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Turlough OST's itch.io pageDescription
Turlough is the soundtrack to an imaginary Metroid-vania style platformer where you play as an urban father-duck and duckling in search of a new home. The game opens with a stray missile hitting your war-torn city pond, emptying it and killing mother-duck (Three Ducks). The pair then traverse multiple levels (City, Power Station, Beach, Lighthouse, and Cave) before opening an ancient floodgate and filling the surrounding valley with water.
The game uses a day/night cycle which changes whenever you exit a level. A linear run would have level 1 be in the day, level 2 in the night, level 3 in the day etc. Certain areas are only open at night like in Warioland 3, so part of the puzzle of Turlough is finding the alternative exits so you can reach different levels at different times of the day. Eventually the mamma-duck spirit guides you to the ancient switch before the floodgate where you briefly relive her death (The trauma before…) before opening it up. I see the final level (The floodgate) as an on rails rhythmic run-along like in Rayman Origins as you joyfully outrun/surf on the incoming flood. An experience of sheer joy.
Each level has two related themes: an upbeat 808 led, chiptune/hyperpop/indie day theme with defined clarinet (representing the duckling) and baritone sax (representing the father-duck) themes; and a chilled out, processed piano (representing the spirit of the mother-duck) led night theme.
I was thinking a lot about the Mystical Ninja Starring Goeman soundtrack, especially how level the themes evolved, while writing Turlough. I love the craft of late 90s, 00s soundtracks and how the composers packed each tune with such personality, be it through melody or harmony. Grant Kirkhope and David Wise have also always been a constant point of reference.
I wrote the soundtrack in Logic Pro with heavy use of Native Instruments, Arturia, and Acoustic Samples V-Horns/V-Winds plugins. It is 17 tracks in total and around 58’27” in length.
A Turlough is a seasonal body of water found mostly in Ireland.
How does it fit the theme:
I decided to not go the generic horror route as implied by the theme and instead focused on the duck/duckling combo (with duckling on the duck’s back) going on an adventure. I think the dark of most of the pictures pushed me towards the idea of a day/night cycle and the dilapidated nature of some of the settings caused the city they inhabit to be suffering under war. Then there’s the lighthouse picture which directly inspired the theme for that level.
Message from the artist(s)
Here's my entry. I decided to write solo as this is my first jam ever so wanted to push myself a bit. But give it a spin and if you like it drop by my Soundcloud and say hello. Cheers!
Link(s) of the submission on streaming services
https://on.soundcloud.com/iuVXs4hkzi0S4TZVz2
Number of tracks17
Genre
Soundtrack use permission
For game jams only
Compilation album
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Comments
-really like the glitching piano throughout the OST, gives that “clean, but electronic” vibe. curious what sort of processing you used there -the piano ostinati are generally very inventive :) give me some breath of the wild vibes. quite nice rhythmic interest, light dissonance -power station theme DAY was one of my standouts -i’m slightly curious what your definition of “hyperpop” is haha definitely getting more chiptune vibes, when I was hoping for a bit of SOPHIE ;p -the day/night cycle i really enjoy as a unifying idea. maybe difficult to pick up on first listen (my ears are tired), but I wondered how much material is shared between the two different versions of the track? -altogether super united, professional vibe and the main “character” instruments are well-chosen. they sort of stick out in the orchestration very well and i like the contrast with the electronic elements Great job!
Hey man, thanks for giving it a listen!
So here we go: the glitchy piano is mostly NI Alicia's keys run through various plugins like Arturia's EFX Motions and EFX Fragments though I also used Tim Exile's The Finger plugin occasionally and also just mangled it manually here and there. When I did my PhD I got really into cut-up techniques so that approach feeds into my work quite a bit.
Ah, were it possible to write like SOPHIE, but she was so unique. It's a fools errand to even try (and I have tried...). But I guess in my mind hyperpop techniques and ideas were used as much as chiptune ones, so I thought it best to acknowledge it.
The material shared between day/night cycles depends on the pieces I guess. It's pretty a/b on the City themes (the processed melodeon is a dead giveaway). Power Station night has a harmonic relationship (in that it has the chords of the day theme's verse but "smoothed over") and then it hints at the main melody. Beach Night is the same. Lighthouse Night is similar but with chord lengths dragged out. Cave night has the chords cut in half and reorganised into a 7 bar phrase (hence why the melody has a different phrasing).
MAN, does your track Battle! have Cardiacs vibes . I dig. Really cool album, Cluk & Bok Go To AI Hell. Good job!
Thanks for the detailed answer :) interesting to know a bit more about your process, especially how you arranged the day/night versions of the tracks! Actually wasn’t familiar with Cardiacs! One of those bands that you hear the name of constantly, but never manage to listen to… Thanks for the rec
This sounds amazing ! The opening track is such a vibe :D Impressive that you managed to put out an hour of such good work omg, congrats for this.
I will go back to this later in details, feels like there are some gems in this looong ost, bravo !! :)
Cheers man! I got lucky and the jam happened between projects so I had lots of time to get into it. I'll give Urbex Chicken a full spin in the morning but I'm liking where it's taking me already :)!