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LAST RITES's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Impression | #3 | 4.524 | 4.524 |
| Quality | #3 | 4.714 | 4.714 |
| Creativity | #5 | 4.381 | 4.381 |
| Overall | #9 | 4.286 | 4.286 |
| Composition | #12 | 4.333 | 4.333 |
| Correlation to theme | #77 | 3.476 | 3.476 |
Ranked from 21 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Description
We imagined LAST_RITES as a first-person action game focused on melee combat, where the player struggles to manage an ever-growing reservoir of rage.
While the main character's anger will ebb and flow with time, it'll never completely go away, and if you're not careful, you're bound to lose control at a critical moment and wreak incredible violence upon someone or something you care about.
The first track, "LAST_RITES," is an introductory look into the main character's psyche. He dreads his impending death, and turns his bottomless anger into a weapon, with disorienting results. Rage promises power and freedom, but it'll mess you right up.
The second track, "HYBRID_SUCK," is an exploration and combat theme, shifting between soft synths and a heavy, high-intensity chorus for when your rage bubbles over.
Lastly, "UN_WIND" is a chill little lo-fi beat we threw in as a treat. Secret menu music, anyone?
Theme:
How does it fit the theme?
The concept of "time" led us to imagine playing a character that struggles to manage their rage, which builds inexorably over time before exploding into a flurry of violence.
No matter how well you play, time is not on your side, and you'll always end up hurting someone or something you care about.
We used heavy, downtuned electric guitars to represent the main character's rage, which provide a thumping, rhythmic backbone throughout our tracks that never quite goes away.
We combined these guitars with elements from different musical genres, including synthwave, lo-fi hip hop, punk, and EDM. Listen closely for different instruments that provide a not-so-subtle "tick tock" throughout the tracks!
We also integrated the idea of "playing with time" into the composition of our tracks through the use of diverse time signatures, polymetric arpeggios, and metric modulation.
Lastly, we drew inspiration from the picture theme to create looping videos for each of our tracks, re-creating the central hourglass shape out of crystal, representing how the passage of time is only observable through its effect upon our surroundings.
Link(s) of the submission on streaming services
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPkcps39EVSWtqFimj85Aw6e2Wyae-Qy2
https://nesciosquid.bandcamp.com/track/last-rites
https://soundcloud.com/nesciosquid/sets/last-rites-ost
Soundtrack use permission
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Comments
LAST_RITES: The vocals and the guitar stuck out to me as both being very impressive in this track. The vocals are so clean and the harmonization is extremely well done despite pitch bending. This is my favorite of the three!
HYBRID_SUCK: The percussion and polyrhythms stuck out to me the most on this one. This was fun to listen to and very well-produced. I really like the synth pads that float in beautiful chords at 1:47. I think this is my favorite moment!
UN_WIND: Cool return of the vocals in this more subdued version. The lo-fi version could let me listen to this on repeat all day!
Overall: You put some great work into producing stellar tracks. The vocal work stood out to me as being very impressive. Great work and thank you for sharing!
Really nice take on the music and theme, and the first two tracks are really full pace ahead and well performed. The final track, while being quite different of course, makes a nice contrast and - as You state - makes for a secret menu or something similar. Great job!
I'm not too familiar with the genre, but wow both of them are bangers!! Loved the mix of timbres between voices and distorted guitars especially in the first one. Awesome job!!
To be fair, I barely know what genre to call these tracks either. Djent-jazz-hip-hop-fusion???
Thanks for the kind words, though! Glad you enjoyed ’em!
Impressive, couldn't stop banging my head. My favorite is the 2nd track, you created a bunch of effects on it that sounded extremely good. Each track is full of amazings ideas. Love it.
Production quality of this music is incredible! Really welll made!
Really outstanding roaring guitars and great work overall! Well done!
Only if I could produce electric guitars half as well oh my lord. Bangin' soundtrack. The vocals and time signatures in LAST RITES were very interesting. The way you repurposed the vocals in UN_WIND is also amazing. Lofi vibes and I really like how crunchy the noise is in that track.
Major is definitely to blame for the guitar production! ;)
I think it ended up being a mix of an Axe FX II (on Bruno’s side) and Neural DSP plugins (mostly Archetype Plini and Nolly) on my end.
I really liked your submission, too! Thanks so much for the kind words.
If you ever want to collab on something, hit me up!
This is so good! It was hard to stay sit on my chair and not stand up to headbang lol, great job!!
Let no one stop you from headbanging!!! That was the goal, after all! :D
All of these are so so so good. I love the doom sounding beats with the soft vocals, it sort goes with the idea of a character with two sides. Also really like the bonus menu song at the end, really cool idea to take that original sound and make it lofi. Great stuff!
Thank you!! You definitely spotted one of our main inspirations haha. Glad you liked the lofi track too, that was a fun last minute experiment.
This heavy, so good! Even the plot is heavy, so they match well. I'll try to give my interpretation too: it really feels like a Dr. Jekyll thing - the last track could actually be the beginning of the new cycle. The character cooled down thanks to some pills or acids, the only thing that helps them control their rage. But that's what actually turns the character into a furious monster, maybe due to some side effect, like hallucinations.
That was just my trip, anyway, amazing OST!
I love this interpretation! Thanks very much, really glad you liked it.
Needless to say, the mixing is incredibly well-balanced: the heavy parts sound like top-tier metal tracks out there today, all done within nine days. The combination of powerful guitars and synths all wrapped together give me a Guilty Gear vibe in the best ways. Great work all around!
Thank you!! Definitely put a lot of work into the mixing side of things. Very cool it reminded you of Guilty Gear, what an insanely good OST.
Woah, someone else did a story about a character who uses violence to cope with their inevitable death? Groovy! For real though, this is an incredible project. The varying time signatures flow into each other seamlessly without letting the listener get too comfortable, the instruments all sound high-quality, the vocals are on point as always, and you knew when to dial back the intensity just enough to make the more intense sections hit as hard as possible. I also like that the vocal motif from the first track came back in the final track, perhaps indicating that while things have calmed down for now, the rage will eventually return? idk i dont wanna read into it too much
Thanks for the kind words! We definitely tried to keep things dynamic and had fun bouncing between the intense and chill sections. I like that interpretation of the closing track too :)
Hey, someone else doing a metally synthy thing! Yours has a few more time sigs than mine though ^^ Genuinely one of the most unique submissions I've heard so far and definitely the most fun. Awesome job!
Hey, metal synth buddies! :) Thanks a bunch, excited to check out your submission!
insane???? really good???? i might be biased 'cause i love metal, but the composition is amazing. of course the time signatures and polymeter stuff relates to the theme, but you can also get a feel for the main character's personality through the harmonic structure of the music. i REALLLY hope that HYBRID_SUCK gets onto the final album release :))))
Haha thank you so much! Definitely cool hearing what aspects of the track stood out to you.
Damn some metal mixture! This totally makes sense for a melee combat centered game! Very high quality production and the fact that you have own lyrics and all is very impressive!
Thanks so much! We had a lot of fun with the genre mixups.