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A Leap of Faith - OST Jam: Crunchtime 04's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Correlation to theme | #3 | 4.158 | 4.158 |
| Quality | #12 | 4.088 | 4.088 |
| Overall | #16 | 3.909 | 3.909 |
| Impression | #29 | 3.895 | 3.895 |
| Composition | #43 | 3.789 | 3.789 |
| Creativity | #57 | 3.614 | 3.614 |
Ranked from 57 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Description
Mixed Ambient and Orchestral
Message from the artist
Better Formatting:
https://indiekev.itch.io/a-leap-of-faith/devlog/924451/a-leap-of-faith-postmortem
Premises
I wanted to challenge myself for my third composition ever done (after a big hiatus since the last big OST Jam 07, and Crunchtime seemed like a good idea. I was captured instantly by how beautiful this image is. The girl in the dark stretching her arm to reach the light, the shadows of windows (but almost akin the bars of a cell), the bird, everything in the picture is incredibly evocative with the text theme. My first thought was of course the metaphysical nature of the theme. "Freedom" in the sense of that picture is thematically tied with the struggles of the mind. Escaping the darkness that binds us
A journey to escape the darkness
The picture shows a character with an emotionless expression almost, like they've been emptied from their life force.
In a sense, this makes me think of the feelings you stop experiencing when you are depressed.
Depression binds us to the darkness, our mind becomes our prison.
We stop "feeling", we stop loving, we stop caring... The fact that they only had the strength to get one of her arms up, with her hand loose shows me how much of a struggle it was to move towards the light.
For me this is really a journey to escape the darkness of our minds, with all our might, even if it is incredibly hard to move and feel the world around us.
A Leap of Faith
I wanted to have three tracks for this OST: Mind Prison, Struggle, and A Leap of Faith.
I wanted to kinda represent the journey of someone escaping their own darkness in a way. From being in their "Mind Prison", to fighting to break out, and finally taking the leap of faith towards freedom.
The Struggle will unfortunately not be represented due to lack of time, but I tried my best :)
Music
First thing was I wanted a structure of three songs, as stated earlier.
Now I wanted to start with the last track, the leap of faith, and figure out some kind of single piano melody as I already had in mind that this small motif was going to be played one way or another in the first track too.
I came up with this little line that is both emotionally charged with melancholy and hope (of course totally subjective).
Now the idea of Freedom is as if the character just got out of the darkness and was basking in blinding light. It takes a few moments to decipher what's there but the warmth engulfs them and they start seeing what's outside. The idea was to have them break out and running and ending with a jump towards the sky where the camera would then zoom out and show birds flying over them.
I wanted this overwhelming sensation of freedom, so the track goes from melancholy and peacefulness to somewhat intense. I think this intensity works as depression can sometimes be akin to a fire extinguished.
I wanted to represent this intensity as a burning fire, a willingness to try, live and adventure, fear, hurt, but always remain hopeful!
Now for the first track I wanted the opposite, an oppressive ambient atmosphere.
But little by little, you hear something, some static, like you would be tuning to a different frequency in yourself, and start hearing birds. The melody slowly comes around, like little notes of hope and light.
As we go through the track the melody gets more and more intense, and by the end the static and the birds are overwhelming your senses. And it cuts abruptly to what was supposed to be the struggle track not made on time.
Game Design Considerations
This game should most probably be an action adventure game.
You start week in a place of darkness, find light in the darkness, fight shadows representing all kind of fears, and finally end up fighting your way out to the light.
Theme
How does it fit the theme?
The picture shows a girl with an emotionless expression almost, like she's been emptied from her life force.
In a sense, this makes me think of the feelings you stop experiencing when you are depressed.
Depression binds us to the darkness, our mind becomes our prison.
We stop "feeling", we stop loving, we stop caring... The fact that she only had the strength to get one of her arms up, with her hand loose shows me how much of a struggle it was to move towards the light.
For me this is really a journey to escape the darkness of our minds, with all our might, even if it is incredibly hard to move and feel the world around us.
I unfortunately didn't have time in around 7 hours to mlake the 3 tracks I had in mind so I did the beggining and the end, the prison and the escape so to say, and had to pass on the struggle between those two.
Link(s) of the submission on streaming services
https://on.soundcloud.com/E4UoFzngKeRrW4T68
Genre
Soundtrack use permission
For game jams only
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Comments
THIS IS SO GOOD!!! Where did you learn to do electronics?? :o The little melodic ideas layered in the background flow so naturally with the bird sounds—such a lovely texture that fits so well with the journey you described - reminding me of zant's domain in zelda TP! It's really nice in moving from a dissonant space to an outwardly expressive climax, paced nicely with drums! I wish I could say more ;-; but a pleasure to read how you've thought about and translated the concept musically (especially with little time and from the hiatus!). Would love to play the game ;v;
(and really means a lot from the server!)
You have no idea how big my smile was reading this! Thank you for the sweet words, I really look up to you (like hard, I keep listening to your track and ost jam 07 regularly) so it means a ton!
I guess this was a first for the electronics, I tinkered with Omnisphere, played with settings, FX, etc (still learning all its potential) and such to kinda get all the ideas I wanted in there (uneasy drone sound bed, static for “tuning” oneself, birds chirping for the call to freedom and the long melodic pads like little hints of hope and light)
I’m sorry though I dont fully get what you mean by your last sentence in parentheses but either way, super happy you enjoyed it even a little bit!!
Aw hehhe super happy to read this :3 that's awesome!! super impressive instincts - keep up the electronic stuff, I feel you do so good with those climaxes .o. so lots of cool places I'm sure you'd do great with electronics in! (oh and meant those messages you put in the server really meant a lot!! ^^ hearing things even like that has continued to just be surreal to take in for me, I'm really grateful ;^;)
Ooooh yeah! Time to listen to the most sexy man of this jam...
and...what can I say? I was, no joke, SHAKING while listening to the second track. I had a little convulsion in my chair...
It was great!
Thank you very much
I felt so good that I almost dropped my third glass of coffee today on the floor...
P.S. Rawr!Ahahahah you’re sweet xD
Thanks for the feedback and compliments makes me feel less bad I missed a whole track ahahah
Really happy it made you feel something, I think a lot about how to bring storytelling and emotion into what I do so I’m happy it somewhat translated properly given the feedback that I had!
Your message and wt64’s made my day, I’m in your debt!
PS: Rawwr
Your description is very evocative, and it was interesting to read how it influenced your creative process. The piano is "Leap of Faith" is very pretty, and the track builds up beautifully; suddenly jumping away from the initial ambience set up in "Mind Prison" to great effect. Solid tracks, nice work overall! Keep up the good fight against depression!
Cool stuff. Feels like something you would hear in a movie trailer, very dramatic.
Thanks! The first one would be a playable part where you walk in darkness with occasional flickers of light and exposition of the premise, the second one is indeed the final cutscene of the game!
I love the way you use sound to create atmosphere, especially on 3rd track. I really like the arrangement and harmony voicing. Absolutely Amazing!
Hey sorry I didn't get time to get back to you! Thank you I really appreciate the feedback!!
Nice tracks !
You have some great ideas, the fact that I listened to your tracks but wanted more is a good sign :D
The first one really sets an atmosphere, sound design is great and I really loved the ending, growing in intensity like that (I imagine it would have connected well with Struggle)
The second one is also great, I love the vocals and the epicness of the ending.
Very solid foundation to build upon, I hope to hear more tracks from you in the future jams :D
Good job !
Hi Mekto, sorry I couldn't get back on time to reply, but thank you anyways for the feedback it's lovely!
My favorite part of the whole submission was the last 5 seconds of the first track. There was something about the sound design that tickled my brain. The 2nd track gave big ori and the blind forest vibes. Did you use the same voice samples? I wish I could hear that missing track, the big finale would have had even more emotional weight behind it with the whole package. Great work, especially given the time constraints!
My favorite part of the whole submission was the last 5 seconds of the first track. There was something about the sound design that tickled my brain. The 2nd track gave big ori and the blind forest vibes. Did you use the same voice samples? I wish I could hear that missing track, the big finale would have had even more emotional weight behind it with the whole package. Great work, especially given the time constraints!
Really nice work. The big moment in that second tune was incredible impactful, and that vocal patch was the perfect pick for that moment! Bravo!
Thank you so much for the kind words!
I'd be curious to hear the third one ! I like how the music takes exactly the space it should take (idk if that makes sense), it's sometimes minimalist, very ambient, yet not boring at all, and it knows when to take the lead and to push the emotion way forward ! Really nice job ! :)
hey merci! Impressions OST Creativity Jam is coming up in a few days so I guess I’ll be creating and releasing the missing track probably at that time as there’s no real theme in that one :)
thanks for the kind words and feedback!
Perfect, I'll be happy to listen to it ! I joined the Jam too but I will start late for calendar issues (it's two weeks though, and no pressure, so all good)
that’s awesome looking forward to hear your submission then!
Awesome storytelling! That outro in A Leap of Faith was outstanding. I felt all the emotions building up to that point. Amazing job!
Thank you for the kind words I really appreciate it! Still a bit sad I didn’t get enough time in but I was able to tell a story and convey emotions with this little amount of music than I’m happy with that! Thanks for the feedback!
Love the ambience of the first track paired with the lyricism of the second, I only wish I could have heard the track that would have come between them!
I had the gist of it planned (recorded myself making awkward sounds in the toilet to be precise xD) but that'll have to wait until after the jam unfortunately. I still feel that would have been the glue the OST needed so I'm kinda sad but still happy I got anything out to be honest
Thanks for the rating and feedback!
The best part was the key change at 43 seconds in the second track!
What did you use for the vocal part because it is very pretty!
Voices of Rhodope - Anna! I love eastern european voices!
This was fantastic, the storytelling in it was the best I've heard so far.
Coming from you it's a great honor! I do have a tendency to focus on storytelling in whatever I do so happy it came across good!
Thanks for the feedback!
The first track did feel sort of like a prison with the low rumbling sounds wrapping around my head and the ticklish sounds keeping interest, which led nicely into the grandiose opening up of the second tune, cool idea and great execution!
Thanks a ton for the feedback and rating :)
Cool pieces, very clean and evocative!
I like the overall sensibility of both tracks, and the weirdness of the mix at the end of the first. Nice job!
Actually amazing ! I like your vision on the theme and think the tracks are very atuned with it !
First track somehow reminded me of Mariposas from Camilo Sanabria but actually it is different so idk what took me. I really enjoy the ominous and eerie vibe and use of distortion here. Can very much picture a scene while listening to it !
Second track's change in intensity is a great idea and nicely done ! Composition is great and moving ! Though tbh I can't tell if I only hear strings or if I hear a voice it is very confusing, probably just a string vst x)
Hey thanks for listening, rating and the feedback!
There are strings and voice concurrently but not on the same melody, did you happen to hear it on a phone? I could think that would kinda stack the frequencies (or most likely I did a shit job at mixing yet again xD).
The voice is "Voices of Rhodope - Anna", really eastern-europe timbre and sound, so it might also kinda blend more easily with strings in a sense!
This was insanely well produced for 7 hours, absolutely well done. Both track really hit right right spot for the feeling you were going for for sure!
Thank you so much for listening, really appreciate your feedback!