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A jam submission

ForthView game page

A soundtrack for an imaginary game
Submitted by alpikespot — 4 hours, 14 minutes before the deadline
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Forth's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Storytelling#244.1084.108
Overall#423.9783.978
Creativity#433.9733.973
Quality#434.0544.054
Composition#563.9463.946
Impression#633.8113.811

Ranked from 37 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

Description
Runtime: 16:16 (wow what a coincidence!!!!)
Description:

Forth is a soundtrack for an imaginary game. The game is a first-person 3D adventure game where you can use your boat, go fishing, and do other activities, while trying to find the atoll.

The protagonist, you, have to set sail through the waves to save your brother that has been captured by a mysterious group of tribesmen and is kept on a remote island. The only way to get there is by boat at night. So you start your journey with your friend, Mark, a fisherman who has a boat. He's well experienced in navigating in the sea. He warned you about the dangers of the sea and you're well aware of it, but there's no other way to rescue your brother. He's ready to do this, even if it means dying.

Tracks:

​Forth (ambient/idk electronic):This is the title theme of the game that plays at the intro cutscene and the title screen. The first part is calm, you are at the dock, waiting for Mark to arrive. You're a bit anxious, but you're also determined. The second half sets the dark tone of the game, the adventure won't just be all fun and games. Your brother's life depends on your actions. What if you arrive too late to the island? What if the boat breaks? What if the tribesmen catch and kill you? You've never done something like this before.

Sine (ambient): You have started the trip. Slowly distancing from the coast, you feel a sense of peace, but also sadness. The sea is so quiet. The sun is slowly going out, and it's becoming dark. While your friend is rowing and following his map and the compass, you can try fishing, chat, or just observe the endless sea.

​Gaia (drone/ambient): As the sun sets, the stars and the galaxy starts covering the sky. Since you live in an urban area, you never got to see the sky this way. And it's beautiful. It's dark, but the moon and your lights prevents you from being in pitch black. However, something doesn't seem right. You see massive clouds slowly coming over, and the waves are starting to become more and more violent. Oh no.

Thunder (noise/industrial/ a bit of IDM): It's a storm. And it's dreadful. The wind and the rain is so strong that you can't see anything. You don't want to die, you're still young. Why have you chosen a weak old boat for this? You hear a faint scream.

Mark... (downtempo?? electronic) : It's over. The ocean has stopped expressing its anger. But, where's your friend? He's no longer on the boat. It can't be. You are in denial. He's dead because of me. I should have been the dead one, not him, not Mark. Will I even be able to reach the island? You learn to use your now deceased friend's compass, the map is completely ruined because of the storm. It's still dark, but now that you're alone, it feels like it's pitch black and you've never felt as hopeless before. Then you see a silhouette at the distance. Is that the island?

Nkumo Atoll (folk/IDM/electronic/ambient) : After hours of the most intense day of your life, you disembark. This must be where the tribesmen live. You still can't get over the death of your friend, the guilt is immense. But you have to go on. As you explore the island, you discover a hidden community. There's huts, and probably people sleeping in them. You have to be quiet. Then you see a cage, and it's your brother. You are so relieved. You sprint towards the cell to rescue him. But they have awakened. You both start running for your life. You quickly take the boat and start rowing with all your force. The tribesmen couldn't catch you and you got away. You have lost your friend, but also successfully rescued your brother, and look, the sun is showing up now. You arrive safely to your homeland.

Stuff I used and inspirations:

The gear is just a modest pc that works well, shitty wired JBL earphones that looooves physically breaking and slightly reducing one of the ear's volumes so that I have to manually balance the earphones' output by channel, so during the jam I bought a real headset but the jack cable the shop gave me gives only mono output and my PC doesn't have bluetooth so I have to keep using those bomboclat earphones that I hate so much I'm never going to buy silicon earphones ever again they also just come out of your ear when you get sweaty like when I work for +3 hours straight on the last day to finish the last track I hate it, and a cheap AIR 32 midi keyboard.

I used REAPER and other free stuff for this, such as: Emergence, Helm, Vital, Ragnarok, 8bit shaper, uhhyou plugins, kilohearts, TAL filter (mostly for panning), deelay, TAL Reverb 4, and a loot of DecentSampler instruments from pianobook for the bongos, strings, pianos, and other acoustic and non synth instruments.

This is the first time I made tracks seamlessly transitionning into the next one, and I'm overall very proud of my work.

Some inspirations: Gaia inspired by Radio Amor from Tim Hecker (like the track Spectral and the album's seamless transitions, also AMAZING ambient/drone artist you should listen), Venetian Snares for the odd time signatures (everything he does is never in 4/4), and just a mix of IDM and Ambient artists I listen to like Autechre, Aphex Twin, Boards of Canada, etc etc. The track Thunder reminds me of Feedbacker pt.4 by Boris, (you should also listen that, an AMAZING rock/noise album). ​

Message from the artist
hope you enjoy, also I made a 20min vid explaining how I made the soundtrack https://youtu.be/5gll5oMnmWQ

Theme

One Summer Night
Picture theme

How does it fit the theme?
The setting was mostly inspired by the picture, but also the text a bit. First, the game mostly takes place in the ocean as indicated on the picture. The gender of the protagonist isn't specified but I interpreted the girl in the picture as the protagonist, waiting for Mark to arrive. Secondly, the game takes place in a single night.

Link(s) of the submission on streaming services
bandcamp: https://alpikespot.bandcamp.com/album/forth
youtube (for seamless transitions): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JomlWdgZMzU

Number of tracks
6

Genre

Electronic
Rock/Metal
Ambient
Experimental
World/Ethnic
Other

Soundtrack use permission

No

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Comments

Viewing comments 30 to 21 of 30 · Next page · Last page
Submitted(+1)

Forth: Great ambience, got lost in it. Drums caught me off guard in a good way.

Sine: Ethereal. Love the buried melody around 4:18.

Gaia: Love how this swells. Bass sits so well. Great transition into-

Thunder: , and I love this percussion. The noise really captures the storm feel, I really do feel like I'm in the midst of one while listening. Very cool track! My favorite here. 

Mark...: This one matched your story so well. I love how the sound changes leading into-

Nkumo Atoll: I love the percussion. Oh wow this is very cool. You really nailed a tribal feel here. The hectic section indicating the chase is a really cool touch. And then the calm ending. Finally they escaped!

I appreciate the storytelling here a lot! Nice work!

Submitted

peak😼😼

Submitted(+1)

saw someone mention oliver buckland in the comments and im already excited to listen ...

your opening track, "Forth," is really beautiful! really like the chord progression being built. this track is simple in a way that is thoughtful. the synths here are well composed. i do feel like, without the percussion, the lower synths did present as slightly muddy - but not in a way that was too distracting, your melodic lines still sounded wonderful! the percussion interjecting later on provides a good driving force befitting of the beginning of a story.

"Sine" sounds wonderful so far! your transition was so smooth i hadn't even realized it started yet LMAO.. again, wonderful chord progression! again the only issue is mixing - your composition is really thoughtful and i love the timbre and texture of this track, but some of the melodic lines were lost behind reverb and the volume of other instruments, like i couldn't really hear the piano (i have hearing problems so take this w a grain of salt i may be wayy off base and sound crazy asf</3)

oooo gaia is really gorgeous so far!!! i love the chords being built! really builds that cosmic and surreal theme, while leading into that sense of impending doom with the clouds rolling in. loving the addition of the arpeggiating synths. definitely my favorite track so far!!

scary storm,. ,.,. hey if i heard this in an actual game i would probably crap my pants ! loving the chaos in this track and its really fitting of the chaos of a ocean storm. the ambience of the ocean and rain here is nice. the glitchy panning percussion is really cool!

poor mark ... he shouldve like. not fallen probably. but no yeah i really like the depressive theme of this track! the ostinato from the marimba-like instrument really progresses the idea that the main character must keep going in spite of what's happened. definitely one of my favorite tracks so far.

oo the percussion in Nkumo Atoll is really nice! this one tells a good story, beginning with the quieter and deeper synths, before progressing into the chase sequence. really nice ending to the OST, and i love the percussion here! hello 5/8... this is a really lovely track and, again, this one definitely takes the cake for being my favorite! i love the intention behind this one and i can really visualize the story that runs alongside this track.

overall, very entertaining listen! i feel like the pitfall of a lot of ambient tracks is that they get boring very quick, but that was not the case here. i enjoyed every second! my only general note (and, again, take this with a grain of salt, because there was a LOT of good in your submission that far outnumbered this one nitpicky thing) would be mixing. there was the occasional muddiness from the reverb of synths and general balance between instrumentation that tended to drown out other instruments, but never to a distracting degree. this was a wonderful listen overall!

thanks for much for sharing i lovelovelove this submission! keep it up!!! :DDDDDDDD

Developer(+1)

Thank you!! I've never heard of Olivier Buckland but I'll take those as a compliment. I wasn't expecting a review this long lol. Glad that you liked it and thanks for your feedback too! I actually tried to make the piano sound distant in Sine so I put the reverb mix to like 70%. 

Submitted(+1)

These ambiant pieces remind me of the music of Oliver Bucland . Very cool use of textural elements and effect to create a sence of dread and wonder. Nice story owerall and a lovely listen.

Submitted(+1)

The sound design is great! For ambient music good sound design really puts it together, and here it really delivers!

Submitted(+1)

Love the overall vibe and ambience you were able to create with this project! It's designed perfectly to immerse you in your game. I imagine you would almost forget that it's there while you're playing cause of how well it can become part of the experience. Good work!

Submitted(+1)

Very great story. The music is not too exciting so it won't be intrusive to potential gameplay.

Submitted(+1)

Very nice soundtrack, it has a lot of very interesting textures and sounds throughout !

Even with the minimalism of the ambient style, I felt that every track represented its story intent very efficiently (especially with the gloomy melodies in Mark... that represent very well this moment of the story for the protagonist).
I also really liked Nkumo Atoll, the style with the percussions and the track's progression was very unique and contrasted a lot (in a good way) with the calmer sailing tracks before.

Overall excellent job, congrats !

Submitted(+1)

This is rlly good and precise, i loved your composition very subtle yet spot on.

Submitted(+1)

Dang, even with most of the tracks being fairly ambient they are all insanely precise with their storytelling. All the textures and pads and percussion come together to create an atmosphere that physically and emotionally puts you right in the story. My personal favorite's gotta be Gaia with how well it shifts the tone away from Sine and sets up Thunder which is also a banger. Nkumo Atoll also feels like a pretty out there combination of genres and manages to blend them together really well both on its own and in the context of the album, a great way to close it all out. That was a ton of fun to listen to!

Viewing comments 30 to 21 of 30 · Next page · Last page