Thank you for your detailed feedback! Always appreciate you helping me get better at making music :)
Quenched Disorder
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I’m far from an expert for this, but in the music that I really enjoy I find that bright elements in a dark theme can really emphasise the dark/gloomy feelings from the rest of the instrumentation.
The Dirtmouth theme in Hollow Knight is an excellent example of this, the atmosphere set up by the low sounds get amplified a lot when the high registers come in (just like with the vocals in your track)!
Thank you so much for listening! I love the music and imagery by Vaughan Williams, so that’s a compliment I’m really happy to get :D
I agree with the remark about the low end in the first part of the piece being missing, I’ve also gotten similar feedback from others about that. I wasn’t fully happy with it myself before submission but didn’t have enough time to fix it, though it’s something I’m certainly going to do post-jam.
Very nice use of different instruments and sounds to create 6 distinct environments and atmospheres. The mixing is done excellently (something I have a lot of trouble with) and gives off a really good meditative vibe. It was very listenable and gave a strong sense of calm that I really appreciated.
I love the small melodic sections within the tracks though I find myself wanting a bit more concrete melodies when I’m actively listening but that’s purely subjective.
As an immersive OST focused on ambience, I think it achieves the goal really well. I can see this being used as the OST for virtual/immersive art exhibits.
I hear the Christopher Larkin influence a lot in this, I love his music.
I think the three tracks flowed naturally between each other, I can see this being part of the same world. The introduction to track 3 was also really well done, it immediately gave me waterfall vibes!
I think 10,000 Hinoki Trees was weighted a bit too much on the low end, it gave the track a heavy and tight feeling that goes against what I imagine a forest would be like. This could just be an aesthetic choice though, the track was still really nice to listen to and connected tracks 1 and 3 well in the story you wrote in the description. The vocals in the middle of that track brought a nice lightness to the track and also kept it interesting!
Overall very nicely done, I enjoyed listening to the soundtrack.
As always, the first thing that stands out to me is the excellent mixing and selection of instruments/sounds. The piece feels really alive and really makes me feel like I’m in the world created by the sound. Every time I listen to it again I notice something new.
The percussion was very nicely done and kept a good sense of rhythm and connection throughout all the different sections that stayed even when the percussion layer was removed.
I would love to see/listen to a long track of this being procedurally generated, it’s a creative idea!
Using the foley for both ambient immersion and musical texture was really creative! The piano was very well utilised to create a sense of change and progression, there’s no real feeling of repetition or returning to “home” which fits your description really well. This would be a great immersive track for a game or short film.
Listening to this, I got the “woa, what is that?” factor you described in my submission. I love the different tuning in this, it’s really attention grabbing in a way that reminds me a lot of when I visit abstract and professionally done art exhibits. I could picture this being in such an exhibit about “The Far Reaches”.
The reed instrument was really well programmed, it sounds very human. The voices and percussion also contributed nicely to the soundscape and made it sound very open. The mixing and automation was good and I think achieved what you wanted to express.
The only critique I have is really minor and subjective, the vocals at around the 1:00 mark got a bit too “clear” like it didn’t come from the same space and took me out of the environment a little, though it didn’t last long.
Well done! Loved this piece.
I love the melody in the first and third pieces, they really evoke images I get from RPGs like the Zelda series. Post-processing aside, I loved the usage of common motifs throughout the soundtrack!
Something minor I noticed throughout the tracks is that you use a lot of period and double periods (which is good, everybody loves hearing repetition of phrases), but it also ends up creating the feeling of your pieces existing in small, separated chunks. I think utilising some sentence forms and connecting phrases between your periods would help a lot in this.
Well done overall, you definitely evoked the feelings you were describing in your description! I felt some strong emotions especially on the last piece :)
This has a really strong “something is missing” (in a good way) vibe to it, I’d say you definitely carried across what you wanted to express in your description! The slow progression of the piece made me think of the kinds of emotions you get when you think back on your regrets and try to fix them.
I could see this being used in a contemplative section in a video game!
This is my favourite game of the jam. Props to the people who did writing on this, it really highlighted the excellent atmosphere of the game. I loved the art and the music was good.
I’m sorry I went against the intended narrative experience, I liked the writing so much that I replayed the game for the other ending! I wished there was more, I can definitely see this narrative expanded into a longer game.
Well done!
The visuals are incredible, very nice shader and animation work! I think the game could use a tutorial (like mentioned in another comment), though I eventually understood the mechanics after reading the description and playing for a bit.
I think the additional mechanics you mentioned dropping in another comment would be great for the game (along with a tutorial), would love to see a post-jam update!
Nice pixel art, reminds me a little of Yume Nikki! The cutscene at the start was impressive too :)
I like the execution of the theme and mechanic, though small quality of life features like the mouse controls for direction like mentioned in another comment would be nice. That’s just a minor nitpick though for an otherwise fun game, well done!
Very clever use of the mechanics and really polished feeling gameplay. I’m a sucker for games that try to tell a personal story, this was well done with a nice atmosphere too. I love the soft piano in the background :)
Your team was probably pressed for time but volume sliders for the SFX would be great (it was way too loud compared to the music!). A HP filter on it would have been good too.
I really liked this submission, well done!
I love the sonar mechanic, it’s really fun to use! The memento mori wildcard was also nicely implemented in a way that served a gameplay purpose. The main menu was well done and the game felt really polished too.
Some feedback on the controls:
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Air control is too sensitive, it seems like a single tap in the opposite direction changes your horizontal velocity v to -v immediately. That is fine on the ground, but when making precise jumps we sometimes want to keep going in the same direction just less. This could be solved by lowering the acceleration of the character while in the air (or implementing a separate air acceleration).
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Wall jumping requires too much precision. When jumping between walls, the controls require quite a lot of precision - first you have to keep holding the direction towards the wall you want to jump off, then when you reach it you have to jump and very quickly change direction. The wall jump fails if the player switches direction just before touching the wall, which feels bad. A similar thing to coyote time can be implemented here to not punish the player if they’re slightly too early. Edit: I noticed you already implemented coyote time for the jumping off platforms, so something like that for the wall jumps would be great too.
I think implementing the air control changes from 1 will also help with 2, because it’s less punishing if you switch input directions slightly too early since you’ll keep travelling in the same direction for a bit and still reach the wall.
Nailing the feel of the controls would greatly elevate the game feel. Even though I had the control issues above, I think the game is overall well implemented and very polished!
Nicely done for building the system from scratch! I agree with the other comments that this could have been extended further, but I know how it’s like to do something from scratch in a limited amount of time.
I think the writing was good and would go well in a standalone game with an extended story and scene art!
It took a bit for me to get the hang of the mechanic, but I think it was really unique! I also liked the visuals, the colours were bright and punchy and worked well in favour of the theme your game was going for! I think a little bit of visual tweaking would benefit the game a lot (sometimes I lose track of where the character is because everything is so fast paced).
Well done overall, I can imagine it’s not easy to balance this mechanic in the short time we had for the jam!
Very stylish use of the minimalistic graphics, I like the CRT shader too! The bullet hell was fun and the reflection mechanic was pretty unique. I like the slowdown on a successful reflection, though I think the tween (if you’re using one) could be more gentle because it’s a little jarring when the slowdown activates/deactivates.
Overall a very stylish game that feels responsive and weighty when needed.