Description
Okay so, I'm not sure weather I thought too much about it, or weeather I didn'r think enough, but here's more or less the whole thought process:
the general idea wa rather simple and pieced toguether by lots of ideas in vogue, wiyh clear inspiration from stuff like Life Is Strange and Celest. I also decided to make the game take place over the corse af a day (and not a year), having the seasons be symbolic.

Spring As Vera wakes up, she feels a mix of excitment for the coming day, and stress fueled grief, wich are represented by the dynimic instrumentation (as well as the introduction and refraising of laitmotifs). The most stressfull part was trying to ballance chill "just woke up", ecxited "wohoooo ITS A BRAND NEW DAY" and "am sad boi" vibes, but I think the use of a low-attack piano actually kinda handelled it. I also decided to make the actual spring melody very passing-by, and enphasize mainly the winter and darkness themes.

As for the imaginary gamplay, it would be a pretty chill exploration-heavy section where we get to know our protagonist by examining her belongings, and I think the vibe is perfect for this, as we find out she's an artist, we see an old upright piano that she claims to "hate but have fond memories of" and some of her medication.

in summerl: After getting herself to leave the house, Vera realizes she's late and has to rush to her classroom. That feeling is captured by the drums and electric-guitar accompanying a repeating frase though the whole song. I absolutely love how the summer theme is a stressed out version of the spring theme. Somehow, the harmony (based on augmented chords) workes soooo perfectly with the heavy-metal drums (wich took waaaay too long to get right).

Gameplay wise, this section plays out like a stressfull run-against-time section with the world simbolically worping around Vera, mkaing the path futher and harder. I honestly just imagine the whole screen in the style of the picture theme just EXPLODING IN EVERY DIRECTION and being an absolute beatuful chaos, like an animated version of Claude Monet (more on him later)

As for fall: After class, Vera visits the graveyard were her mother is barried. Felling alone, she shifts between cherished memories and absolute despair, wich is mirrored by the two clearly alternating sections of the song. In both cases, srtings take center-stage, but are played in compleatly oposite fashions. This whole Idea actually first came to me during luie Zong's "ghost choir" (check it out), when I saw how spooky music isn't that far-off from chill music. On my track specifficaly, I reHarmonize the flat six as both a creepy tritone sub and a smooothe space chord.

Here, the music is heavily incomperated into the gameplay, thgough the map alternating in diferent statedc according to the music, making the player have to keep their eras open to compleate a puzzle based level. I just love this idea so much, and I can allmost see the orange leaves turning into purple *space* as the ground shifts around.

Arriving home after a crippilingly long day, Vera reaches rock bottom. Laying cold and alone on her bed, we explore her dreams and nightmares, with the somber and vaguely-christmassy music enphasisng a reccouring dissonant melody. I'll bee fully honest, this was my most rushed track, but I'm not sure how much it shows. I showed all the trakc to my partents and winter was they're favorite, so it must not be thaaat bad. Onto the instrumentation, I actually really liked the contrast between the cheap electric piano, the shiny glock and the reveeeerby-piano, wich I fest made for a really cool (pun inteded) atmosphear.

The level plays as a revisit the the first location but frozen over and distortided in dream, forcing the player to use the skills they made along the way to find alternate paths to escape.

Ideally, there would've been one last track to finish it off and give the game a proper conclusion, but I really couldn't meet the deadline, so I hope y'all still like it! :D

And finally, about the cover arts, the picture theme immedatilly pulled my mind to my favorite impressionist, Claude Monet. at first I just thought "huh, thats a really neat style!", but then I saw it could be more. Claude (like his fellow impressionists) had a very specific obsession: repainting the same place sevral times, but at differrent times and weathers. AND THATS PERFECT FOR WHAT IM GOING FOR, so used different moments of the Rouen Cathedral as cover arts for each season.

so, thats all i've got to say, good luck judging!

Message from the artist:
yello :D

Theme:

Story of Seasons

Picture theme

How does it fit the theme?
well, it goes all in with the whole seasons thing, and loosely follows the picture theme. It does that by de whole Monet thing, and by using the emo girl as a framework for the main character, but thats about it.

Link(s) of the submission on streaming services
https://soundcloud.com/user-443610744/johnwillow-home-springwav

​https://soundcloud.com/user-443610744/school-summer?si=c0494ae1d6a44936829c6bab3...

https://soundcloud.com/user-443610744/graveyard-fall?si=071db2cb88a3439984d65437...

https://soundcloud.com/user-443610744/home-winter?si=014ac0392d0642bda41bf56b52c...