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The Abyss Of Lost Dreams's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Creativity | #44 | 4.100 | 4.100 |
| Impression | #218 | 3.550 | 3.550 |
| Overall | #230 | 3.560 | 3.560 |
| Composition | #272 | 3.500 | 3.500 |
| Correlation to theme | #311 | 3.450 | 3.450 |
| Quality | #419 | 3.200 | 3.200 |
Ranked from 20 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Description
Title: Abyss Of Lost Dreams
Artist: AuderMarr
Year: 2024
Running Time: 5:24
DESCRIPTION - Composition written in the loose form of a concerto for piano and strings. It is structured in 7 sections narrating the intro cutscene of an imaginary game.
THE CONCEPT - By getting inspired by the main image shown in the competition page, I have envisioned the extremely sad story, set in a fictional Far Eastern country during the early 20th Century, of a little girl obsessed with the sea who tragically drowns in it after strolling around her town with her mother during a sacred holiday. Because of an ancient curse cast by a cruel god, whoever drowns during that holiday is condemned to live in a limbo between life and death under the very waters that have swallowed them. A community of benevolent water spirits, touched by her tragic fate, decide to take her in and manage to transform her in a hybrid between a human and one of their kin, in order to break the curse; by doing this, though, they strip her of the eternal condition that would have expected her, so she will age and die exactly like one of them.
Once becoming a young woman, she decides to go and face the cruel god on her own, determined to interrupt the curse action once and for all, so that no one will ever go through what she almost risked to experience. The imaginary game I have composed this pièce for should exactly carry the player through her dangerous journey to accomplish her mission.
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SCENES
I. Life In The Abyss (0:00)
II. Memories Resurface (1:10)
III. The Sacred Holiday Fair (1:38)
IV. By The Sea (2:24)
V. A Tragic Swim (2:54)
VI. From Despair To Hope (3:34)
VII. A New Existence (4:23)
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TECHNICAL SPECIFICS
DAW - Reaper 7.18
VST Instruments: AIR MiniGrand, Orchestools Strings
Message from the artist
I'm open for any criticism or suggestion in order to improve (and expand) the pièce in the future. Thank you in advance!
Theme
How does it fit the theme?
The woman in the story narrated in the pièce is trapped in alien world that came to know at her expense because of her tragic fate, but nonetheless, in the imaginary game I have in mind, she is determined to exit her condition
Link(s) of the submission on streaming services
https://soundcloud.com/user-810475948/the-abyss-of-lost-dreams
Number of tracks1
Genre
Soundtrack use permission
Any project
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Comments
This is a really interesting piece that you’ve constructed. There’s a great sense of story arch and there are some great contrasting moments. You could maybe vary the way you use the piano and some of the fx, as this would just add more layers to the colours you use. The harmonic approach is maybe a tad abstract for a game soundtrack, but it gives it it’s own sense of character and draws the listener in :)
My gosh this is incredible, nothing to say other than you blew my mind!
Oh, thank you!
This track kept lulling me into a false sense of security and then hitting me with an uneasy chord or asynchronous rhythm...and it works so well! It was so much fun to listen to, and it was so creative. I really enjoyed this submission.
Thank you very much, Fallen Muse, it means a lot!
I’ll always strive for creativity rather than being too “conventional” in this kind of projects :)
extremely adventurous as everyone else as said, but my one critcism is idk where this would really fit well inside a videogame. still its incredibly creative and well produced
Thank you for the feedback!
I honestly think it could actually fit in the right game (with more polishing); after all, there’s virtually no limit or boundary to what should make a game OST :)
Really creative concept to go for a concerto single piece to represent the whole game but it works and is really cool!
Thank you very much my man!
This exudes creativity! Love the underlying crystallizer beneath the piano and the accompanying pads/strings throughout! Creating a mostly piano-only focused piece brings a very personal, stripped back perspective to your OST which I'm a huge fan of! Amazing work!
Thank you so much!
I’m glad you liked my approach; the crystalliser beneath the main instruments it’s actually just a simple virtual rack of single reverbs, delays and filters to which I sent the piano signal. As another user pointed out, I should’ve been more creative with their modulation throughout the composition, but unfortunately I didn’t have much time…
As others have said, this is an adventurous track! It doesn't adhere to any expectations formed and very much beats its own path as it progresses. It does so without sounding disharmonic, which I can appreciate - there are a lot of interesting choices of progressions throughout. I like how defined each section feels, it helps ground the listener.
I could imagine this in an RPG of sorts, perhaps in a dream-sequence? Good work, I wish you the best in the competition!
Oh, thank you so much for your appreciation!
You definitely got the point about it being a sort of dream-like sequence: more precisely, I envisioned it a sort of prologue to the story unfolding in the game, where the protagonist melancholically reminisces what happened to her.
I will also evaluate your entry as soon as possible!
What an advanturous track! I wasn't maybe receptive to every "harmony transgression" there was, but I think it's definitely refreshing to have hat kind of audacious/unconventional compositions :D
You talked about about criticism so what comes to mind if I try think that way : May be having some lower notes passages could have help this piece to breathe, like it's almost always on the high register.
Anyway, cool composition that breaks through the more "classical" landscapes we sometimes have! Congrats :)
Edit : when I talked about "harmony transgression" I was referring to the piano/cello sounding off key one to another, and it's just my taste. Pianistically, the chaotic aspect of the piece is what makes it interesting so I hope I don't get you confused 😇
Thank you so much!
It’s perfectly OK if you don’t like those harmonic contrasts of mine, I admit sometimes they get out of hand… Maybe it’s my fear of sounding too “canonical”, in melodies and progressions, I don’t know.
I’m evaluating yours soon, too. :)
I think that's good wishing to sound non canonical ! I learnt and experimented that way when I started playing music :) I hope I kept that in my own way, don't change yours. I'll have to check your other stuff also because I like that approach :)
absolutely love all of the forms this song takes in the way you have broken it up! i could totally see this being an intro cutscene song. like others are saying, i love your piano writing! especially the chaotic bits. good stuff!
Thank you so much!
Lovely piano writing and harmonic development. I like the game idea as well, very creative. Good work!
Thank you so much!
That was a musical journey you took me on, it was great and chaotic, and I really enjoyed the orchestration! <3 If you would like some constructive feedback, then I would like some more variety in the sounds. Like the delay on the piano, I would like to have a bit more modulation or something to make it a bit more interesting :)
Thank you very much for your kind feedback.
Unfortunately I was on extremely borrowed time while doing this and I regret not varying the sounds or the effects more. But since I didn’t have much time, I decided to try and set the track like a sort of old fashioned piano concerto with just piano, violins and cellos. Some volumes are also a bit messed up.
Danggg, some parts really go crazy. I love chaotic pianos. It's cool how you condensed a lot of parts/sections into one single 5-minute track. My critique would be that the strings feel like they came in late for some parts, perhaps their attack was too slow for the faster chaotic sections. Just offset them a bit and that should be solved.
Thank you very much!
Darn it, the strings were indeed rendered a little late. I was afraid they would sound a little too unauthentic with a faster attack… But now I can’t even fix that anymore. I wonder if that’s allowed, but I think not…
Instead of decreasing the attack you could try bouncing the entire thing and manually adjust only the late parts, since there were still some that sounded fine to me as is.
If you do get on the compilation album, you can make final touches to the track. Even if not, you can still rework it for your socials anyway!
I’ll definitely do that, thank you very much for the advice! 🙂
listening to this was a crazy experience, that franticness throughout most of the track combined with those dissonant clashes was interesting. however, it'd be nice to have some breaks from the tension in the song cause personally it felt tiring after a bit without any release. that build up though around 0:45 was neat!
Thank you,
Yes, the tension sustained throughout the track doesn’t get a real release because it was conceived like this: I imagined it as the musical background for a prologue cutscene playing before the game with little room to relax tension, in opposition to a more extensive soundtrack.
Ahh righto, makes sense