Play soundtrack
Below the Petal / Above the Roots's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Incorporation of Theme | #4 | 4.000 | 4.000 |
| Storytelling/History | #7 | 3.538 | 3.538 |
| Cohesion | #8 | 3.769 | 3.769 |
| Uniqueness/Originality | #8 | 3.692 | 3.692 |
| Overall | #9 | 3.603 | 3.603 |
| Vibe/Atmosphere | #11 | 3.462 | 3.462 |
| Execution | #13 | 3.154 | 3.154 |
Ranked from 13 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Description
The theme world this jam was: 'The Effect of the Environment on Society and Culture' and the questions we had to answer were 'how does the environment affect your world's society and culture?' and 'What challenges do people in your world encounter because of the environment?'.
This world is a planet that has a plant species that took over the world a few millennia ago and separated the people living on the planet. Some chose to take refuge underground, and some chose to take to the skies. Both of them are unable to cut through the plant due to the strength of the roots and the thick stalks of the plant, so over time, they forgot about each other and developed distinct cultures.
The people who live in the skies live in airships and live off the plant's flowers, which they use as herbs for cooking and medicinal purposes, and its fruit, which provides them with nutritional value. The plants go through a photosynthesis-like process which produces a buoyant gas that they can capture using a special gas-capturing device that funnels into their airship through a semi-permeable membrane produced from the stalk. Then they take that gas and use it in their airships, which are made from the stalk of the plant, which is less sturdy than the roots but can still be used for building materials. The people who live above the roots have to regularly make descents to collect fruits and flowers, which can be dangerous due to toxic bugs that can live in the plant. The rest of their time they spend in the air, navigating to and from airship hubs to repair and sell things, which can be a long journey. They pass the time by doing daily check-ups on the ship and bird-spotting.
The people who live underground feed off the tubers and roots of the plant, the tubers being a white, reverse-beetroot-shaped vegetable, and the roots are used for utility since they can be woven into a sturdy rope, and are used for ladders, ropes and more as they live in a system of tunnels. The people who live below the petals have a large system of tunnels that they travel through via a minecart made from stone and roots. Housing is built easily, with a living space for each person. There's lots of noise due to the bustling markets selling lots of things, from amulets to food, to weapons, to equipment, all trying to get your attention to buy something. There are food farmers, digging tunnels and harvesting the tubers, root farmers that cut through the roots for materials, a very time-consuming process, and water farmers, which when it starts raining, water will filter through the plant and they have to filter the water and collect it.
Software used:
Cakewalk Next as the DAW, (proof in screenshots)
Canva to make the cover art, (proof also in screenshots)
Plugins and Instruments used for the music:
LABS Soft Piano
LABS Autograph Grand
Some Bass Synth Soundfont, can't remember what its called.
TDR Nova
Notes:
I don't have any planning for the writing but I remember I came up with this idea from thinking 'what do we take for granted in our lives?' and I somehow thought, 'standing on the surface of the planet' so I created a world that has its surface covered by a plant, but instead of seeing the plant as an obstacle, the people in this world use it to their advantage and live with it.
I only had around 2 weeks to do everything unfortunately, so this may not be good, but at least I tried I guess :>.
Thank you for reading and listening to my story!
Demonstrate that this is your own work
Screenshots of music DAW, Cover art and thought process of the worldbuilding and writing demonstrated in the description of the entry.
Discord Tag
reallyglitched
Leave a comment
Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.
Comments
This is a cool, fun concept. I'd love to see it fleshed out visually.
Thank you! This would be a great excuse for me to finally learn how to draw to be honest.
Setting is cool and the music is great, for just piano sketches they each really set a mood.
Mix wise the piano could use some reverb to help make the sound more stereo/spacious, since as is its pretty mono feeling in the middle and that could help enhance the dreamy vibe that the calmer tracks had. Having the reverb on its own bus that you send the piano signal to, and cutting the low and high end of the signal before the reverb can help cut out the low end mud from the reverb and use more reverb to really get a spacious sound (usually called the abbey road reverb trick if you want to read up on it).
Since the LABS Soft Piano is a felt piano it will naturally be a bit muffled sounding, but for the autograph grand that you probably used in Underneath I don't know why it has that bit muffled character since it's not a felt piano sound, maybe you EQ'd the high end a bit too much? I'm not sure, but a bit more brighter sound would fit the setting described for Underneath more IMO.
A Field of Flowers had a great atmosphere, kinda got the same feelings that some of C418's minecraft stuff gives me with the sort of calm and serene atmosphere of it.
If you ever arrange these you got some great material here! For me the two peaceful tracks felt like that some strings, woodwinds and maybe some tuned percussion/bells would work great for the vibe of them.
Good work!
Thank you! I'm very unfamiliar with mixing, so I really appreciate all advice in that area. The Abbey Road reverb trick sound really interesting and I'll definitely read more on that!
Thanks for the ideas for arranging them into full pieces, I totally want to make them into something one day, so this is also really useful!
Thanks for rating, listening and commenting on my submission!
I loved the concept here, and found it tremendously inspiring how with a simple idea you developed a plausible and relatable world. The details in the description, such as the technical mechanisms of the airships or the materials used to build the minecarts really enrich the experience and made the reader feel transported to your world.
Regarding the music in general, first of all kudos for the naturality you achieved in the recording with a minimal (or none?) usage of quantization. On the other hand, I have some issues with the main instrument chosen, as the piano seems to have a lo-fi quality to its tone, like if it had some high frequencies missing. It might have worked well as a specific voice among others, but used as the exclusive instrument makes the songs feel a bit "muted" and sounding as a very old recording or if playing through a wall, being detrimental to the listening experience and enjoyment of the pieces.
Regarding each track in particular:
Takeoff
- I find this track works great as an introduction. I specially like the usage of silences. It would have benefited from some work on the basslines to accentuate the "floating through the air" vibe, and the percussion hits starting at around 0:45 could be tamed a bit or made into something more "clicky", but I understand you were working only with the piano, so they are more an indication rather than something definitive.
Underneath
- Clearly my favorite track. Some hard dissonances here and plenty of parts with cool harmonic and rhythmic changes. However, it seems to me more fitted for a fight, action or persecution scene, or a boss theme, than for what is described in the player.
A Field of Flowers
- Great development and melodies in this more romantic theme. I can imagine this with an orchestral arrangement working great as a main theme.
Thanks for the great work! The compositions were excellent and with plenty of potential, and I would love to see this world of yours developed further as well.
Thank you! I don't have time to reply right now, so I'll put another reply here later if that's alright!
Thank you! This is my first time writing/worldbuilding for a jam so this is really valuable feedback on how I can improve!
I do agree that I probably didn't have the best choice of piano that fit the pieces I made, but that might also be a problem with my mixing, or maybe both.
I think for Takeoff I could have adjusted the piano percussive-y key noise, but that's a mistake on my part.
Glad to hear that you enjoyed Underneath! I took inspiration for the piece from a boss theme so that makes sense, but I could have made it fit the description a bit more.
And A Field Of Flowers is my personal favorite track, so I might develop it into a full orchestral piece in the future!
Thank you for taking the time to listen, rate and comment on my submission! I really, really appreciate your feedback!
I really like this one. A plant taking over the world and forcing humanity into the skies and underground is a fun premise, and the way you've built out both cultures from that single idea is impressive. As the sky people living off flowers and fruit while capturing gas for their airships, the underground people farming tubers and weaving roots into rope.
Also on the music side, the piano tracks were great, but some reverb or a bit of delay would be nice, "Field of Flowers" especially felt like it would've been more impactful with that kind of space in the track.
Very nice compositions!
Thank you for commenting! I wanted to just have one main idea instead of forcing myself to force every concept I had into the story, so I just wanted to focus on one main concept. I didn't do much mixing for these 3 tracks so I forgot to do reverb 😬 Thank you for rating and listening to my submission!
Beautiful approach to the theme. Beautiful songs; I also like the way they are recorded, and I think it fit very well with the theme and aesthetics of your submission. "A Field of Flowers" was my favorite.
Thank you! I think that's my personal favorite too.
Three piano sketches and some nice writing that really does address the theme. The piano sketches are ready to be expanded upon, overall good work, keep going!
Thank you! Unfortunately I didn't have much time so I just decided to leave it as solo piano pieces instead of submitting a half-finished and rushed piece, but I'm quite happy with how it's turned out so far.
Thank you for listening and reading my submission!