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Chasing Time's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Correlation to theme | #12 | 4.164 | 4.278 |
| Creativity | #27 | 3.947 | 4.056 |
| Overall | #38 | 3.872 | 3.978 |
| Quality | #52 | 3.893 | 4.000 |
| Composition | #54 | 3.731 | 3.833 |
| Impression | #60 | 3.623 | 3.722 |
Ranked from 18 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Description
In his efforts to unlock the mysteries of the universe, Johan has accidentally shattered the Hourglass of Eternity during his experiments. Time Shards are scattered across his laboratory and the fabric of time is thrown into disarray.
You play Johan in a puzzle platformer with time anomalies affecting his actions when they come into contact. The hundreds of clocks across your lab respond to the time anomalies too, sometimes they skip a beat, sometimes move much faster or slower. Listen carefully to the ticking to navigate through Johan’s sprawling laboratory to collect all the Time Shards.
Track 1 - Accidents Happen - The clocks are ticking just right, but something has made the Hourglass of Eternity unstable. Was it one of Johan’s previous experiments that caused this? He doesn’t remember anything unusual.
Track 2 - Dance of Forgetfulness - Johan follows the time anomalies into one of his main work stations. Whiteboards, stacks of paper and all sorts of machinery fills the room. It’s a cluttered mess and he has forgotten how to navigate through the area, especially with a time anomaly in the way. Johan discovers one of his old diaries that he lost here.
Track 3 - Syncopated Synthesis - The time anomaly in one of his filing rooms has caused a fracture in time. Halfway through searching for the Time Shard here, Johan stumbles upon his shadow crawling out of a time anomaly, and it quickly disappears.
Track 4 - Echoes of Invention - In his acoustic laboratory, the time anomalies are causing echoes for events and actions that are not limited to sound. Pushing a ball causes it to experience a secondary push moments later. The right and left channels have separate melodies each, and have delayed copies playing. The delayed copies of the channels differ in time to create a more complex harmony.
Track 5 - Pendulum Variations - In his chemistry lab, the time anomaly causes the events to reverse in time every few periods. Liquids that normally flow one way are seen oscillating back and forth. Nearly every sound effect and musical motif played is also played backwards.
Track 6 - Remember to Reflect - Collecting all the Time Shards, Johan returns to see his shadow at the Hourglass of Eternity. His shadow is disappointed him in thirst for knowledge, and accuses him of playing God. After battle, Johan regrets pushing his experiments this far, he realizes that some things should remain undiscovered. He repairs the Hourglass of Eternity, but chooses to end his experiments on it.
Message from the artist:
You play Johan in a puzzle platformer with time anomalies affecting his actions when they come into contact. The hundreds of clocks across your lab respond to the time anomalies too, sometimes they skip a beat, sometimes move much faster or slower.
Theme:
How does it fit the theme?
The premise of the story features a giant hourglass being studied by a scientist.
You play Johan in a puzzle platformer with time anomalies affecting his actions when they come into contact. The hundreds of clocks across your lab respond to the time anomalies too, sometimes they skip a beat, sometimes move much faster or slower. Listen carefully to the ticking to navigate through Johan’s sprawling laboratory to collect all the Time Shards.
Link(s) of the submission on streaming services
https://soundcloud.com/aesaire/sets/chasing-time-ost
Soundtrack use permission
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Comments
Accidents Happen: I only have relative pitch but I'm feeling some microtonal sounding notes here towards the end. Really unique sound. Loved the glass shatter.
Dance of Forgetfulness: Opening with a similar arpeggio to connect the tracks. Cool groove.
Syncopated Synthesis: This track is so extremely cool. Love the modal interchange in chord choices.
Echoes of Invention: This track has a constantly ascending feel and I love it. Especially a string of ascending chords towards the ending, all the way from iv to the bIII in the octave above.
Pendulum Variations: great reverse samples over the previously introduced motif. I love the multitude of ways you've connected to the time theme over the OST.
Remember to Reflect: perfect segue from the previous track. This really has the feel of finality.
Amazing work!
You're right on the first, there are microtonal sounding notes, but I'm just detuning the synthesizer more towards the end haha. Thanks for listening!
The combination of synthwave and chiptune, everything feels fresh and unique! Syncopation Synthesis has some interesting chord changes, and incorporating the natural 7th in the melody (a cadence in harmonic minor?). I like how Echoes of Invention builds up near the end, just like Accidents Happen did, which is a perfect introductory piece, and Dance of Forgetfulness which (to me sounded like a 1 b2 (A to Bb?) has some cool playful melodies. Then Pendulum Variations which introduces the same arpeggio, and melody from Syncopation Synthesis, with a reverse effect, and gets more sinister and really fits in with the description of oscillating back and forth. And Remember To Reflect is a bop.
This is some really good stuff! I enjoyed listening to it... and um please excuse my messy descriptions I was just stating my thought processes.
I also read the story, and was imagining how the puzzles would look like. Coming up with such an interesting plot isn't an easy task. Good job!~~
"Syncopation Synthesis has some interesting chord changes, and incorporating the natural 7th in the melody (a cadence in harmonic minor?)."
It's a raised seventh not natural, but yes it is a cadence in harmonic minor.
"Dance of Forgetfulness which (to me sounded like a 1 b2 (A to Bb?) has some cool playful melodies."
Yep, there's A to Bb somewhere at the start, added it for a little spice. Good catch.
Thanks for the comments and taking the time to listen!
really great work!!! reading your descriptions along with the songs was great, and i could definitely hear all of the things you mentioned! "Echoes of Invitation" and "Pendulum Variations" both sounded particularly cool to me, and the way you composed them was super creative, and fit the theme great. all in all this was amazing! loved listening to it :))
I'm glad you enjoyed it, thanks for the feedback.
Very interesting mixture of 8bit with modern sound. Syncopation Synthesis is my favourite from the OST. Good job! :)
Accidents Happen: This is a perfect introduction to your OST and game’s story. You set up a mood and a motif and then change it to show that the tension is rising as an accident happens. I love the addition of the shattering glass which further helps me “see” your story unfolding in my head as I’m listening.
Dance of Forgetfulness: I like the use of the same motif as the first track. My favorite part of this track is the use of the diminished chords. The groove you set up makes this a good background track to the first level showing us how to play and keeping things relatively straightforward while giving the player a challenge still.
Syncopation Synthesis: Similar to the previous track, I love your harmonic choices and I think the groove helps keep the momentum moving forward, while also keeping things fresh. In particular I love the bass layers you have along with the strong kick drum which feels like it’s pulsing out the seconds.
Echoes of Invention: I like how the beat represents the echoes with two ticks every second. The long droning notes give this piece and room in your game a sense of largeness and expansiveness. The idea of a time echo is so creative!
Pendulum Variations: The pendulum noises you use sound like a heartbeat which is a cool effect. My favorite moment is when you start introducing the new progression with the minor chord at 0:52.
Remember to Reflect: This is really cool coming from the theme before this because it starts out feeling similar, but the tempo is increased and you add in a really funky bassline. This is a great contrast from the droning pedal bass tone in the previous track. I find myself bobbing my head and dancing when your “chorus” comes in. The reverse glass breaking effect at the end and then returning to the main theme is a really cool way to finish the piece!
Overall: You keep a consistent vibe throughout your OST that makes it feel like a complete game and a very natural progression from one room to the next. I think your bass and rhythm section compositional skills stood out the most to me and I had a good time listening to all of these tracks. Great job and thank you for sharing!
I've seen you leaving some pretty exhaustive write ups for many of the submissions. Thank you for taking the time to do so and keep up the great work.
Same to you - thank you for all the detailed comments you have been leaving as well. I think that active listening helps me appreciate others' music the best while also allowing me to learn the most from it. Not to mention, it feels really good as a composer to know that somebody has really been thinking about your music, and I want to help others have that feeling as often as possible!
Nice mix of chiptunes and synthwave, that's a well sounding soundtrack! Great Job!
Thanks for listening!
The drum sound design on these tracks is brilliant! Very nice composition and unity throughout the OST, it tells the full story of your character super well. The highlight for me was those swirling harmonies in "Echoes of Invention", absolutely hypnotising. Stellar job overall!
You're the first one to mention "Echoes of Invention", it's one of my favourites but it seems to be not very popular haha. Thanks for taking time the time to listen, much appreciated.
I wasn't expecting a light-hearted track after the first one, but I was pleasantly surprised. And I really like that you still throw some dissonance here and there, it gives a feeling of the anomalies interfering with the music. In fact, the rise in tension in the following tracks make for a very good pacing.
I wanted to listen to your stuff because I saw some very accurate feedback you left somewhere and thought you were very good. Well, I was right, your music sounds excellent!
The light-hearted track wasn't actually supposed to be that cheerful, it just sort of turned out that way the more I explored the idea. It did fit some of the themes of the story so I decided to keep it in. Happy to hear that it worked out. Thanks for taking the time to listen and comment.
I hear the opening track: Oh, it's gonna be a synthwave bop, yessss
Later: Who put all these goth rock chiptunes in my synthwave bop? I didn't expect these to be here!
There's a lot of different 80s influences here, but nothing I would call derivative. A lot of it is subtle. I'm impressed you pulled off what you did. I personally like a full soundfloor, I know that it's not everyone's thing but I can't think of another entry that had the courage to deliver something as dense and full-throated as this.
The whole soundtrack turned out a little more diverse than I intended; I tried to stick to a small number of synthesizers, but different musical ideas bring out different qualities of each instrument. Thank you for taking the time to listen and comment.
I love the texture you put in and found it fun to listen to. The story is nice and fits well with the music. I feel an attachment to Johan after all these experimentations. >.< Great job !
Thank you for listening. I'm happy Johan left an impression on you, I had a lot of fun writing the story to fit the themes.
Well presented idea and good delivery. Headbanging to "Remember To Reflect"
Thanks for listening!
Sounds fitting for a puzzle platformer! Great job!
Thanks for taking the time to listen!
To me it feels like a mix between chiptune music, both from early 80s and from the 90s, but also a more modern soundscape which makes it intriguing. I like the use of a theme coming back, but perhaps a bit more variation could have been in place (either in sound or the motif itself, or both). I also like how the theme was incorporated - You manage to both make it obvious and subtle at the same time - nice!
Thanks for the feedback :)
Will try to spice up my leitmotifs a bit more in the future.
This is a nice OST. I like how it incorporates the theme of this jam and the composition of the tracks and the leitmotifs. My suggestion would be to use more diverse instruments, but the chiptune vibe of the OST is really fitting. My favorite track is Syncopated Synthesis.
Haha, I didn't have enough time to go that deep into sound design, I normally don't write music this fast. Ended up reusing the few synths I picked early on. Thanks for the feedback, much appreciated.
No problem. I had this problem myself.