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Description
Canticum is a musical puzzle-exploration game. In it, you play as an ethnomusicologist in a post-apocalyptic world where the internet, electricity, and all digital record-keeping has long since collapsed. Travel through the forgotten villages of Vockslip County to listen to the songs of the past, sung in fragments by locals. Melodies, lyrics, and historical anecdotes are added to your Canticum Compendium, where you can piece the fragments together. Match lyrics to melodies, identify the origins of songs, and find the bigger picture of what their stories tell. As you explore and grow your compendium of folk tunes, you will uncover more about the past—and the calamity that haunts the Countryside to this day.
Each song in Canticum has a double-meaning. They reveal a parallel between the millenia-old tales of gods and deities, and the history, only a few hundred years old, of the apocalypse. How you interpret the information you uncover, and how you report your research throughout the game, shapes the story.
Canticum is my entry to the OST Composing Jam #9, and was entirely composed in Studio One 5, using a blend of VSTs and live-recorded vocals and violin, played and sung by me. VSTs include those from Cinematic Studios, Kontakt Factory Library, Fracture Sounds, Spitfire LABS, AGML, 8Dio, and more. The way music changes over time is an aspect of the gameplay, so the soundtrack was written to reflect that. Some tracks take on a more directly folky sound, while others are abstract, like fragments of melodies floating through vacant space. This is accomplished through a blend of intimate guitars, harps, piano, strings and chimes, and huge, sweeping reverb.
Track 1: Canticum (Title Screen)
The opening track to the game, and the first I composed, introduces the ‘Scarabellum’ motif which returns often throughout the soundtrack. I originally planned to use a modified version of the biblical latin, ‘donec ponem inimicos, scabellum pedum tuorum’, as the text throughout. It translates to ‘until I make thy enemies my footstool’, which has context in the story. Only a part of the text was used.
Track 2: Who Were They
You, the character, are long-dead. At the start of the game, a narrator begins to tell your story. This is the character creation screen.
Track 3: Arrival to Vockslip
This track plays during the opening cutscene, when you enter Vockslip County for the first time. You are travelling alone with only a bike and a guitar as your companion.
Track 4: A Whispering Past
Originally, the game was going to have separate tracks for a windy field, a rushing river, a hilly place, a rainy place, and a mountain. These would be places you could go to meet locals on your travels, and collect melodies for the Compendium. Due to time, only one of the ambient ‘location’ tracks was built. This would play in the windy field. I recorded many violin gestures to create a layered, windy atmosphere, and included some fragments of melodies and gentle drones to evoke a folk-ey feel.
Track 5: The Lamb and Hammer
There are two locations you frequently visit throughout the game. The first is The Lamb and Hammer, a local pub where you can talk to locals and ask questions about the melodies you’ve collected. There is a very upbeat and sentimental vibe here.
Track 6: The Inn
This track is a calmer take on the pub music, featuring the Cor Anglais.
Message from the artist
I had less time to work on this than I had hoped, but that's everybody. I hope you enjoy and thank you for listening to this one.
Theme
How does it fit the theme?
The game is all about discovering songs from a forgotten time, where music, as we discover in the game, has become one of the only ways to preserve history. The birds in this image also inspired me to incorporate so much singing into the soundtrack. It's the distant, calling voices from an age gone by, rolling across the sprawling countryside you are exploring.
Link(s) of the submission on streaming services
https://on.soundcloud.com/7PjuZN5uhjMD9mqyeY
Number of tracks6
Genre
Soundtrack use permission
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Comments
One of my favorite "folk / medieval" submission ! I don't really have any critics, it was really good
Great job! I love the title track especially! The use of choir throughout was the glue that welded everything together. This is highly "rounded-out."
Simply fantastic, I loved every second of it! Each track is just full of intricate details and interplay between the different instruments and voices which come together so beautifully. The balance you achieve between the musical elements and emptiness is also wonderful, it conveys the atmosphere, space, and the idea of 'fragments' so well. Amazing work, and thanks so much for sharing!
Canticum - The close harmonies in the voices are so delicate and well balanced, amazing.
Who were they - Incredible open sound from the ensemble. Love the lydian character of those fifths. The suspensions in the vocals are great, but also in the piano, like the G (1:18, 2:36) that sets up the key change to reset the loop, that was awesome.
Arrival to vockslip - You have a really good instinct for how much space and rubato to give everything. And the phrasing and dynamics are so expressive!
A whispering past - This feels like the ambient BOTW music, I love it. So glad you made use of recorded violin because the results are fantastic.
The Lamb and the Hammer - Jump-scared by the guitar! Bit of a change in tone. I think it's just because the rest of the soundtrack sounds so incredible but the virtual instruments stick out here to me. Love the section from 1:19, especially the countermelody in the Mandolin(?) and it's such a satisfying resolution back to Major.
The Inn - Love the interplay between the winds in this, going to have to make a mental note of the gorgeous sound of clarinet and flute (I believe?) in 3rds.
What a great submission! Love to hear folk instruments explored in a more ambient/textural way, it was incredibly successful and really inspiring!
Easily 5s across the board for me, this was such a treat to listen to and fits the theme so incredibly well!! I'm not huge on puzzle games but if it has an ost like this i'm BUYING it no questions asked!!!! Overall composition for the entire ost is breathtaking especially when there isn't even much going on (sometimes less is more imo), but the instrumentation is SUPERB!!!! That's not even mentioning the mixing work here everything blends in so incredibly well without one instrument overpowering the other. In other words it's peak 🔥🔥🔥🔥
Well shucks, thank you so much for listening and for the glowing feedback :) yours was phenomenal!
Love the piano work.
Thank you for listening!
Hey, this is absolutely wonderful! As I said on Discord, you’re very talented and truly deserve to win. This is my favorite OST from the jam!
Thanks so much for listening! This is high praise coming from such a great composer :)
This is the first entry I've listened to this jam and what a start it is! I think your tracks do an excellent job of selling the setting your game takes place in. I really liked hearing the melodies come and go around in the more atmospheric tracks, almost as if they're just echoing in this emptier apocalyptic world. This was an absolute pleasure to listen to, thanks for sharing!
Thanks so much for listening! Your soundtrack was one of my favorites to listen to :)
One thing about Canticum is that the world has mostly healed its wounds. The apocalypse was so hundreds of years ago--it's the history, and the technology, that has been lost the most. Conveying that in a musical capacity presented quite the challenge! It had to be melancholic, like a secret buried in the ground, veiling everything in mystery.
Overall, a really wonderful album to listen to. Each track really stimulates the imagination and feels like it places the listener into a completely different world. Great job!
Thank you! To be honest, I wasn't sure if it would come off as immersive, so I'm glad you think it was :) Canticum came to me more and more as I wrote the music. There wasn't a sense of progression in the musical content, which is normally how I plan the story of a game. If I had the means to write more music, I would have sooner added more locations instead of lore tracks, like cutscenes, story moments, or a final series of songs that plays at the end of the game. Perhaps multiple endings with different tracks? The scope was a bit too broad. Maybe I'll finish it some day with bonus tracks ;)
Gorgeous work and beautiful composition. Love the textures and colors created here.
Thanks so much for listening, and well done on your soundtrack too!
i love in "who were they" how the woodwinds and the vocals sound comforting and inviting while the strings and chords (don't know the instrument sorry) sound like they're trying to ward you off.
the whole ost is gorgeous, emotionally stirring and exquisitely put together. thank you for momentarily calming my brain zaps.
Hello icon :3 honored that you listened! I hadn't noticed that contrast between the winds/vocals and strings, but that's totally true! It's meant to be a neutral-ish track: the player is already dead, but their story hasn't been told yet. So there's meant to be a contrast between bleakness and hopefulness. (I layered a zither, piano, and harp harmonics for the plucked chords!)
Thank you for listening, and for the feedback!
Woah, bravo! I’m awed by the quality of this soundtrack. You’ve put a ton of work into this, and it shows. There’s so much variety, and I think each track has matched each of your descriptions perfectly. Track 2 and Track 4 in particular are incredibly well done, and I love the ambient feeling and sense of intrigue they make. Certainly track 5 is my personal favorite though, it feels so cozy.
Amazing work!
Aw, thanks so much for the feedback :) I haven't composed much ambient stuff in a while, so this was a fun treat and I would have liked to do more of it. Perhaps next time?
Beautiful OST, really lovely sounds and vibe.
The first tracks had a very interesting ambience with the voices and strings in the background. In the whole OST, my favorite elements were the low notes (almost scratchy) on the violins. My favorite track was The Lamb and Hammer. I really like this adventurous vibe, and the drums had my head nodding the whole song. Each time the voices were singing, it was a delight for my ears. The Inn was also very pleasant to listen to. I also really enjoy this cozy vibe, and the different melodies playing at the same time were very interesting. It inspires me a lot for my own tracks !
Overall, very great OST. I really enjoyed listening to it and following its story. The female voices were a great addition overall, it made the whole OST really feel like a sole, broader story.
Congrats on finishing the jam !
Thanks so much for the feedback, and well done on your soundtrack as well! The Lamb and Hammer is my favorite, too. Glad you enjoy my singing :)
Great entry! Loved the production and fullness of the tracks. Feels very story rich. Thoroughly enjoyed this, my favourite entry so far, stellar work!
I think "A Whispering Past" was my favourite, magical :)
Thank you so much for listening! A Whispering Past is special-- I really wanted to include more live violin playing throughout, but was limited by time :/ still, it was fun to do at least one track with it!