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Exploring the Gateway's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Impression | #191 | 2.392 | 2.583 |
| Storytelling | #194 | 2.006 | 2.167 |
| Creativity | #194 | 2.315 | 2.500 |
| Quality | #196 | 2.006 | 2.167 |
| Overall | #198 | 2.160 | 2.333 |
| Composition | #199 | 2.083 | 2.250 |
Ranked from 12 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Description
Mild instrumental songs. Exploring the Gateway is all about just that: exploring and discovering interesting areas. My two tracks focus on the area in between the Dawnside and the Duskside: the Gateway, which experiences dusk and dawn. The music of the Gateway changes to match the time. With the Dusk track I tried to make the music mellow and sparse, and with Dawn, I made it more bright and full. I composed the tracks using the trial version of FL Studio.
Theme
How does it fit the theme?
The tracks capture the feel of exploration of something new.
Number of tracks2
Genre
Soundtrack use permission
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Comments
This was a very interesting composition to listen to because, even though it is simple, I found the melody very creative. This stands out compared to some of the other compositions I have reviewed here because, although some people have a lot of experience with music theory and instrumentation, their pieces can be quite complex while still having relatively weak melodies. Yours, despite being simple, has a rich melody.
So, I believe that if you continue developing your musical studies, you can reach a very good level with this melodic approach. The idea was very interesting, and I also liked the variety of instruments.
Of course, I could tell that you are still developing your own musical language. So, I would recommend studying more harmony and voicing, while continuing to apply what you are learning about instrumentation.
Nevertheless, this was a great first step. Congratulations!
Thank you, I appreciate it.
I hear some melodic ideas, but without any type of accompaniment (texture pad, strings, woodwinds, etc.), it feels very hollow and devoid of any character. It does not help that the piano is very quantized and piano-roll sounding in track 1. I think you could have done some call-and-response between the two instruments and had at least some harmonic foundation underneath, which you tried to do, but it comes off as harsh and sudden. Track 2 is a bit better because there's a bit more interweaving between the horns, vibraphone, trumpets, and tom drums, and some harmony underneath the trumpet and vibraphone melodic lines. Overall, both tracks are very disjointed and sound quite unfinished. I would recommend learning how to layer, whether it's harmonically or texturally, and then you can start getting into more techniques, like countermelodies and counterpoint. You can definitely fully realize these tracks, but you need more time and compositional knowledge. There are melodic ideas, but they don't necessarily mean anything without all the other aspects.
These two tracks left me wanting more, chords underlying a progression, atmosphere, or percussion goes a long way. There is a lot of space to fill, even with a busy melody.
Both tracks feel like something's off. Dawn becomes better around first minute, but Dusk is extremely hollow. I personally would add something like pad or strings to fill the background, because these moments of silence between the existing instruments are not good. Overall, it's a decent OST
Thanks for the feedback!
I really would have liked if the instruments overlapped more. They feel so separated and as such make the songs feel incredibly empty.
as it is now, the songs feel disjointed and stagnant because there's only one thing to listen to at a time which makes for a less interesting listening experience.
One thing that I would suggest different from what KGML7 said would be to humanize the piano in the Dusk song as it feels very robotic. I loved your marimba usage in Dawn; it sounded really cool.
these tunes were quite good and i felt that the instrumentation did brilliant to capture the two ideas, however, i think that in a context of an ost, if you have to tracks whose names parallel eachother, you should make the music parallel eachother. for example keeping the same melody but slightly changing it between each song.
otherwise i enjoyed these :)