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Thanks a lot!
The last 2 levels are definitely meant to be more demanding, but I'm glad the strategy side came through. I'm planning some upgrades that should help with precision on the 6th level without flattening the challenge.
Really happy you liked the vector look too - that smooth feel was the goal. The only difference for me is that I was inspired by 2D vector graphics from the 80s (Mugsy and Level 9 adventures) :)
Thanks for playing and for the kind words!

Hey! I tried your game and I actually really like the concept - especially the idea of using it as a background "companion" while working. I often forget to rest my eyes.

And I like this cute little witch :)

Some elements look like placeholders or unimplemented features, so sometimes I wasn't sure whether something was locked, still in development, or if I was using it wrong.

One thing I wanted to mention: during my session I saw a bunch of runtime errors and warnings popping up in the console (resource loading, unicode parsing, and some rendering-related leaks). The game still ran, but it looks like there are several systems that might need cleanup or initialization fixes.

Totally understandable during development - but I thought I'd let you know, because issues like this can become harder to fix later when there's more content built on top of them.

I'm curious to see how it evolves.

Thanks! Glad to hear the atmosphere works - music is a big part of the experience for me. I’ve added a second in-game track to give the levels more variety, so it’s great to know it feels balanced.

Hi again!

Time for the last part of this little music-making journey.

I finally recorded the guitar solos. This track is almost five years old now, but I still like how the second solo jumps from tragedy to comedy and back — which actually fits the whole spirit of the series.

The recording quality isn't perfect, but I’m still restoring my guitar skills and improving the processing step by step.

The final step was integrating the track into the game. The first four levels are short and simple, so I didn’t want to switch music too often. I settled on this:

Levels 1–2: this additional renewed track "System Failure"

Levels 3–4: the original in-game track from the first version "The Genesis"

Level 5: "System Failure" again (the duration fits perfectly — about 2 minutes)

Level 6: 3-minute long "The Genesis"

So both tracks have their place in the game.

And with that, I’ve updated the game and the new version (v0.2) is now published.

Next update, I think, will be something related to visuals.

Thanks for following the progress!

Hi again!

Time for some updates.

I attached Ample Bass P Lite to the bass guitar track, Keyzone Classic to the piano, and routed the drum track through JACK into Hydrogen — unfortunately Hydrogen still can't be used as a plugin.

Here it is:

For now I have everything I need (and yes — tambourine and cowbell are absolutely essential :) ).

I tweaked some drum volumes a bit — still not perfect, but with every new track they become more and more balanced.

I also rendered this whole Ardour - Hydrogen setup to an audio file to reduce CPU load.

The hardest part unexpectedly was the motor sound.

In the LMMS version I used a cello patch with pitch automation to simulate different speeds and that unstable "working engine" feeling.

This time I found a very cool motor-like bass preset in Odin2, but I just couldn't get the pitch controller to work.

So I finally surrendered and switched the preset to legato mode, making the transitions with slides instead.

Not exactly what I wanted, especially for the unstable RPM effect, but still good enough.

Here's what it sounds like now: a preview is attached to the first post update ^

Next time I’ll bring the guitar solos.

Hi there!

Here's the first update on the music improvement process.

I dug up the original track project.

All instruments were coming from a single huge FluidSynth soundfont — great for quick sketches, but nowhere near the quality of dedicated plugins or live recordings.

In the old project drums were splitted to many tracks so I could manually adjust volume/pan. With my Hydrogen-based custom drum kit I don't need that anymore, so I'll merge all percussion into a single track for convenience.

I also trimmed a few bars from the intro to make it tighter, doubled the crazy bass line with a piano two octaves higher, and moved part of the solo to piano as well (that run would be borderline impossible to play cleanly on guitar — especially with my current skill level :)).

Finally, I tweaked note velocities, changed the key to fit real guitars, and slowed the tempo by about 5%.

Here’s what the updated arrangement looks like now: 

The next step was exporting the MIDI stems and importing them into a fresh Ardour session.

It definitely looks less pretty than LMMS — and editing MIDI here can be a challenge — but the sound quality and audio workflow are worth it. After these changes, I'm confident the new version will feel much stronger than the original.

Next update: upgrading the instruments (drums, bass guitar, piano) and hearing how the new arrangement comes together.