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A jam submission

LENNAKARINNAView project page

She Knows the Way
Submitted by PhantasmaCora (@phantasmaCora) — 1 day, 31 minutes before the deadline
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LENNAKARINNA's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Creativity#64.0004.000
Composition#603.4763.476
Overall#693.3143.314
Impression#793.1433.143
Correlation to theme#893.0483.048
Quality#1062.9052.905

Ranked from 21 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

Description
LENNAKARINNA takes us to a strange, otherworldly realm; a place of alchemy and shifting creatures, eerie scenes and mysteries.
I was inspired by the provided image theme to try and create something with "squishy," "melty," and "visceral" feelings to it. I was inspired by many other game soundtracks, but Noita's OST stands out as a major influence, not just on the music but also on the game I imagined (in terms of it being a sandbox/roguelike with physics simulation and alchemical themes). I imagine LENNAKARINNA would stand out for the ability to alter the player character's capabilities through puzzles inside the character's body, with weird squishy-fleshy softbody physics.

The genre floats around the rock/metal/electronic area with some ambient parts. Tracks include:

1. LENNAKARINNA (She Knows the Way), intended as upbeat main menu music and a theme for the main character seen in the inspiration image.
2. Dance of Detritus, an early-to-mid-game area BGM designed to feel wormy-squirmy, like the worms in leaves on the right of the image.
3. Azure Congeal, a mid-game area theme with a bit more intensity; perhaps it's march-like beat suggests an organized faction coming into conflict with the main character. Inspired by the relatively abstract blue section at the lower right of the image.
4. Stark Obsidian, a more ambient-ish piece at first with a melody coming in later, inspired by the purple-black rock the character in the image is climbing on.
5. In the Blood, the second track I started but the last I finished; my favorite of the bunch; and the origin of both major leitmotifs. This lategame area BGM is intended to make the player feel like an unstoppable badass, and was inspired by the red section in the upper right of the image.
6. Pathogen Manifest, where I let myself loose and created a banging metal piece to act as the boss battle music, also inspired by the large red blob in the upper right,
7. Spiral Glimpse (He Doesn't Know what to Say), the ending cutscene/credits theme, inspired by the cartoon "sun" at the top left of the image. Remember, eldritch beings (even if benevolent) have to be very careful not to accidentally hurt the humans.

DAW Used: Bitwig Studio
The abstract biological shape on the cover art was referenced from a microscopy photo by Dr. Igor Siwanowicz, found here:
https://www.olympus-lifescience.com/en/bioscapes/2012/east-coast-us-fern-polypodium-virginianum-showing-a-cluster-of-spore-filled-sporangia/

Message from the artist:
Thank you for listening to my music - I feel like I learned a lot in the process of making it so I hope you get something from it too.

Theme:

Picture theme

How does it fit the theme?
As noted in my description of how I composed each track, they are all inspired by a section of the image, and try to translate the mood and feel of the image into a musical world. The impression I got was of a lady adventuring through a strange, but not unfriendly, world, and I put that into the music as best I could.

Link(s) of the submission on streaming services
https://soundcloud.com/petraxeln/sets/lennakarinna

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Comments

Submitted

I really liked the atmosphere that these tracks created - where a lot of the entries I have listened to are quite sweet and clean, this one felt dirty and full of decay. Azure Congeal and In the Blood were standouts for me.   

Submitted

love all the chaos! my favorite track was definitely dance of detritus

Developer

Glad you enjoyed!

Submitted (1 edit)

Man you really mangled those sounds x)
I really like the strange composition! it has a real metal feel !
Although sometimes the melodic lines have a very nice and particular contour but the instrumentation stays the same under it
I think because of that, some climax and transition can lose power. as i listen i thought there was a few missed opportunity to make something absolutely epic

The level of production is a bit where it suffers the most, we can certainly hear the terrifying heaviness in potential but not in the actual music
and there are some things where you don't really know if you kept it intentionally or not (clipping sounds for example)
The sound design is great you really experimented in trying to make us hear "strangeness" and that's really commendable as an artistic gesture :)
it just needs that production polish to really makes us feel what you want to make us feel

Developer(+1)

Thank you for you comments! I am still in the relatively early stages of learning about music production so there are certainly things I could do better, I will take your notes into consideration.

Submitted

Yeah, don't worry about it too much if you're relatively new to this then ^^
it's a marathon, not a sprint 

And if you feel that my notes aren't conducive to your vision, feel free to disregard them entirely :)
The most important thing is that you don't turn it into a chore, you have something going on and a very creative way to put it together and that's already something to be celebrated ^^

Submitted

Lots and lots of compression in here, I dig it!!

Developer

I'm glad you like it! You must have a refined ear for sound design to recognize "oh that's compression" just by listening, I guess, but you are correct I bought https://nimble.itch.io/argent and I'm making sure I get my money's worth

Submitted

Really an original approach, good work!

Developer

Thank you very much

Submitted

Great job! Definetly a unique approach

Developer

Thank you!

Submitted

You're nuts!! The sound design is too good to be true!

Probably one of the funkiest sounding OST I've listened to today, I've enjoyed it A LOT. Pathogen Manifest and Spiral Glimpse ATTACKED ME and I wish it happened again!

Developer(+1)

Thank you, I'm very glad you enjoyed!
I was honestly a little worried about the sound design as I have more experience with composing and arranging vs. less knowledgeable about the mixing/sound design side of things, so it's reassuring to hear that you liked it. (Hint: Argent Compressor by Nimble Tools is absolutely worth the price)

Submitted

This soundtrack feels truly unique, I love it!

Developer

Thanks!

I suppose my own musical preferences are fairly unusual, and I try to write something I would enjoy listening to, so it would make sense for it to come out unique!

Submitted

I genuinely appreciate that you weren't afraid to make the listener a little bit uncomfortable with this one. This reminds me a lot of Lisa: The Painful's soundtrack (which is a good thing).

Developer(+1)

Thank you! I haven't listened to Lisa: The Painful before but I'll check it out now

Submitted

Super funky, weird soundtrack. I'm into it. One of my favorite moments is at 1:40 on Azure Congeal when that percussion comes in. Just a real sweet breakdown. 

Developer(+1)

Thank you! I like that particular beat a lot, I kind of had to be careful not to overuse it but it fit nicely there.

Submitted

Trippy, felt like a DOOM era game. You pumped out a crazy amount of content in a week, im impressed.

Developer

Thank you very much! The mix of "eerie" and "intense" moods seen in games like DOOM was certainly what I was going for. I'm honestly a little surprised about how much music I made in just a week too, although my college semester ended just before the jam started so I sort of used music making to fill the space left by not having homework anymore.

Submitted

I love that even before I read the description I could tell that this was a soft-body physics game

Developer (1 edit)

Thank you!
Oh, I just realized I forgot to make a note of my inspiration for the cover art, let me go edit that in now...

Submitted

This one's very disturbing in a good way. You fuckin nailed what you were going for. Good work.

Developer(+1)

Thank you very much, "disturbing in a good way" is high praise!