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Mirage's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Correlation to theme | #131 | 3.872 | 3.872 |
| Overall | #231 | 3.559 | 3.559 |
| Impression | #236 | 3.513 | 3.513 |
| Composition | #242 | 3.564 | 3.564 |
| Quality | #303 | 3.462 | 3.462 |
| Creativity | #355 | 3.385 | 3.385 |
Ranked from 39 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Description
The game starts when the protagonist awakens in their dream. They have no recollection of who they were when they were awake, and they will forget everything about the dream when they wake up. The game follows them as they explore their dream world in an attempt to recover their lost memories and figure out who they were.
"Boat" - A track that plays in the background as the protagonist approaches the first city area of the game. The beginning arpeggio would loop for a bit, and then the section with the drums, bass, etc. would begin once the player gets close enough to the area.
"Anemone" - An ambient track that loops while the player explores a more remote and scenic area of the game.
"Janus" - A story focused track that plays at the end of the game, as the protagonist wakes up from their dream but also forgets everything that happened over its duration. This would be the only track in the game with only piano and no synths to reflect the major change in the story and the player's environment.
Everything was composed in Reaper.
Message from the artist
Any feedback/criticism is welcome and greatly appreciated :)
Theme
How does it fit the theme?
I interpreted both the picture and word theme as something relating to dreams. The game I am making the soundtrack for takes place in a dream. The music reflects this by generally having a peaceful feeling (no strong tension or intense rhythm) while still feeling surreal or disorienting (odd time signatures or lack of consistent chord progression).
Link(s) of the submission on streaming services
Soundcloud: https://on.soundcloud.com/dVWHjeAKn6foKPFMA
Number of tracks3
Genre
Soundtrack use permission
For game jams only
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Comments
I do not know why, but I felt the Samorost atmosphere from your soundtrack... Heh)
I liked it! Thanks!
So nice to listen to <3 Thanks for sharing!
There's a lot of cool effects and a nice atmospheric feel in this soundtrack. The time signatures are cool and I like how the drum tracks/basslines fit into them. The feeling I get from these tracks is a mysterious dream, so I feel the concept is greatly captured. My favorite track is Boat. Great work!
It's very Zelda and a bit of Celeste mixed in. It's gorgeous. I love the 7/8 feel in drums in the first track and the overall approach to this ost in general
VErY BaSEd!
BUMPUS
The subtle textures are very impressive and the overall soundworld created really suits the theme. I would maybe think about taking a different approach with the drums, either through different samples or with a more subtle experimental approach, as you could really explore some interesting approaches with that aspect of the tracks, but overall this is lovely work :)
Oooo right off the bat, Boat gave me some legend of zelda vibes. I was immediately immersed! Really liked the reversed guitar sounds in Anemone too. Definitely gets those nostalgic and dreamy vibes.
My main critique for you would be to work on mixing drums to sit more nicely within the mix. After that, using a limiter on the Master channel to bump up the overall volume will help your music to be much louder (use with caution though xD) Great job and good luck! :D
Damn dude, you really set a nice tone here. I love your meandering sounds. It fits the theme really well. Great submission!
i really would like to know what time signature that first song is, as me and my partner cannot entirely agree on how you intended it when writing. It was very cool tho! Absolutely loved every single track, the vibes were immaculate and I think the feelings you were trying to create here were both really well executed, but also drowned out by the sheer excitement and enjoyment i felt listening to this. Janus especially was just so pretty, reminded me of Kumi Tanioka's writing for minecraft, the simplistic nature but all these small gorgeous decisions that really just draw out the *feeling* of the song, while maintaining these flowing melodic ideas that just whisk me away to another world.
Thanks for the comment! In my DAW, I had the time signature as 26/8 because that was easier to work with. While composing, I thought of it as 3 bars of 7/8 and 1 bar of 5/8 (shamelessly stolen from "Lake Sprinkle Sprankle" by Delta Sleep). Its easiest to hear the rhythm by listening to the sine arpeggio part. For "Janus", I definitely took some inspiration from Minecraft as I really like the simple but beautiful sound it has. Most of my inspiration was actually from a lot of Maurice Ravel and some Disasterpeace.
I like your use of odd time signatures to imply disorientation.
Minimal, and yet that minimalism becomes core to the beauty of the soundtrack. Lovely use of harmony and space. Janus might be my favorite. Beautiful soundtrack!
Glad you enjoyed and thank you for the comment!
Beautiful electronic sound design: I love those minimal sine wave arpeggios, really beautiful. Perhaps I would have brought the drums of the first track a bit more forward in the mix (personal opinion). All three tracks fit perfectly with the descriptions you provided and are really well thought out as background music for a video game.
Thanks for the feedback! I went back and forth on the drum volume for a while when mixing. I definitely agree that I might have made them a little too quiet though.
Some really nice and gentle music throughout but still with plenty of stuff to hold your attention.
Really liked the sound palette you used and your approach to melody + harmony & etc.
I did think the soundtrack as a whole was quite quiet? I had to turn up my speakers a lot more than I have with most other submissions to hear it clearly, but within the tracks themselves they was a good balance between instruments and all the tracks felt at a similar volume level to each other.
Thanks for the feedback and I'm glad you enjoyed! I don't think I've ever noticed the volume issue, I thought SoundCloud automatically normalizes the volume of everything. Do you know of any way to make sure that the volume is more consistent?
Yeah sure!
Easiest thing to do first is to just compare your track to a few existing ones you know and like in the same style as yours and see if they're around the same volume, then make yours louder if they're not (and then also any others ones you're releasing it alongside if that's the case).
Then if you're still finding your stuff isn't sounding loud enough but you're hitting 0 on the meter in your DAW and getting clipping, use a limiter to prevent the clipping.
From there you probably want to look into using compression, limiting and saturation in general to increase how loud it sounds if you still need an extra boost. I'm pretty sure you'll already have at least one compressor and limiter in Reaper, not as sure about saturation but there's probably something :)
Thanks for the help. I'll try and figure all of that out as soon as I get the chance :)
No problem!
Beautiful and serene composition, I loved the speed of the final track.
Really calming vibes, that was a pleasure to listen to your submission!
Nice vibes I love that !
Lovely OST! Mirage suits perfectly with the cover art. The calm yet mysterious aura of your music is well settled and I truly enjoyed listening to it.
Great work!
Very beautiful opening track. the piano adds so much gentleness to the track, plus the reverse used throughout this track as well as the other tracks sounds very pleasing to the ears. Janus is really beautiful as well, the piano that sounds almost happy, depressed, cluttered, and blissful all at the same time really makes for a beautifully confusing vibe. Good work!
Thank you for the feedback! That confusing vibe is exactly what I was going for with "Janus" so I'm glad it translated well
Admittedly, I am a sucker for dream world settings, and you definitely pulled off a beautiful & atmospheric dreamlike sound in this OST :3
Forgive me as I don't really know technical terms for describing things, but I really like how the warm/calm atmosphere is complimented by the slightly eerie/disjointed parts that really sell the dream environment!
I am also a sucker for big plot points being reflected clearly in accompanying music, so I love your idea & execution for 'Janus'. The gentle, bittersweet melancholy feeling of the track perfectly represents the scene you described :D
Thanks for listening. I'm glad to hear that I managed to convey that mix of calmness and disjointedness well. Its also great to hear that you liked "Janus." It was my favourite one to make, but I was worried my piano playing wouldn't do it justice.
Boat: Vibes! Love the chords. Reminds me of Omori somehow.
Anemone: Nice and minimal atmosphere.
Janus: Love the unsteady, dreamy rhythm. Nice piano work. Some more cool chords.
Great work!
Glad you enjoyed! I definitely did take a little inspiration from the Omori OST when I was working on everything.
this was so good, i could fall asleep to it!