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Jiggyicarus - Event Horizon: Temporal Terminus's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Composing Quality | #7 | 3.653 | 3.875 |
| Overall Uniqueness/Creativity | #8 | 3.653 | 3.875 |
| Listenability | #12 | 3.594 | 3.813 |
| Execution | #17 | 3.418 | 3.625 |
| Overall | #19 | 3.349 | 3.552 |
| Sense of Atmosphere | #23 | 3.123 | 3.313 |
| Correlation to Theme | #29 | 2.652 | 2.813 |
Ranked from 16 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Link to Streaming Service (YouTube Recommended)
https://soundcloud.com/jiggyicarus/sets/event-horizon-temporal-terminus
Description
This four-piece soundtrack, “Event Horizon: Temporal Terminus” was written and produced for KaleOverlord’s Impressions Composing Jam Ambience No. 3. The soundtrack comes from the fictional video game of the same name, which follows the story of clockwork mage, Minoa, as she becomes frozen in time. Whilst searching for a way out, her brother, Caiyo, seeks to find her amongst a maze of forgotten moments and imagined futures, and must battle through evil forces and corrupted mages in order to reach the moment of time’s end, the Temporal Terminus, the Event Horizon.
Inspired by retro/modern JRPGs like Final Fantasy XIII and Octopath Traveller, and their emotional yet exhilarating scores which beautifully blend synths and orchestra, this soundtrack is designed to revolve around a singular motif and tonal centre that is developed and expanded upon through its variety of tracks. It utilises a repeating clock tick to remind players of the narrative/character arc of being locked in time. Given more time and without track limitations, I would love to expand on this four-piece idea and flesh it out into a fully-fledged JRPG soundtrack.
Track 1 - “Temporal Terminus (Title Screen)” is an emotional piano and cello piece that immediately places the player in the world of Event Horizon. The track’s emotional depth and simplicity evokes the story’s sense of loneliness and isolation, and prepares players for a journey with weight, difficulty, and loss.
Track 2 - “The Frozen Waste” is a looped atmospheric piece that would play as the player is traversing one of the icy and snowy environments in the game – The Frozen Waste.
Track 3 - “Time Moves Through Me” is another looped atmospheric piece with much more vivacity and bounce to act as a contrast to the previous environments the player has encountered. Here the character Cayo would soon be introduced to companions who will accompany them on their journey.
Track 4 - “The Horizon Fractures” is a boss battle theme which, musically, expands upon the previous ideas the score has explored, and puts the player into a battle for their life as time collapses around them. This is the first time the score dives into distorted synths and sound effects and signals that the game is no longer a sombre story of loneliness, longing and isolation, but a race against time itself.
Description of Setup (Optional but recommended)
Given that this jam emphasises understanding the mixing and production process, I approached this entire album with a very clear goal in mind. That goal was to expand upon a single musical idea, and to that end, I wanted each mix to feel as if it were coming from the same source. The instrumentation is consistent in being mostly solo cello (Tina Guo, Musio) and piano/synth hybrid, and the approach to mixing was simplicity in all elements, highlighting specifically the booming low end and open highs in order to create space for the emotional cello and ever-present ticking of the clock. I sourced instruments mainly from Arturia’s collection and did some sound design of different elements using Pigments and through careful automation of different verbs and delays. The mix bus is essentially the same on all pieces (besides the final piece which required slightly more in-depth balancing) and each track was mixed with a top-down approach. The goal of simplicity and cohesion in the instrumentation and the mix approach was to further serve the purpose of conveying the icy, cold and frozen ambience, as well as the themes of loneliness, longing and isolation. Where simplicity meets its end in track 4, is where Caiyo meets time’s end…where the Horizon Fractures.
Lessons Learned
Simplicity good. Complex...hard.
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Comments
The overall composition is great, simple melodies but work really well and mesh with the textures you chose. You also managed to keep ambient elements even in fast-paced tracks, which is great (I'm thinking of track 4).
I had a blast listening to this ! Only problem is, your submission is 6:04 long, which is against the rules.
Nonetheless I would love to play the fictional game you were making this track for. Good job !
Hey thanks Noah! Appreciate the comments that I managed to keep the ambient elements in! glad you enjoyed the melodies and composition as well, I focused a lot of those elements of it. Yesss I know it ended up 6:04 which was annoying - I was cutting lots of sections to bring down the time and it ended up coming out at that time overall. Glad to hear it would make you want to play the game though, appreciate the comments!
I really enjoyed listening to these! Beautiful cello melodies throughout. I think you nailed the JRPG sound you were going for.
Some of the lower end sounds took away the feeling that I was in a cold place , for example contrabass pizzicato in #2 and bass/kick in #3. These tracks were great though. I thought the higher end instruments/sounds were on point for a cold vibe.
Nice work :)
So glad you enjoyed listening warner rose! I was super happy with how the cello came out - I'm rly a fan of the Musio strings at the moment, I feel like you can get a lot of emotion out of that library. And I'm glad the JRPG sound came through, was definitely my ambition! That criticism makes sense, the bass definitely moves away from a cold sentiment. I think the contrabass in #2 could be turned down a bit for sure, although with track 3 i was aiming to divulge from the previous tracks and into a sort of new player environment, so I probs wouldn't change it but could see how i could rebalance to make everything feel a bit more cohesive. Appreciate your comments a lot!
What a sub Jiggy, damn.
The Frozen Waste and The Horizon Fractures, damn boi!
I liked all the tracks, but not all seem ambient, 1st one seemed like tomb raider menu song wach I loved, althgough I found the srings to be to much in your face and took me of the vibe.
Execution is good, but in some songs the strings are to much in the spotlight in my opinion, and instruments a bit harsh overall, maybe overcompressed, which does not help the sense of atmosphere
Great job! Take care :3
Thanks very much Muttz! I'm rly glad you enjoyed the tracks, means a lot. I hear you on those comments too, strings could be reigned in a little in places especially imo the cello in track one and the pizz can be reduced slightly. Overcompression I think came from my masters which sucks (still getting to grips with mastering) but for next time I know to go a bit lighter! Appreciate the feedback my dude
Heh, I feel like a few people have carried over the snow footsteps from the Snowshoes jam into this jam.
I like the piano going along with the footsteps in the beginning.
Some of the orchestral elements still sound a little midi, but it's not so bad, just something that could maybe use a little tweaking.
This definitely kicks ass though, especially love track 3.
Thanks Kale! I'm not sure about the footsteps though I don't remember putting any in haha, just a clock tick for the ambience of the piece. But i hear you, still find it hard to get some of the orchestral elements to feel a bit more real. I think I could get there if I worked on everything a bit more closely given more time so I definitely hear you on that. Glad you enjoyed the submission though!
I guess you didn't in the last one - a lot of people did an effect like snowy footsteps, including me! Heh.
:)
The concept is great, and well executed too!
thanks so much mockingbird! Appreciate that, glad you enjoyed the concept I put together here!
Jiggy, this is truly stunning! What amazing work this is. Beautiful. I am blown away by what you have created here! The sound, the astrosphere! Its epic. Though, it does not totally have that ambient vibe, it is still just stunning. I liked ever part, song 1 and 4 were my favorite. It would be super cool to make this into a full album! I loved every part of it. From the solo cell, to the strings to everything. Bravo!
ahh so nice thank u squirrel!! I'm so glad you enjoyed everything across the short ost. Tried my best to make it atmospheric and have some sense of ambience despite knowing it wouldnt hit "ambience" very well overall. The comments I really appreciate a lot as I tried hard to make it a consistent and intentionally crafted set of tracks that came from my interpretation of the theme - would love to make a full album from this idea Merci!
I like the continuation in vibes and composition in the first two tracks and actually wish they were longer! The third and fourth tracks stands out in style and instrumentation a bit much for the jam theme. I like your stuff, can't wait to hear more!
ahh nice Simishcj thanks for the comments! Yes originally I did have tracks 1 and 2 slightly longer but I didnt want to take out the other tracks from the submission so i shortened them a bit. Sorry about that! But yeah totally get how 3 and 4 stand outside of the theme scope but glad you enjoyed the music!
Jiggy what have you done?!?! First song gets right thru my nostalgia and reminds me so much of Ocarina of Time and then the Cello hits me right into my blood pumping device. And that is just the first song?!?!?
But I have to say that all of your four songs sounded very nice. While being short the didn’t feel incomplete and had the right amount of fresh idea to the overall theme. I’m still waiting on that orchestral beat boxing, but right now I’m just blown away by your work. While the mix could use some refinement here and there, there is nothing really to criticise in any other way. The only other thing that I might have to critic is, that I’m missing a bit of that ambiance aspect. Those songs are beautiful and already create a wonderful atmosphere, but besides the clocks clacks and some delays there is not much I could consider sound design for creating that atmosphere. But this might be just me. Nonetheless an excellent entry!
ahhh Einel thanks a lot! Love to hear the tracks hit the nostalgia and really resonated with you. I had a super clear vision of wanting to go down a final fantasy esque route but a lot of what comes out often is rooted in some Zelda atmosphere somewhere XD mentioned to Turtle below but 100% I'm not expecting to win any awards for most ambient haha. I just had a super strong vision and for me it wasn't going the ambient direction, I just wanted to still get the music out and in the jam because it spawned from the idea and I tried to make it as atmospheric and cohesive as possible in that sense to feel relatable to the theme. Beatboxing...well, we'll just see what happens soon. Thanks for the comments, really appreciate it!
I think doing four tracks for a six minute limit jam held you back from creating two or possible three very powerful and strong submissions. In this example especially when it comes to the overall mixing and quality of each track. I also don't understand the usage of AI art (I know you do it with all your uploads) but especially for a jam where a specific piece of art was given as reference and theme.
The music itself is incredibly saturated, very blown out and extended in terms of compression. While the music is composed quite well it stands far from ambient and sits more in the realm of cinematic and orchestral work. A lack of diverse velocity between instruments also makes the tracks feel tight, especially in the third track where the synth and bass come in and create this sort of brash low end that steps over the strings in a bit of a dramatic fashion. This issue is carried into the fourth track, which takes a huge leap away from being ambient and sort of just sounds like JRPG battle music. A very khords esq lead with these stylized pads and drums that clash in the mid-high range
The music, aside from the mixing, is overall quite alright. I don't feel like it really fits the theme of the jam though and I feel like had you focused on less tracks you could have had a more on theme and better mixed entry.
Great work though.
Hi Turtle, thanks for the comments! I would say I both agree and disagree in some areas. I do agree the saturation and blownoutness is there mostly in the first track. I think this was actually a case of pushing them too hard on the masters (im not great at mastering) as the mixes were sounding a bit better in those terms before, so that's a shame from me to push them where they didnt need it. I think though I did achieve a similar sonic sound across them all which was definitely my aim. I would disagree with the second part though about the brash low end in the third track, this was an intentional decision wanting the low end to be so "in your face" - i wanted it to feel pumping and heavy and i think the low end over the topness worked in that regard. Addressing your ambience and theme comments, definitely I can see it's not particularly ambient in any way. The thing is, I had an interpretation of the theme of being frozen in time, and that led me down a creative path which wasn't ambient music, so I tried creating as much atmosphere as I could across a set of tracks which I had a very clear vision for, hopefully at least that came through. In terms of the image, yeah I know there is always an image provided but for me the key thing is I'd like the music to stand separately so it's not as "locked in" to being viewed as just game jam stuff. Maybe you hate that, maybe you don't, and do I wish I could pay an artist? Yeah definitely do. But I can't afford to rn especially with the amount of jams I get involved in. For me rn that's just where I'm at with the images but hopefully in the future I could work with an artist to get some cool original stuff out. Do appreciate the comments though, am taking on board what you've said and thankful you listened and liked the music overall.
I'm very confused about the argument that you cannot pay an artist therefore you use AI generated art for a Composing jam where art is provided to us for free without cost. But to each their own.
This was also in my response where I said about not being as "locked in" to game jam stuff. I'd like to be able to show the music as independent of just the composer jam outside of the jam itself - that's why I choose to go with different art. I use the art provided always as a basis for my theme interpretation though.