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The Man Who Makes The Flowers Grow's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Composition | #4 | 4.667 | 4.667 |
| Storytelling | #6 | 4.444 | 4.444 |
| Overall | #12 | 4.281 | 4.281 |
| Quality | #16 | 4.333 | 4.333 |
| Impression | #20 | 4.222 | 4.222 |
| Creativity | #57 | 3.741 | 3.741 |
Ranked from 27 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Description
Music composed for the OST Composing Jam 9, between August 28 and September 6, 2026. Composed as sheet music using MuseScore 4, with an internal DAW using licensed Orchestral Tools orchestra instruments. Piano parts and general sound mixing performed in Logic Pro 11. Tracks are in order of character development.
Theme
How does it fit the theme?
The music serves as a metaphor detailing a tormented man, long past, as he grew up and painfully learned to escape the overwhelming society he lived in, to achieve the simplicity and awareness once felt by our ancestors.
Link(s) of the submission on streaming services
https://soundcloud.com/brother_m/sets/the-man-who-makes-the-flowers-grow
Number of tracks6
Genre
Soundtrack use permission
Any non-commercial project
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Comments
I really liked the composition on this soundtrack, emotional and delicate. And I really dig some chord choices and orchestration ! Hope we'll have you next jams :)
We're near the end off the jam and I'm tired so sorry for the short comment :p
11 minutes until the end, Peluche, what a race! I am also very tired, but it is a happy tiredness, there were so many good entries, so many people doing such wonderful music... one accommodates to the "usual" and then these jams show us dozens of beautiful minds with so many fresh ideas :) Thank you so much for spending time listening until the very end! ^^
It's refreshing, inspiring, and an amazing experience so no regrets about the tiredness :)
Thanks to Lone Rabbit 🔥
Really great work ! Reminds me of the times I watched old disney movies or ghibli movies. My favourite is "Whispers", I like those eerie note like the chord at 0:22.
Thank you ChrisHQ! We're so close to the end now, you were very kind to still reach me with a comment, thank you :) I'm really glad you liked it. I have some fondness for Whispers too, it was actually the last track I recorded, pretty exhausted, but that I felt was absolutely necessary.
Well, it was worth it, "Whispers" was really beautiful !
Intro & Main Menu: Pretty piano work. Love these chord choices.
Forgotten Seeds: Really cool Phrygian harmony. Love how it gradually swells into the big ending.
The Twisted Man: This feels like a villain theme and I really like the chord choices. That percussion is really cool!
The Voyage: Right off the bat sounds like the wide open sea. The composition here is especially strong.
Whispers: Love this more emotional piano. I love how the ending "hangs".
Finale & Credits: You really get the dynamics so well here. Takes us through a range of moods.
Your composition is very strong. Great work!
Thank you KaS, for commenting on each track! It is curious you mention The Twisted Man as a villain theme, because there was a moment during lore creation when I thought I really could have had the character turn into one, so instead of having him reach to a more positive outcome, he would actually get more and more tormented. But in the end, I think, even though he doesn't really have a happy ending, he still managed to learn something from his Voyage, slowly put his past aside during Whispers, and finally remember who he was in the end, as represented by the reprised entry theme. So glad you liked it :) thank you!
Gorgeous piano sound in the intro theme! The Twisted man is such a fun and groovey track. :) And I definitely agree with others, such wonderful range of dynamics, everything is just flowing along so beautifully, just love the writing. Without a doubt one of the prettiest OSTs I've listened to in this jam, I'm very impressed! Felt like I went on a grand adventure just now.
I believe The Voyage is my favorite track, it's just so nicely orchestrated, I've been listening to it a few times, getting inspired and really trying to dig into how you put this track together! :)
Dear DJ Water Duck, I am so happy you liked it! Up until now I haven't asked myself if I have a favourite of my own but it really is difficult to choose. Although each track is somewhat different, they all relate to each other, and as much as, for instance, I also like The Twisted Man, I cannot imagine it without The Voyage right next to it, and so on. But maybe the orchestration of the latter is the one that I am happier with because I could really translate what I heard in my brain to the score, whereas the former is ok but I didn't quite had it orchestrated in my mind when I started putting the notes into the score. And, as I told another user, I was very indecisive as to the Man's leitmotif instrument, which did not help with the writing. Thank you so much for taking some inspiration from this little work :)
I agree with a lot of the other comments on this submission so I won't harp on too much on it. Beautifully composed soundtrack, there are new ideas in every track while still feeling cohesive to the overall theme, so there's this constant sense of evolution throughout the journey. Think that this is one of the best mixed and mastered soundtracks of the jam, the full dynamic range was leveraged to create many peaks and troughs throughout the experience, which added a lot of contrast to the pieces. When it's soft it is confidently soft, when it is loud it goes full guns blazing, it's very satisfying when the dynamics are so well handled. Thoroughly enjoyed listening to this, bravo.
Much obliged, Aesaire! I wrote most the OST on MuseScore 4, then performed sound editing and optimisation in Logic Pro 11. Most of the dynamics is controlled from the start by MuseScore’s internal DAW, while decoding the crescendos (<), mezzo-fortes (mf), etc. that I wrote on the musical scores where I wanted them to be. And of course, the decoding is blessed by the fantastic quality of Orchestral Tool’s virtual instrument libraries. Without those none of this could have been possible :) thank you for taking the time to listen! <3
I enjoyed this submission quite a bit. A simple, relatable story is expertly told through a mix of hauntingly beautiful piano tracks, and orchestral pieces where every instrument seems to dance with one another. "Cinematic" and "Movie-like" are great ways to put it, although somehow it doesn't feel like I'm making it justice. I have a few scattered thoughts about some of the tracks, which I'll share here. It's my own personal interpretation, so I'm not sure about how "right" I am, but you've made the smart decision not to provide obvious context, letting the listener make up their own take on the story, based on their experiences. (I had to relisten to this submission a few times to pick up on these, I just like it a whole lot!):
In Forgotten Seeds, the way the chord progression developed at around 0:38 and 1:13 felt really poignant. The ascending melody had a very dark, melancholic character to it, it reminded me of one of my favourite songs ever, "Sports, not Heavy Crime" by Xploding Plastix, which I always thought had a cinematic quality to it... What'd you know. Judging by the name and the overall theme of the jam, I suspect it's meant to be a backdrop to a world that has "forgotten its seeds". Perhaps the simple joys of life have now been taken for granted as a wave of cynicism and darkness now looms over us. One we've built ourselves.
Speaking of, there was a lot of cynicism felt while I listened to "The Twisted Man", that one especially felt the most movie-like out of all the tracks, with some really great orchestration throughout. I liked how the main motif started playing at around 1:52, to me it implied a longing for better circumstances... Before immediately being drowned by the more off-putting motif introduced in the track itself, as if using hate and bitterness as a substitute for a fulfilness that otherwise just simply cannot be found.
Whispers is a sadder take on the (alleged) protagonist's theme. The piano was expertly played here, I think compared to "The Twisted Man", which evoked a rejection and hate for our hero's situation, this one is lamenting a far away, seemingly unreachable goal. A goal to free oneself from the shackles that hold them.
The last track was my favourite, an orchestral remix of the intro theme. It feels like a great bookend to this story, one where the protagonist has sort of found a compromise, a way to find happiness... It's not all sunshine and rainbows, as implied by the sad direction the song goes to near the middle, but it quickly goes back to a happier tone: There is hope for a better tomorrow.
Overall, well made pieces that show a great story without telling us a thing. I can tell that you've very comfortable with both piano and orchestration, so I suspect you'll do fine if you ever were to compose fo a game or otherwise. I can picture this soundtrack going well with a game with a great focus on narrative and story, like some of the stuff put out by Telltale. Thanks for the great submission!
JenjenParibou, one just has to feel humble when someone dedicates so much time to write back on a creation of ours. I'm so honoured so many people have differently liked my six little tale pieces of music... I couldn't provide a fully detailed story as I am not a by-word storyteller, as I think I wrote somewhere, and I reckon this "man" is sort of a mirror of some biographical aspects of mine, which at the end of the day happened to bore the idea. I could have worked out the story better with someone else but I really wanted this to be a submission of what I could do using music only. Your thoughts were very welcomed! All in all, I always thought my cinematic style would fit better in movies than games, but the truth is nowadays there are so many brilliantly composed scores for games that maybe I would have a chance to fit in this field too. A member of my family asked me to write for a game for the first time at the end of last year, which ended up in a submission to a game jam here on itch.io. Then another. But while those were lighter spirited games, my hidden thirst for the dramatic (and a little push from my fiancée, who drew the cover art) opened the door to my current submission. I'd say this style is truly me, and having thus exposed a bit of myself so bluntly, it is a huge relief — and I have an endless gratitude for it — that these tracks encountered so many to reverberate with. I heartedly repeat my thanks to you for listening and caring :)
Amazing ost ! Your compositions are just beautiful. My two favorite tracks were The Voyage and Finale & Credits. I really liked the almost heroic feeling of The Voyage. It depicted very well the feeling of freedom. Finale & Credits was a track full of tenderness, and hope. It was heartbreaking (in a good way). Awesome ending track !
Absolutely beautiful soundtrack ! I loved listening to it.
I am so grateful for your positive feedback, Gabu! Indeed, The Voyage was also composed at the piano but right away I thought about how I wanted it orchestrated, and I am really happy the result is very similar to what I had in mind. This had to definitely break from the care of the piano entry, the depression of the Forgotten Seeds and the inner craziness of The Twisted Man. As for the Finale & Credits, since the beginning I wanted to orchestrate the intro theme. I didn't have the time to extend it as I wanted but I very happy for having had the idea of the string quartet at the beginning with the change to the full orchestration once the bridge is over. Thank you so much for taking the time to listen and comment!
Nice submission man! I liked The Twisted Man a lot; for some reason, I could imagine it being a theme in an animated Disney Movie lol. Great stuff.
Thank you, rikuwru! I was very fortunate that The Twisted Man showed up while composing, I am very happy with it too. I would also like to see it animated, I wouldn't say it has the quality for Disney but even a home made animation would be nice to give it further life. I am really touched you liked it so much, thanks again!
The moment I looked at your album art and listened to the first note of your track, it made me think of "To the Moon" by Freebird games. Your tracks show such a good understanding of voice leading and instrumentation. I do wish that the Finale & Credits are a bit longer as the ending feels a bit abrupt.
But anyways my favorite is the Intro & Main Menu and I can't stop listening to it! :) Are you/ have you uploaded the music score for it?
Hi teaXP_music, thank you for listening! It is so very funny that me and my fiancée just finished the whole "To the Moon" series a few weeks ago! I can't say that I was directly inspired by Kan Gao's music but between friends and family some style comparisons have been made with other compositions, so you're probably not far off at all. I also told liamt15 that I understand many people feel the Finale & Credits track music could have been extended further before the inconclusive finale, but I really didn't have the time to properly work out the orchestration here, so I decided it best to leave it short instead of adding stuff I wasn't happy with. What I am really happy about is that you came back to the Intro & Main Menu theme a few more times :) there was this mathematician called Paul Erdős who used to refer to a metaphorical "Book" in which some god kept the most elegant and perfect proofs for mathematical theorems, and that mathematicians just glimpsed at the book's pages from time to time. I guess something similar could be said of music too ;) As for your question, I wrote the score for Forgotten Seeds, The Twisted Man, The Voyage and Finale & Credits, but Intro & Main Menu and Whispers I played directly at the piano, so I don't have the score for those. But if I decide to build further on this project, I may write the piano score parts and on that event I am happy to share :)
I am so glad that you played "To the Moon!!" Did you play Freebird games too? (Now I feel like playing them again haha)
That's so awesome, I can't wait for the score!! :D
Yes, maybe I wasn’t clear, sorry :p By “To The Moon” series I meant all episodes and spin-offs: To The Moon, A Bird Story, Finding Paradise, Impostor Factory, and the Beach Episode, on that order. From Freebird Games, we haven’t yet played The Mirror Lied and we can’t find a playable version of Quintessence: The Blighted Venom.
Thanks for your interest on the score of Intro & Main Menu! :D
Oops that's on me, I misread!! I think I was too excited when I saw "To the Moon" lol. Congrats on your placement! :D
That’s ok :) I didn’t make it very clear either, don’t worry. Congratulations on your placement as well! And thank you so much for your contribution, more than the rank I am really happy I had so many people listening to it and reviewing :D
Intro - You have a good instinct for when to shift register. I like The key changes were very well chosen and placed I thought. I hope that cadence gets resolved somewhere down the line!
Forgotten seeds - Very grand crescendo throughout the track, especially with the shifting between tonic major and minor. Perhaps strings could have a bit more stage mic, if impossible, and the celli were a bit too far back in the mix for me.
The twisted man - I can see why Danny Elfman was brought up, those parallel minor chords are very evocative. The bouncy motif worked well in winds and strings but felt a bit off in horns, maybe it's a velocity or expression thing, or too much legato. Same with the low brass at the end.
The voyage - Great use of winds and harp for textural composing. Similar criticism of the horns here, but i think it might just be the limitation of the software. You have a great sense of when a phrase needs to be cut a bar short or be held longer for a bar or two, it makes the music very exciting to listen to.
Whispers - Great variation on the twisted man theme, couldn't ask for anything more.
Finale - Awesome conclusion. Reminded me of Reprise from spirited away, with the passing around of the motif, the minor section and then the build up to the key change passing the motif to low strings. The ending was a bit abrupt, felt like you could have milked it more, and ending on the subdominant left it feeling a bit inconclusive.
Fantastic submission, had a lot of fun listening!
Thank you for the review, liamt15 :) I sometimes plan the key changes ahead but in this case, while composing, the switch of the theme from Ab major to Bb major came quite naturally for me after the bridge. I know both the Intro & Main Menu and the Finale & Credits are inconclusive and I received the same critique at home for having done that, but this was a conscious choice, given what I wanted to achieve with the story. But I can agree that I could have developed the Finale a bit more, I just didn't have the time to do it. Just a quick side note: at both the beginning and end of The Twisted Man it is not a horn you hear, nor any brass instrument for that matter — it is a contrabassoon. It really took me a long time to decide on the twisted man's leitmotif instrument, but at the end I went with the contrabassoon as it is such a reverberating low-pitched instrument that it expresses something from deep inside the character that later explodes when I fully expose the theme. There is a glimpse of the intro theme just before the end, on the clarinet, and then the contrabassoon comes back to remind us the twisted part of the character is not fully gone.
I really appreciated your review, thanks again!
I did think bassoon but it was so bassy! Fascinating
I gotta give you the compliment back, that your work also feels really complete as it is! Every track brings something else to the whole picture. I liked that "Whispers" was right before the end as a little breather between the bigger orchestral pieces. Well done:)
Thank you, Leaf_makes_games! I'd say it is a minimalist completeness but maybe in the future I'll decide to add some more tracks, especially if an actual game ever develops from this little idea. Really appreciated! :)
I am really happy you liked it, rafaelsartori :) The time was short for development, and I confess my brain was completely drained on Sep 6th, but at the same time it was a wonderful experience and I am truly thankful that I found the courage to go through with it!
Wow, you've got a knack for musical storytelling! Even with the limited context provided, I was able to feel and imagine the protagonist's journey just through sound. All of the tracks were wonderful and played key roles in the soundtrack, but I especially loved the way you reprised the intro theme in the ending, it was beautiful. Great job, and thanks so much for sharing!
Thank you, BodoTheSerf! It is funny that I was never any good at telling stories with my words but from the feedback I've been having for many years, it seems there is some truth in your comment ^^ I don't know about other submitters — I guess there are many composers here participating which have already chosen a team to truly develop a game with the written music — but in my case I haven't done so, this is just an idea I had for the context/lore based on a personal story of mine (giving the title to the mini-album). So, I am really sorry I somewhat failed again to tell a story with my words. Thankfully there have been people like you noticing the "story" hidden within the chords ;) thanks so much for listening!
I really really like your composition style (especially how you write for piano, I gotta take notes). Hearing the melody in Intro & Main Menu being rewritten for more of a string quartet in the final track, then evolving into a full orchestra was a really nice payoff. I also like the cover art. Great submission!
Much appreciated, AdPa203! My instrument is indeed the piano, so some of my compositions either mysteriously pop up in my head while performing daily activities (and then transition to the keyboard), or show up when I have the time to sit and let my fingers run over those black and white keys. The Finale & Credits is definitely a nuanced reprise of the Intro & Main Menu theme, and starts exactly with a string quartet! This would be the actual "final moment" of the game (maybe a cut scene) which then possibly moves to the credits with an orchestral full expression via the timpani tremolo crescendo. I am really happy you also noticed the cover art, it was drawn by my lovely fiancée <3 Thank you for your comment! :)
Caught some Danny Elfman vibes with The Twisted Man. Instrumentation is masterful and these melodies have so much character. Super clear movement in every piece and they don't overstay their welcome. If anything, they left me wanting more.
There's emotional nuance. I really liked what you did with the reprise. A lone piano is the kind of thing you'd normally expect to represent serenity because of how simple and intimate it is, but here, in the first track, it's melancholic, like longing. Then that motif comes back with a full orchestra at the end, and somehow that's where the serenity is. It's victorious, but it feels internal. And then it literally goes out on a high note. There's a closing cymbal and everything, but instead of fully resolving it just fades away up there. I don't know if that was intentional, but it left me wondering if the journey is actually finished, or if that sense of peace is something we can only ever get close to, rather than fully inhabit.
This feels straight out of cinema. Pure kino.
Hi Schizectomy, indeed Danny Elfman is a major inspiration throughout my writings! I wasn't thinking about him when I wrote The Twisted Man but hearing it in light of your comment makes perfect sense. I think I did the Intro & Main Menu melancholic as a preview, or a sum up of the events that would follow, because although there is happiness in The Voyage, as well a feeling of liberation, including in the Finale & Credits (deceivingly, as I changed some chords to minor in the reprise), there were some darker moments too, and as Whispers sort of indicates, not everything is OK at the end. Naturally, I didn't have time to develop all my ideas further, especially having only decided to enter on Aug 31st, meaning there would be more nuances to the character's process of finding peace with his connection to our origins. So, yes, the Finale is musically unresolved because the character is also not fully satisfied — while it is nice that he managed to "wake up", one cannot say the same for others around him, and as many of us know, enlightenment can sometimes become a curse.
Thank you so, so much for your words, they really went into the heart of this little creation :)
Quite a great and interesting story you have achieved through the music. I love your compositions, I feel that the intro coveys the vulnerability of this man quite well. I suppose that the forgotten world is what the tormented man escapes to?
Thanks Deádric336, that’s exactly it. I’m sorry, others have also complained that I should have added more lore information. Forgotten Seeds is his former state of hopelessness day-by-day in a selfish society where everything was done by the rule and people barely interacted and shared moments with one another. The strong finale of that track is him feeling overwhelmed by this frustration, which results in a madness of sorts (The Twisted Man). He then realized he needed to let go of his, then, current life and travel around (The Voyage) in search of re-establishing some contact with a former human way of living. In Whispers we hear a reminiscence of the twisted man, now calmer but still saddened by the fact that not many people have, like him, followed this reconnecting path. Still, he now managed to understand his forgotten origins better, and so the Finale brings back the Intro theme in full scale, leaving a trace of hope for the future which, since he has passed away many years ago, is our present.
Nice that you have thought so much about the lore, it adds another layer.
That piano first song is amazing, almost made me cry! I also like the other songs, how the strings and brass hold themselves back, and the control of the dynamics. I see the vision with this one, what a great album.
Yes, the intro theme was what made me decide to go through with the participation in the jam :) I am quite happy that it showed itself up and for keeping me going, but what makes my day is to know that it reached to someone’s feelings, thank you so much for your kind words!
The cover art is so cool! It really fits the music as well.
The Intro theme is so sweet and lovely, I really like the part when the left-hand arpeggios start around 0:54, kind of reminds me of my favorite part of Claire de Lune. I also really like in The Twisted Man around 1:09 the Horn (?) and Tuba duet, leading into the big choir blast. The solo piano in Whispers is really beautiful and intimate as well. So nice!
Such a great variety of amazing tracks here.
Much appreciated, wotlonk! :) The cover art was made with love by my fiancée, I was very fortunate to have her taking time to do so. I am really glad someone paid attention to it! <3
I totally understand the Claire de Lune reference, I love Debussy's music, especially for the piano. I mostly have a "classical" background, I can't even begin to list where my influences start... I guess writing film music is a heirloom to the classical composer, so these two go hand in hand very often. Regarding the 1:09 passage in The Twisted Man, you got it right with the tuba and the horn, but there is a third metal, which is probably more subtle — the trombone. But very well spotted!
Thank you so much for your comment!
Wow, this is fantastic, it sounds cinematic and it's really well composed and produced. You are very good at getting emotions across through your music. The more full-on orchestral tracks are great but my favourites are the quieter piano ones, they're honestly beautiful. Maybe you could have gone into more detail about the context for the music but the tracks themselves are pretty faultless!
Thank you so much, samdgoff! I do have a weak spot for film music, I have only very recently entered the games' trade, so to speak. Although my instrument is the piano (which I played myself in the Intro & Main Menu and Whispers tracks) I have a huge interest in orchestration, as I find a good conversation between the instruments can be quite fulfilling. I ended up starting a bit late into the jam submission period (the first theme only come up on August 31st), so although I had a clear idea about the lore of the game, I worked in orchestration until the very last minute and didn't have much time to develop the context. But thanks for the heads up, I will surely look into making things clearer if this project takes off some day ;)
Thanks again for listening!
LOVE the piano in the first track! the orchestral composition here is well achieved, and done with plenty of variety! high points on storytelling - you know how to compose in a way that reflects your vision perfectly. again, HUGE fan of the solo piano lines. well done!
I deeply appreciate your words, KFComet. I was unsure to participate until the 31th of August, when I sat at the piano late at night, and this theme just showed up. Then the rest followed, up to the very last day. I am really touched by your comment, thank you so, so much!