Skip to main content

Indie game storeFree gamesFun gamesHorror games
Game developmentAssetsComics
SalesBundles
Jobs
TagsGame Engines
(+1)

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 :)