinist, we cannot play pizzicato that fast XD but that's no worry for the violinists in your computer!)
Track 2: Love the banjo and solo strings here! It's still a little playful, but more laid-back for a summery vibe.
Track 3: I could imagine the sound of this on a real cello being even more beautiful-- nothing expresses love and longing quite like the piano and the cello.
Track 4: Ooh-- this opening gives me Luigi's mansion vibes completely. Nice use of the N6 chord, we stan her :3
Altogether, each track is very nice. I especially like the bolder harmony in Track 4. Solid job and keep up the good work!
Thanks very much for the feedback! It really means a lot to me :)
Thank you! Yes, it's a banjo: I played with some other guitar sounds, but the banjo felt the most expressive.
Very nice soundtrack, easy to listen, sounds perfectly as bgm for puzzle game.
Fine work.
Thank you!
I really like the vibe of these pieces! They would go well with an art style similar to that of Link's Awakening remake.
Thanks!
Nice work :) "Warm days/Summer" really captures the lazy summer feeling. I wasn't even looking at the track title and thought, "This track sounds like a lazy summer day" and so it was!
The whole mood of your score really works great with your proposed puzzle idea. I can easily see this stuff accompanying something colorful and whimsical.
Sheet music immediately caught my eye (insert eyes emoji here). Stands out from most audio focused submissions. It was really a treat to follow along, and those funky cello runs in the first song were quite fun. I love the idea of an ice spider. I think that song fits the image perfectly. As much as I loooove the cheesy musescore playback, I would love to hear this recorded by musicians!
Thank you! I wish I could have live musicians play too, but I think that I maybe wrote some part to be unplayable by humans (e.g. I wasn't really sure if a cello player could play pizzicato that fast, but I thought it sounded god any way :) ) ... The white thing that appears towards the middle/bottom half of the theme image (by Cheddy Ju) looks a bit like an ice spider to me, so that was the inspiration for the name :)
This is really nice! I like the banjo in Warm Days
Thanks!
This is so cute! The cello in "Love Drifted Away in the Wind" and especially that spider theme made me really happy. The story is great too, you captured exactly what you were aiming for and I loved it. You're knocking it out of the park with those composition skills.
Thank you!
Very nice soundtrack, I especially liked the choise of instruments for each season, good work!
Thanks!
As i listened to these tracks i couldn't help but realise that they are in complete contrast to mine 🤣 i like the super positive vibe it emmits through the melodies, arrangement, etc. Great stuff! 👏👏 This music could definetly be in some Cartoon Network just show as it is
Thank you!
This is so good! I would absolutely love to play this game just for the music! I like the touch of having a featured instrument for each track. It really gives each song a unique feel, even though the whole project is very cohesive!
Thank you!
The paper mario vibes are strong with this one!
Track 1: This track gives me original Paper Mario vibes (one of my favorite games) and certainly encapsulates the essence of a nice walk on a Spring day. The bassoon vamp is tied together nicely with the cello and creates a feeling of a pleasant saunter with the occasional skip or two. I especially like the mode mixture arpeggio section!
Track 2: The banjo swing gives a clear feeling of a warm summer evening. I like that you kept it simple but still interesting with borrowing chords from the parallel minor key.
Track 3: I think that cello and piano sound so beautiful together and believe you made the right choice with balancing the low arpeggiated cello with chords in the higher register in the piano. This technique is very reminiscent of fall as the warm summer days start to feel a little colder. I feel like this track would work very well in a Pokemon game (D/P/P era).
Track 4: Bell tones immediately give the sensation of icicles hanging from the ceiling. I like the interjections of the flute with the glockenspiel/music box melody. Great counterpoint writing! Even thought the bassoon acts as the bass, I like how you set the harmony up well with the pizzicato strings in the upper registers.
Overall: I think your strength is your instrumentation choice and your commitment to simple, but effective melodies. I also appreciate the tasteful ambient noises as well- I felt transported to each of the 4 seasons. One suggestion I would offer for future projects is to explore using variations of dynamics in your music. There are many opportunities for swelling and backing off in the music you have here. I definitely understand the limitations of notation software-produced sounds though. Thank you for sharing your work and keep up the good work!
Thank you so much for your feedback! I am amazed that you managed to give such detailed and thoughtful comments and I really, really appreciate it: definitely agree about the dynamics :) ... I still haven't figured out how to do this effectively in Musescore yet, but will have a look for sure!
I really like the energy you've put into the different tracks, it fits your description well. its lovely music, and the quality is pretty good considering its just a general midi sound font.
Thankyou!