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Windseeker OST's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Storytelling | #79 | 3.719 | 3.719 |
| Overall | #118 | 3.500 | 3.500 |
| Quality | #129 | 3.500 | 3.500 |
| Impression | #129 | 3.406 | 3.406 |
| Composition | #130 | 3.500 | 3.500 |
| Creativity | #142 | 3.375 | 3.375 |
Ranked from 32 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Description
Orchestral soundtrack for the adventure game "Windseeker".
Game plot
Vir’s brother Monu has sailed away, but before he could have possibly reached his destination, the winds vanish. Vir will do anything to save Monu, who is assumed to be lost at sea, and to return the winds.
Main Menu Theme
This is supposed to play when starting the game. The mood is supposed to be somewhat subdued and the music is not supposed to claim too much of the player’s attention. It is supposed to loop after the intro part, so the fade out is happening in the first repeating section.
Guiding Star
On her travels, Vir finds a helpful, if somewhat confused, little star, that will support her in dealing with the challenges she must face to find the winds. This track is supposed to play when they meet for the first time.
To give a feeling of magic and whimsy, this short piece is entirely focused around the chromatic mediant relationship between Fmaj and Amaj.
Stillness’ Lair
This track is supposed to play in the area before the confrontation with The Stillness, that has imprisoned the winds.
The Stillness is represented by the string sections and especially the spiccato basses and celli are carrying an aggressive rhythm.
Farewell
During the final confrontation with the Stillness it becomes clear that Monu has died in a storm, that has split his spirit in half – the part that loves his sister has become a star and has found its way to her, the part that is angry and bitter about dying at the whim of the winds has turned into the Stillness and imprisoned the winds. To release the winds, Vir must allow both the star and The Stillness to become one again, so Monu can peacefully leave this world behind. This track is Vir saying goodbye to Monu.
This track is composed in G Lydian to jerk on the heart strings and open the tear ducts ;)
Windseeker – End Credits
While some topics of Windseeker are sad and melancholic, the game is supposed to be an adventure and so the final credit roll is supposed to remind the player of the different stages of the game.
I have tried to give this track a feeling of a compilation of (non-existant) tracks in the OST.
My DAW of choice is Reaper, orchestral patches are from Spitfire Audio BBCSO Discover with solo instruments from IK Multimedia Miroslav Philharmonik 2, effect plugins from Native Instruments, Cockos and George Yohng.
Vir is represented by the woodwinds, with her search for her brother being shown in the repeating call and response that is also the very beginning of both the menu theme and the end credits. In parts, the response is either missing or delivered by the strings, hinting an the nature of The Stillness.
The strings are the adversarial forces - mainly The Stillness.
Vir's star companion is represented by the metallophones/glockenspiel
My biggest inspirations for this composition is the work of Austin Wintory.
Theme
How does it fit the theme?
The girl standing on the quiet pier next to a still ocean was the inspiration for the game's story
Link(s) of the submission on streaming services
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wz5YpPGsVgA
Number of tracks5
Genre
Soundtrack use permission
Any non-commercial project
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Comments
The compositions and arrangements are really nice! The story comes through strongly in the music, and I'm sure it's helped a lot with the approach of having each instrument represent a certain thing in the story. While I do think the chord progressions could adventure a little bit more outside their home key and some of the instruments could use a little volume automation to help them swell into each other, I really like all of the ideas here (especially Stillness' Lair) and had a ton of fun listening through! Great work!
Very pretty adventurous soundtrack, I do wish almost all the tracks were longer and had more movement either compositionally or instrumentally. Also I think the bass sections of each track felt a little too loud for my liking. The call and response motif and the use of modes was interesting though. Very solid OST all around.
Thank you! Looking at this project again with a week of distance, I totally share your criticisms. The tracks should have had more time to develop and more of a goal-oriented feeling, rather than their current pop song structure. Also, you are not the first to mention my bass mix and I promise to be better about bass levels and clarity/EQ-ing in the future.
I hope this will end in the upper tier
Beautiful soundtrack and great submission, I enjoyed listening to it :)
Greath track and a sad story , what more does a masterpice need. I enjoyed the whole thing, loved the orchestral parts and was suprized of the sad story the "game" has. Overall a nice compasition and a greath submition
very solid orchestration!!! though i wish there could be more going on in certain tracks for example stillness' lair; there could be more to be done with the percussion but that's imo! playing around with the articulation of the instruments could also breathe much more life into the ost (tremolo, pizzicato, spiccato)
keep up the great work!!!
Thank you for the feedback! Listening back to some of those tracks with a bit of distance, I would also change some stuff, especially the percussion part. I may yet do that!
Great job. The mix is done well. Overall a cohesive OST.
Very magical soundtrack! I found myself actually enjoying guiding star the most, really nice instrumentation there.
I really like the story and storytelling of the music. You've executed your ideas pretty well and the OST is coherent ! Maybe the music could be a little bit more "surprising" if it makes sense but it does the job perfectly and fits the described universe ! Nice one :D
I saw your name on the notification and just knew you'd ask me to think more out of the box =D
Thanks for the listen and the feedback, I'll certainly take a few ideas from your soundtrack and implement them in my coming pieces.
i like the orchestration and the textures of the whole ost. bravo!
Thank you!
This was a solid soundtrack! The Main Menu reminded me of FF9 a lil lol. I really liked Stillness Lair a lot, it had a lot of great vibes! You did well, keep it up.
I guess I also used woodwinds, but Uematsu was certainly more rhythmically playful in that OST than I. Thanks for the comparison, I love that game and I hope to some day be able to create something rhythmically complex and still totally working within the piece like that one part in the FF9 battle theme!
Overall a very solid soundtrack. I feel like the instruments could feel little more alive and the compositions could use more movement. It really sounds like a computer is playing the whole thing, but still a great job.
Yeah, I love the sound of BBC Symphony Orchestra, but the free version does not have all the controls of a paid library and I really missed dynamic control beyond just midi velocity. At least the "alive" part can largely be fixed by throwing some money at the problem instead of, y'know, getting better XD (and I promise to stop quantizing everything to the grid)
Thanks for the feedback, I will take stock after the voting ended and make a self-improvement list based on the comments.
Very well thought out and inspired soundtrack! The story is short and sweet and fits the music perfectly. If I could give one critique, it's that I would have liked to see a little more movement in the soundtrack as a whole, especially on "Stillness' Lair." The end credits theme goes harder than the rest of the soundtrack, and it feels more to me like parts of it are advancing the story rather than re-telling it. This track has some nice chord progressions and resolves on a beautiful note, but the ending does feel slightly abrupt to me.
Great sounding OST overall, nice job!
Thanks for the feedback, I'll be honest - the End Credits track was the first one I made and drew most of the parts for the other pieces from XD
More movement - meaning more variety? I certainly struggled with that and have already decided that that's one of the things I'm going to improve on in the near future.
I think you've done a fantastic job breathing life into these songs! They all managed to work well together. I think a couple of tracks are a bit too short though. They have good builds and ideas but I feel like they end just as they're getting started and leave more to be desired. That being said, it's still a tight package and I think you've done a great job!
Thanks, I'll try to be better with the buildup - I know that I'm rushing things a bit to get to the good parts early ("don't bore us, get to the chorus") and I need to keep an eye on that tendency.
And length-wise I could have done with more time - usually, a track takes me at least a week, so the extraordinary circumstances of a jam cut all of the extra development time short.
Oh yeah, for what you've done in a week I could hardly actually complain haha. Within those constraints you've definitely done a fantastic job! I stand by my points but I would also advise to definitely not take them too seriously; they are far from being a genuine issue within the scope of the jam.
absolutely beautiful, I find the compositions to be really intriguing!
Thank you for explaining your composition choices as it makes the music feel deeper than if they weren't explained.
The progression of the story was clear in the music itself and the music was well made.
Good work!
I was hoping people would find it helpful, so thanks for the feedback.
The OST fits the game idea you had very nicely! The use of leitmotifs helps connecting everything together even when using different textures!
I really liked "Stillness' Lair" for the driving force you managed to create, which works perfectly for the scene you thought for it!
Also liked how you incorporated everything it "End Credits"!
Great job!
Thank you so much!
Cover art looks great! Nice UX touch as well including all the songs in one video, definitely made for a better listening experience! I like the guitar sounds in Stillness' Lair!
That is a patch from Spitfire LABS astral... something. So it's a free instrument and I love the thing to bits!
Aaaah gotcha, I knew I recognized it from somewhere! Thx!
I love the lair one too so epic!
I just can't get over how guiding star literally sounds like a guiding star i love it.
Thanks =D