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The Peculiar Book Town's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Quality | #5 | 4.243 | 4.500 |
| Correlation to theme | #6 | 3.889 | 4.125 |
| Overall | #6 | 3.724 | 3.950 |
| Creativity | #8 | 3.771 | 4.000 |
| Did you imagine the town ? | #9 | 3.300 | 3.500 |
| Composition | #9 | 3.418 | 3.625 |
Ranked from 8 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Theme
Book town
Correlation to theme
The song is mysterious based on what the books in the town mean and samples of books are used to add to the ''book-ish'' immersion.
In the beginning the song sort of opens up like a book (Stereo width increases) and near the end the book closes up again (Stereo width decreases).
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Comments
The Peculiar Book Town: This definitely captures the aura of dark magic. Your instrument choice is what defines the imagery most for me. The echoey strings give a distant flowy sound while the juxtaposed upright bass strums add elements of intimacy. The piano and mallet instrument fill in the upper register well with a magical vibe while the ghostly pad doubling the melody gives a spiritual nature to the piece. I think your use of page turning sound effects is a nice touch too and I like how it became louder with more reverb at the transition to the second section. I hear what sound like musical allusions to Harry Potter that add to the magical nature of your sound.
Did I imagine the town?: I certainly was able to imagine the scene, though the intimacy of the music made me imagine more of a single room rather than an entire town. Though I imagined that with the dark magic, there was a magician overlooking a miniature town set up on the table and he was influencing how the townsfolk act while silently studying the spells in his spell-book. This is a cool piece and a unique vibe indeed! Nice work and thank you for sharing!
Really cool! It is the kind of track I would see myself making given the weird but interesting choices you made. The switch from 3/4-metric to 5/4 to 4/4 back to 3/4 was cool for me! I don't know how other people will react to it (people tend to dislike metric changes sadly) but I loved it and I think the bass-line was simple enough for people not to get too confused or caught off-guard. Though my goodness, even within these already confusing changes you managed to trick my ears: from 1:23-1:28 that bass-line is pure evil!
The starting measures repeated 4 times, which was júst enough for me not to get annoyed by it, so nice timing there ;). Overal, I really like the song! It gave the mystery I would have expected from a book- or library-town, was challenging but rewarding to listen to (from an analysis point of view at least ;), and overal sounded great. Well done!
Thank you. I tend to make weird choices when making music even if the larger portion of listeners dislike meter changes. I like tricking peoples ears, for example the 5 over 3 stuff in the beginning, but I'm glad that you were able to grasp these things and give feedback on the odd stuff that other listeners might not notice.
Excellent ! I didn’t notice the switch of metric ! That’s very well composed because it’s pleasant to listen (it can bring confusion sometimes but not here)
Nice track!
If I had to give any criticisms, it is that it gives me more of a dungeon vibe than a town theme. I imagine a decrepit library with a labyrinthine layout as opposed to a town.
Although, I suppose it could fit a community built within such a location. I suppose the issue is that my mind goes to a more interior setting than an exterior one.
Yes, it sounds dark, but it sounds like a mysterious library. I love the sound of turning pages.
Very nice use of reverb and stereo.
A little downside though, you put the piano sound on the left and it sounds great when it's in the mid and high range. On the other hand, when that leaves in the low register on the end and that the piano doubles the bass, I find that the stereo is unbalanced. This is only my opinion, but I have the impression that even with a wide stereo, it is better to keep the bass as centered as possible. What do you think about it ?
I also really like the counterpoint of the glockenspiel, it complements the piano wonderfully.
Thanks for the kind words but also thanks for the feedback on the piano and the bass. I went back into my daw and changed the piano and you're right, it does sound unbalanced with the lower notes on the piano. Thanks again.
I didn't expect a song on Book Town to be this dark, but to my surprise that works very well!
Also very good mixing I love how powerful the bass sounded.
Thank you!
At first I wanted to do a more cheerful song but ultimately decided to go with a more dark sound because I imagined the books in the town holding dark spells, dark magic, etc.