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The Night I Came Back (OST)'s itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Storytelling | #59 | 3.818 | 3.818 |
| Composition | #60 | 3.909 | 3.909 |
| Overall | #85 | 3.673 | 3.673 |
| Creativity | #91 | 3.682 | 3.682 |
| Quality | #121 | 3.545 | 3.545 |
| Impression | #127 | 3.409 | 3.409 |
Ranked from 22 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Description
This OST was made with Ableton Live 10 and some VST instruments.
For this imaginary game soundtrack, I’ve imagined a game called « The Night I Came Back ». It’s about « Danielle », a protagonist who wants to let their boring adult life for a little while to spend some summer holidays in the island they grew up in, after 20 years not coming back. They have a lot of good childhood memories in this island so it seems like the perfect spot to make a pause and have a great time. But the night comes and they realizes something’s off, something has changed and shouldn’t be like that. The whole game takes place during that first night.
It would be a narrative/detective/ominous kinda game, probably close to a Life is Strange entry, with more paranormal/strange things happening.
So for the OST, I’ve come up with some ideas :
- Overall, it’s trying to express a feeling of cozy nostalgia and wholesomeness, as Danielle remembers their past life and the places, but also the ominous, the mystery and the fear of not understanding what’s happening.
- Each character is represented by one instrument in particular (piano for Danielle, guitar for Malo etc…) and the tracks often represent the dialogue they’re having and the emotional vibe related to it.
- The mystery and the ominous is represented by synthetic/electronic instruments. On the contrary the orchestral/organic instruments are for what is known/straightforward.
- Some lofi beat vibes are included sometimes to catch this cozy night summer impression, even if the story becomes a bit scary. The wholesomeness and fear try to coexist at the same time creating this overall ominous state of mind.
During this jam week I made 5 tracks :
1. « Danielle » is the theme of the protagonist but also the track of the cutscene where they arrives in the island, takes a bike and starts to remember their past life and the places as they drives. The end of the track becomes a bit mysterious as the camera unzooms showing the main village of the island as the protagonist is almost getting there, driving to their unavoidable fate.
2. « Malo » is the theme of Danielle’s childhood friend. Malo stayed in the island all his life and doesn’t know very well the outside world. In this adventure, Malo will still be a good friend, represented by this cozy guitar as chill as the daily life in the island.
3. « One Strange Ally » is the theme of a very mysterious entity. Each time there is something odd, it can be seen around. As the player we imagine it being the source of the problem, but we quickly realize that it seems to want to help the protagonist by warning or explaining some things in a strange language. This track is literally a dialogue between the piano (Danielle) and the strange synth (the entity). It starts with a Q&A vibe and then it becomes a dance where Danielle loses patience, wants to understand. Little by little, both characters are making the same notes together to finally show some understanding.
4. « Something’s Off » is a theme of a gameplay phase after a cutscene putting the player in a scared ominous mindset. It’s about infiltration, fear, trying to understand what just happened. As the protagonist explores, some nostalgia vibes are still kicking but it sounds cozy and ominous at the same time, in an unpleasant way as the mystery is psychologically heavy to witness.
5. « Worse Than I Thought » is about revelation. The mystery just vanished. And the revelation is dramatic, hard to swallow. The weird synths of « Something’s Off »’s theme are replaced by organic instruments in a dramatic orchestral mood. It’s time to run and to process the revelation. And stay alive.
I hope the OST will help you understand this video game concept and vibe as I imagine it :)
Happy listening !
Message from the artist
I'm a 33 years old composer from Britanny, France. This is my second OST jam. I hope you'll enjoy that strange universe I thought about. Can't wait to check out your ideas ! :)
Theme
How does it fit the theme?
The whole adventure is taking place during a summer night. I've chosen a chill summer holiday context flirting with some lofi beat vibes sometimes. I thought it would be an interesting setup for an ominous game, reaching a contrast between wholesome/cozy as a holiday summer night, and fear. Even in this safe context, some scary things could happen.
Link(s) of the submission on streaming services
The 5 tracks are available here :
https://soundcloud.com/nazeduvide/sets/the-night-i-came-back-ost
Number of tracks5
Genre
Soundtrack use permission
For game jams only
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Comments
I'm going to come back and do a little bit of reworking of your first track. I really like its overall structure/progression, but I definitely heard stuff where I hear exactly how I want it to resolve.
Outside of that, I really enjoyed all of it. I found it to be refreshing and creative as well, with a lot of variety and breaking the mold. Great work.
Thank you !! Interesting for Danielle, I'm curious 😉
"One strange ally" is a beautiful concept and I really enjoyed the execution of it. "Something's Off" was an interesting shift into a lo-fi vibe, and I love the low tremolo strings here. "Worse than I thought" delivers an interesting sort of frustration in it's tone that matches your description of the track well. Solid work overall!
Thank you !!
I definitely enjoy the chill vibes at the start, especially in Malo, and then how you flip them around later (specifically in Malo I noticed how you reversed some instruments at the end and I think that detail is pretty cool in a relisten). Nice work! (also sorry for imploding replies slightly itch kinda bugged out on me)
Thank you for your feedbacks 😃
Danielle: Beautiful piano work. I love the melodies.
Malo: love the environmental SFX. And also those that came in around 1:24!
One strange ally: Mixolydian b6, always a pretty sound! Coupled with that rhythm in 6/8 this feels positive and dreamy. This is my favorite track here for sure.
Something's Off: Haha the intro reminded me of Earthbound. Nice and creepy sfx coupled with some piano.
Worse than I thought: Ooh, choir. The contrast of the louder lines to that quiet piano was satisfying.
Nice work!
Thank you for the detailed feedback :D
Very pretty!!! Danielle is a wonderful track that I think it really manages to fly above the rest, really phenomenal work on that one! All the rest are also very good; I wouldn't know what to suggest to make them more like Danielle, but they also don't have to compare. Great job!!
Thank you !!! I wanted to make more tracks using Danielle's theme, but I didn't have time 🫣
Danielle is quite the beautiful piece, love it ! The rest is pretty cool too. You may have overshoot the "ominous twist" if you see what I mean ? Something off was really good, but quite far and disconnected from Danielle. But it's still really cool !
yes there is definitely a big twist ahah, I really wanted the first theme to be naive, nostalgic, beautiful as if the game would be wholesome all along, and suddenly a surprising shift, but yeah it feels a bit overshoot, specially with only 5 tracks to show it. Thanks for your feedbacks :D
This is awesome! The style of each track lends itself to its respective description.
The breadth of character is cool, but it diminishes the cohesiveness of the OST. It has the feeling of a musical quilt and each track is its own square stitched to the next.
My favorite tracks are "Danielle" and "Something's Off."
Thanks for the feedbacks !!
That was my fear indeed, that every track sound like different OST a bit so I agree with you on that, I think it kinda makes sense since the ominous is supposed to be surprising like the music shift and the piano/atmosphere is hopefully what bring the whole together, but I totally get your point 😉
I really enjoyed the storytelling and the compositional aspect of the pieces, but i think the production and sound design could be better. Some ear candy would have helped the tracks stand out more, too. I can't blame you, though; making this much music in 1 week is a great feat and i'm sure that if you had more time you would've added the nice final touches to the music. Great work overall!
Thanks for the feedback !! Indeed I put my effort in the composition itself and the story-telling more than the quality in such a short deadline. I know I might lose some "quality" points probably but it's not the most important to me in this kind of exercice :)
Like your last crunchtime submission, these are great too 😁
The tracks nicely progress as a story by just listening in order and I probably would've got the rough idea/vibes even without reading your descriptions, so good job!
Some of the sounds and vibes in One Strange Ally and Somethings Off really gave me a lot terraria vibes funnily enough 😁
I'm not good with production, but on One Strange Ally, the weird pizz? sound with effects on it felt a bit too harsh and maybe could use a bit EQ to cut some of the harsh resonances out so its a bit less aggressive. This is just my subjective feel about it, but depending on the context the harshness might actually be great 😅
Good work!
What a good memory ahah ! Thanks for the feedbacks :D
You're right for the EQ, in general I don't spend so much time to clean everything at the end since the deadline is short, but it would benefit from some cleaning for sure :)
I love your style - I hadn't considered something like "Malo" for a game soundtrack before, but you manage to not ride the trip hop too hard, so you still make it work. "One Strange Ally" is nice and spooky, especially because of the subdued (felt?) piano and I got actual shivers when you suddenly turned this atmospheric piece into a full-on waltz with distortions. That was like a trickster spirit inviting me to a dance and every instinct is screaming that their grin is just a tad too wide...
Thank you for the feedbacks CuyGuy :D
Very detailed composition decisions and I very much like that! Having songs represent things through instrument choice and style is the deeper level of storytelling that I like!
There's a sound in Malo that plays every other beat that I'm like 100% sure is the same sound used in the game The Escapists when digging or cutting stuff.
Thanks for the feedback ! :D I would be very curious to know which sounds exactly for the escapists, which instrument is it ?
idk what to call it. A snare is the most likely thing but then there’s also a normal snare in the track too.
I just know I heard it play every other beat for the first half of Malo.
It’s like a little scratchy SFX but idk what instrument it is per se
Hi Naze du Vide! I really enjoyed how unique your style is, it comes through very well in each track, especially in ones like Something's Off where it transitions between genres and vibes. Really could tell you'd put effort into the storytelling aspect and appreciated your character themes having their own instrument focus. Very cool!
Thank you so much !!
Alors avant tout... Je vois Naze du vide, je clique. Je vois sur ta page "composer from Britanny" mais je suis sûr de t'avoir grillé, t'es de Saint-Nazaire avoue !!! C'est ce que je me suis dit direct et je veux y croire 😅 j'ai grandi là-bas et je connais la chanson "les Nazériens, ils sont nazes et ils sont rien" mdr...
Dis moi que jai raison ??
Sinon propre les compos :D La structure globale est cool avec les instruments/personnages et la vibe cosy mais potentiellement inquiétante fonctionne 👍
J'ai beaucoup aimé One Strange Ally, l'entité, elle sonne vraiment différent et on sais pas si cest menaçant ou interrogatif.
Taff très cool je suis 😎
Ps je viens de voir je vais faire 33 ans aussi ^^
Salut Peluche, collègue breton trentenaire ! Merci pour tes retours !
Tu as presque raison, je suis du pays bigouden et plutôt sur Nantes actuellement ahah 😉
Haha merde donc rien à voir ? Je suis triste :'(
Vive la Bretagne !