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Great job sojioto, thanks for putting my track in! I'm doing donuts in a game were a skeleton delivers pizza. Good times!

Perfection.

Very well done, I liked it!

Thank you!

Thank you, and thanks for hosting the jam, it was great to meet all of these fantastic creators and sharing thoughts about our entries.

Thank you! Yeah, it takes a bit to get into the halloween funk. Followed you as well!

Thank you for your kind words and the criticism is welcome. Have a nice day!

Thank you! Yeah, I think it depends a lot if one interprets the theme as "classic boss fight" or "could work in that setting". Glad you enjoyed it!

Thank you for your in-depth review! And I hope no hard feelings, maybe I was just self-conscious about not going the orchestra route. ;) I also listened to some of your other stuff, keep up the good work!

Thank you! To me it feels more like a fun challenge to limit yourself in this way, I've also written a mostly authentic SNES RPG soundtrack for a game demo a while back and I had a blast. I definitely recommend it. ;)

Thank you for taking the time!

Thank you! I agree that the boss theme vibe is not as strong with this one, but I had a lot of fun writing it!

Yes, I'm playing the marimba. Had some unexpected free time waiting for someone, and it's really fun to play live. :)

I had a smile on my face the whole time! The different melodic elements were woven together so well, and the bass really stood out. It's obvious you put a lot of love into it. And the switch to half-time was the cherry on top. Super-fun, fits the jam's theme perfectly, I would fight a boss to this music any day.

Celesta right to the heart in the beginning. :) Liked the blended organ/string instrument right at the beginning as well. A little repetitive in the end for my taste, but great instrumentation work! And who doesn't love a spooky waltz if it's as well done as yours?

Even before I read your explanation, I was imagining the player to enter a domain, lair or plane of some sorts, approaching the boss before the encounter really starts. I loved the blend of drums, arpeggiators, ambient drones, rising and falling synths (and the chaotic piano of course), all bundled into an engaging and driving piece. Great job!

I think you did Elfman and Uematsu proud, and you brought out the different thematic ideas beautifully. What I find especially interesting in this jam is that there are some typical "Halloween" elements like organ, choir, strings, ghostly theremin stuff etc., but everybody does them differently. Not once in your track did I think "ok, that box checked, on to the next", but I was fully immersed in HOW you brought everything together, how your transitions worked, how you sprinkled in the little details, keeping it interesting the whole time. Great job, well written and well executed!

I not only enjoyed the track a lot, but all of the surrounding stuff as well like the demo game, the promo art and even the name "Blood and Gourd". That's my kind of jam. ;) Great job!

Fantastic all around, so many unique and varied ideas and techniques, just a joy to listen to.

Legend has it that the legions of the damned are still slowly headbanging to this day.

Insane! You went so hard with this, absolute banger!

I really enjoyed the trappy hihat and the beat as a whole. The atmosphere this piece is creating is also very vivid, I immediately had the feeling that I was in a certain kind of gaming situation. The boss vibes in this were not so strong for me, and the low end got very boomy, but it was a great listen nevertheless. Well done!

This was very unique to listen to, thanks for entering! Really well done, fresh and retro at the same time, a lot of different little details made me smile. When listening to this, I'm imagining a boss sequence in a castlevania style game where the PC grabs a surfboard and rides a wave of trapped souls to get to the weak point of the static boss while the backgrounds just flies by. Awesome!

The intro had me already, this immediately transcended into a creepy and unsettling experience before whipping out that dope beat! Some sections were really stressing me out, fantastic! Great use of chopped samples as rhythmic elements, and the final callback to the beginning was also done really well. Can't stress enough how much I enjoyed listening to this!

Ticked all of the Halloween boxes, well done! Liked the ritardando at the end of the intro, perfectly setting up the faster tempo that follows. Your choice of instruments and sfx was honestly so all-encompassing that this could be that sample track for a Halloween soundfont and sfx pack. Loved the piano and choir section, reminded me a little of stuff like Secret of Mana. The different sections complemented each other really well and kept the whole piece fresh throughout. Great job!

Fantastic job! I loved the step-movement a lot of the instruments have which creates directional motion that affects me as a listener somehow. Different tones in clearly structured different sections were a welcome change, even though it never got boring in the first place. All the voices are working super well together and around each other.

At first I though it was my headphones, but other people have reported peak issues as well, so maybe look into that. Hope to hear more from you!

Heck yeah! Off to a good start. I like that the piece is just sort of wandering around, not creating too much pull in any direction, being held together by the hihat and snare. I also like the automated panning on the fluty synth and how brittle it sounds, breathes some life into the instrument and the track as a whole. Keep doing your thing!

Smooth and getting the funk on. :) Was not expecting that, a lot of little details that I really loved, especially in the drums. Liked the melody as well, fit's the Halloween theme, didn't give that much of a boss vibe though. Would be perfect for a puzzle platformer or a spooky action adventure. Great moment when the bass/drums/organ kick in after the intro, had me bopping my head immediately. Great job!

This sounds like it's from an actual trailer with gameplay scenes and soundfx from the game itself, which was engaging. I could picture scenes from a fictional game I've not seen, right down to the "cooldown" in the end where only the sfx remain and the title and "save the date" stuff is happening. ;) Great classic track with great instrument choices, and a supersolid composition throughout. Going to re-listen to it right away!

I liked the individual parts, but I would also separate them into different tracks of the same soundtrack. After 1:48 sounds more fitting to the theme of the jam to me, properly creepy and suspenseful. I loved the 8-/16-bit vibes and how you blended them. Well done!

Love that you entered a real recording, did not expect that. Acoustic solo instruments are regularly a hassle to record, so hats off to you for pulling of an enjoyable performance!

I think it sounds a bit dry and direct, maybe that's intentional. But try a little (or a lot *g*) of reverb on your tracks or on the master and see if you like it. This might just be the missing thing you are looking for, it normally mellows everything out a bit and blends the whole arrangement together.

Also not rating this entry because of cover, but I really enjoyed it!

I think your melody and harmony was really solid, well done! I think you could improve most in the drum department, a little less chaotic and a bit more steady (even though I loved some of the chaotic elements) would go a long way here. Also, some of the drum hits were not properly timed/quantized or accidentally "left over", which took me out of it sometimes.

I think Blue Lava has made some excellent points regarding instrumentation options. You can get a good understanding of what people conceive as Halloween-y by listening to the other entries and especially reading the comments.

Don't worry about it, it's a normal step of the journey and I really enjoyed your song regardless. There are some easy steps like using a clipper on all of your loud tracks and groups/folders and experimenting with mastering presets that can be implemented without putting in a lot of hours, to give you a better idea on how to do it.

Very raw quality that I like. A little unbalanced sound-wise, I would love to hear a more polished version that retains the amount of grime and dirt. I enjoyed the "intermission" at 1:19, really unsettling and building tension. That pounding piano did provide a good counterweight to the distorted guitar sound and added some rhythmic structure as well.

Your boss theme hits the ground running, howling ghosts, organ, driving percussion, all ready to gooooo! The following swingy section sounds a bit broken, which I love. Also glad you took the drive out for some parts of the tune, with a well written comeback at 1:18. Really enjoyed the syncopated  cymbals at 1:20, nice wrap-up. Also the track holds up over a longer bossfight. The rushing after 2:40 was great, going back into tempo primo felt a bit jarring to me. Overall great job!

Love the tight drums, especially the little embellishments. Also the short stops you have in there sometimes. The tone and feel took me right in, it's clear from the beginning where you were going with this, but it was never predictable or boring, always something going on. You were in total control of what you were doing, great job!

Good entry for first timers! A bit too chaotic for my taste, but there where some pretty neat ideas in there. Looking forward to hearing more of you in the future!

Makes me want to play a modern remake of PLOK. ;) You went hard and it pays off, though I agree that it doesn't have that modern punch, sounds a bit retro because of it, not sure if that is intentional. Great use of rhythm and bass.

Loved the incorporation of sound effects, they really added to an already great track.

Great from a compositional standpoint, really enjoyed it. I think it's good that you want to familiarize yourself with mixing and mastering, both really important skills in media composition. I would advise to start using a "real" DAW like Reaper (or whichever you like) for this and search for resources on how to make your voices and tracks feel louder without clipping, like compression, limiters and clippers. There is a lot to learn there, but it's absolutely worth it, and a lot of information readily available.

I love the single tubular bell that is hanging out in the end. ;) The escalation at 0:48 was a bit sudden, but not unwelcome. I loved the section afterwards with the subtle organ in the background. Well done!

Great that you managed to pull through! Would be great to hear how it sounds like after two days (not that it sounds bad at all). I think your ideas worked well together, I liked the heaviness and the slow, deliberate feel.