Here's the late, late review ^^ (sorry I'm in the wilderness, in a campsite with awful signal haha). Well, all I can say is that I got sucked both by the story you told about these salt statues, and this beautiful blend of digital ambient with an orchestral twist ! You seem to enjoy using white noise as both a component and diegetic element of your composition style, which is neat. An inspiring work, maybe even my fave so far.
Play soundtrack
Under a Twisted Sky's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Creativity | #2 | 4.413 | 4.413 |
| Overall | #5 | 4.361 | 4.361 |
| Quality | #5 | 4.587 | 4.587 |
| Impression | #8 | 4.283 | 4.283 |
| Composition | #13 | 4.348 | 4.348 |
| Correlation to theme | #16 | 4.174 | 4.174 |
Ranked from 46 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Description
Cover art is by Acid Burritos
I made all the tracks in Logic Pro X. I made all my own sounds using synths like Phase Plant, Vital, Polygon 2, and Palindrome. I used both Orchestral Tools and Spitfire Audio Libraries for some of the Orchestral bits. Some notable gear I used: An old barely functioning 70s Lowrey Organ, a Handmade Human Resistance synthesizer (not as cool as it sounds), a Venezuelan Cuatro, and a Tascam Portastudio 414 for interesting resampling.
You play as a girl who is forced to run away from her home in the midst of a cataclysmic event. Her village finds itself in the center of a bizarre anomaly but no one does anything about it as if they can't even tell that it's there. There are no evacuations and the people live their lives as they would in any normal situation. But this is no normal situation. A few days after the anomaly appears change is evident. Rain begins falling up from the soil instead of falling from the sky, structures of salt and glass form from the old townsfolk, and the air became warm and moist like the breath of an animal. Eventually, the anomaly destroys the town in one night. The only things left are the odd salt and glass structures of what used to be townsfolk, the main character, and a baby who the main character decides to take care of since there are no other survivors. You explore different areas of a world that is falling apart at it's seams, searching for a new home and an answer to what is going on.
Track 1 - Comfort of Solitude: You find no traces of anybody. Your only company is a baby who isn't old enough to even speak. You still, somehow, are able to find comfort in this world. It's peaceful, there are still forests, there are still mountains, rivers, lakes, and meadows. All is not lost, there is still beauty in this world.
Track 2 - The Seaside Watchers: You come across the ocean. It's vastness is almost intimidating. You enjoy yourself watching the baby play in with the sand until something catches your eye. Three almost human-like beings in the distance floating high in the air above the water. They don't seem to be a threat but their uncanny presence is enough to prompt your departure.
Track 3 - It Writhes: (boss encounter) While walking in the woods the air suddenly becomes heavy. The baby starts to cry. Shadows creep in and the moon disappears leaving you in a dark void. A massive ground-bound creature begins pulling itself towards you. Every time you get a glimpse of it's head you see a different face of someone you knew. It's numerous arms that were scattered around it's torso dragged a long, twisting, fleshy, scale-less, snake-like body along the ground. Voices and screams come in from all sides. Some warn you, some beckon for you to come closer, all you want is to get out.
Track 4 - They Touch the Skies: You and the baby take a long deserved break. You find a nice patch of grass and relax. You become startled when the patch of grass begins rising into the air. Unknowingly, you sat on an animal you've never seen before. It continues to rise up and up until it reaches the clouds. You look around and see several other tall thin creatures with big heads that are covered in grass. Eventually the animal finds a new place to settle down and lowers itself back to the ground, you take the opportunity to get off the creature and on to steady ground. From now on you takes rests on rocks.
Track 5 - Plains to Cross: You arrive at what seems to be an endless sea of grass. Unsure of what direction to go in you ask the baby. The baby says nothing. You decide just follow the sun and hope for the best.
Track 6 - I Saw Him in a Nightmare: You reach the end of the plains and reach a small settlement. You find a place to stay for the night and drift off to sleep and begin dreaming. The dream quickly turns into a nightmare. You see everyone in the settlement dead. The ground is covered in blood. Suddenly you're in an flat open space that's covered by a thin layer of water. The sun is setting coating everything in a deep reddish orange. There is nothing but water and sky as far as the eye can see, but you notice something. A man standing at a distance. As soon as you notice him he runs up to you and grabs your face. You suddenly see visions of pillars of salt and glass, land splitting in half, water and fire consuming the earth, and finally, a vision of you falling. The dream ends abruptly and throws you into a panic. You run outside only to see the same anomaly that plagued your town floating gently above the settlement. You rush around town trying to warn people about the anomaly but they all look at you like you're crazy. None of them can see it. You realize that you can't stay in this small town anymore as it isn't safe. You and the baby leave the town and go back into the wilderness to hopefully find a way to put an end to all this chaos or ignore it and let it eat away at the world while you hide behind your own fear.
Message from the artist:
Had a lot of fun trying to wrangle my ideas into something
Theme:
Runaway
Picture theme
How does it fit the theme?
The character is a forced runaway, they had to flee their home because it was destroyed by a life threatening anomaly. I took inspiration from the picture theme to set "It Writhes" in a dark forest and have the main character be traveling with a baby.
Link(s) of the submission on streaming services
Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/twitchywhalez-247822379/sets/under-a-twisted-sky-ost?utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLoZq5D0TNLrAqkc1Cf5gSKQxm173usQPM
Bandcamp: https://twitchywhalez.bandcamp.com/album/under-a-twisted-sky
Leave a comment
Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.