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A jam submission

Comeback Captivators!View project page

Submitted by binpostsstuff — 20 hours, 23 minutes before the deadline
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Comeback Captivators!'s itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Composition#14.7374.737
Overall#24.4324.432
Quality#44.6324.632
Creativity#74.4214.421
Impression#124.3164.316
Storytelling#194.0534.053

Ranked from 19 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

Description
Can the the knight learn to play nice with the dragon? Can the spaceship captain and the alien set aside their differences to escape a hostile planet? Will the DJ ever coax the smoker back into the club?

You are a fan of the Captivators, a band who broke up decades ago. For one night only, they'll be in the same place and you have a chance to get them back together. Using a magic device designed by your grandfather, you must pull the Captivators into realms inspired by their songs to help them rekindle what they lost.

Comeback Captivators! is a hypothetical point-and-click adventure game. You travel between three realms and solve puzzles to bring members of the Captivators closer together. They certainly won't make it easy for you.

All songs were made in Furnace Tracker. Each of the three band members is represented by a different console:

Lead Singer - NES
Keyboardist - Genesis
Bassist - SNES

1. Fan's Fare
The opening cutscene. We see a brief history of the band, their messy breakup, and the resulting loneliness in the years that followed. We see The Fan discover their music and cook up a plot to get them back together.

2. Lorentz (The Lead Singer)
The face of the band. Sometimes he's too charismatic for his own good.

3. Kilroy (The Keyboardist)
The soul of the band. His experimentation made the band stand out, but perhaps he took it too far.

4. Ballast (The Bassist)
The heart of the band. She's tired of playing peacekeeper.

5. The Knight and The Dragon
A fantasy realm. Lorentz believes that Ballast is the princess locked away in a tower, but in reality, she's the dragon.

6. The Smoker and The DJ
A realm themed after a nightclub. Kilroy can play all the esoteric bangers he wants, but Ballast is happy to stay outside and smoke. Maybe he should try playing something from the heart.

7. The Captain and The Alien
A sci-fi realm. Lorentz has crashed his ship on a dangerous planet and believes a mysterious alien is out to get him. Meanwhile, Kilroy wants to get off the planet just as much as his adversary.

8. Ultimate Puzzle Gauntlet
You've brought each duo of the trio closer together in their respective realms, but old wounds are reopening and the realms are collapsing together. This is your final chance to make things right.

9. Utterly Captivated
You've solved every puzzle and helped the Captivators reflect on how they've treated each other. For the first time in a long time, they're talking without screaming at each other. Nothing is set in stone yet, but maybe, just maybe, they have another album in them.

Message from the artist
This is my first experiment with using multiple chips at the same time. Hope you enjoy!

Theme

Songs of a Forgotten World

How does it fit the theme?
In the game, you play as a young fan of a band that's been forgotten for years. Using a magic device, their songs become worlds they can interact with, which is exactly what they need to remember what they once had.

Link(s) of the submission on streaming services
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_I_oc0HoTVE

Number of tracks
9

Genre

Chiptune

Soundtrack use permission

Yes (CC BY-NC)

Any non-commercial project

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Comments

Submitted

great submission! chiptune never sounds when the composer does it right

Submitted

I love this submission! the composition are very strong. I'm usually not a big fan of this kind of style but this submission is very high level and enjoyable and might be my favorite for this jam. Thank You!

Submitted

i like this A LOT

this soundtrack is amazingly composed!!! i also really like how playful the story is

i think the mixing could be improved in some parts but other than that, this is awesome!!!

Submitted

Omg this is sooo amazing and charming!! How long did it take for you to get used to Furnace Tracker? My favorite track is Kilroy and The Smoker and The DJ. The art cover is really cute too! I would love to hear more about your creative process and inspirations :)

Developer(+1)

Really glad you enjoyed it! I've been using Furnace for about three years now. It took about two months before I was comfortable navigating the UI.

This soundtrack was written very out-of-order and in a very modular style. I would write half a song, then leave it for a few days until I had settled on a motif to represent a character, then write the other half to incorporate that motif. I wanted a natural progression throughout the album (each sound chip starts by playing independently to represent that the band is out of sync, they slowly start coming together in duets, and by the end, all three sound chips are playing simultaneously).

My biggest inspirations are RRThiel and John "Joy" Tay. Both of them squeeze as much as possible out of every channel no matter the sound chip they're using. This soundtrack was actually kind of a challenge because combining multiple chips meant I was less restricted than usual and the possibility of having so many channels at once meant there were an overwhelming number of options.

Submitted

That's soo cool! Thanks for sharing :D 

Where do you usually get your samples from? Or do you make them yourself? And what are your future goals for composition? (If you don't mind me asking so many questions haha)

Developer(+1)

A lot of my samples are pillaged from other people's modules. I've learned basically everything I know about Furnace from downloading project files in the Furnace Discord and studying the techniques that people used. For the SNES specifically, you can find a ton of samples on HVB's guide: https://samplemance.rs/snesguide/samples/repo/

For future goals, I'm  working on an NES album currently, though because I don't have a jam to get me on the grind, it probably won't be out for a while. Generally just planning on making whatever I feel like at any given time. Will post anything I make on my YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@bin6485

Looking forward to seeing what you make in the future too!

Submitted

Thank you so much for sharing! Looking forward to your future tracks ~ 

Submitted

So very very very fun! Wonderful part writing and it feels so lively! 

Submitted

Criminally underrated; it’s one of the best enries I’ve come across.
So much charm, great melodies, awesome sounds, and spectacular cover art.

Incredible work!

Submitted

Phenomenal work as always, the use of multiple chips is completely seamless, although every track that involved Killroy was a blast above the others. Representing these characters through the synths was a really great idea: The NES chip stands out, the most well-known "Chiptune" sound. The genesis chip, with its killer bass and really strong FM chip that invites experimentation, and the SNES one, with its sampling ability letting it evoke feelings easily...

Ultimate Puzzle Gauntlet and Fan's Fare were my favourite, the 3 chips together made for a really interesting sound... Which I think was the whole point of the story lol

Awesome stuff.

Submitted

The nostalgia! These pieces brought back memories of playing games on all those systems, especially some of the Mega Man games.  It is also the only Chiptune submission I have heard so far, so very creative for thinking to go that direction.

Submitted

oh my god! this is incredible! there's no way this doesnt at least make the top 10

Submitted

i genuinely have no words i'm blown away. bite sized masterpieces.