Play soundtrack
Love At First Sunset's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Composition | #58 | 3.920 | 3.920 |
| Quality | #78 | 3.800 | 3.800 |
| Overall | #110 | 3.544 | 3.544 |
| Storytelling | #115 | 3.480 | 3.480 |
| Impression | #130 | 3.400 | 3.400 |
| Creativity | #185 | 3.120 | 3.120 |
Ranked from 25 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Description
“Love At First Sunset” is an original soundtrack designed for the OST Composition Jam #8.
This music is designed for a fictional visual novel romance game, with our main character being a self-insert of ourselves who meets someone new at a summer festival at the pier and ends up creating new memories with them.
Theme
One Summer Night
Picture theme
Link(s) of the submission on streaming services
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhE-bS_h2ALLjv8kdEajoc2sKNTMAjIAW&si=AYR76kbGHCQrrZI6
https://soundcloud.com/silhouettus/sets/love-at-first-sunset
Number of tracks5
Genre
Orchestral
Soundtrack use permission
Yes (CC BY-NC)
Any non-commercial project
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Comments
This is great, there are some lovely emotional compositions here! I'll echo what some others have said - the tracks can somewhat blend together because the instrumentation doesn't vary between tracks all that much.
Overall though, this is a really pretty submission.
Thank you for checking out my project! Yeah I think for next year I will use different instrumentations for each song in my submission. Last year I didn't get a complaint about it cause my tracks were more varied than this year's, so I kept the same formula for this one except I used a smaller ensemble this time around to make my music more piano-focused. While I think it worked to create the exact kind of songs I wanted, because of how similar I made them all sound, it created more of an issue with me using the same instrument grouping for all of the tracks. I'm still glad that you enjoyed the songs, it always makes me happy to hear! I wish I had time to rate your submission but I don't think I'm going to wake up early enough to get to it before the voting period ends, but hopefully I can still at least get a listen to it!
What a loveley ambience you've created. It has a bittersweet sound to it that really gets that romantic and longing tone.
Only gipe I might have is the presentation of production. By itself it sounds quite loveley but I feel like it is a bit drowned in reverb or missing somewhat its presence to really get the presentation quite right. It always feels a bit like it took a step away from the listener and never like it envelopes me and get me into the scene. Which could be an effect you've wanted to create a feeling of reminiscenes and that the character is thinking about the past.
Yeah the reverb is something I'm always finding ways to tune as the reverb that's built into my software is pretty finicky. I didn't get as many complaints about it this jam as I did last years, but I still think I can find a better balance eventually. I am also not very good at mixing and rely on a free software to do so, so I think that might be why it feels lacking in presence. I have a hard time bringing my rendered audios up to volume as intended without eliminating the effect of the dynamics, but at the very least I try to make the mixes as similar across the board as possible, which is why they all sound similar in their flaws. I appreciate the feedback on this so thank you, hopefully by next year I will have found something that works better for me so I have a more polished project for this big jam.
You have such a way of expressing melancholy through just the strings and piano that I don't think I've heard from anyone else. The strings are warm and familiar, the piano is a string of nostalgic memories, and they come together so beautifully. All of these songs are so full of emotion, though it does feel a bit like it's the same emotion throughout. With "In Pieces of Mind" it sounded like it focused more on the higher strings taking the lead and I'd really like to hear that explored a bit with more instruments throughout.
Also this is just a complete guess and I've only read the steam page for the game not played it, but the story wouldn't happen to be based on "The NOexistenceN of you AND me" would it? It feels like it's taking some inspiration from the game's concept (which is a cool concept I wanna play it sometime). Overall great stuff, I love taking inspiration from songs with emotional piano :)
You are the first person to realize where I got my story inspiration from lol, yeah I recently played through the game out of curiosity and I enjoyed the themes of the story so I based this jam project on it, I still plan to explore the game further as I think it may have a few different endings. I do agree that I made these tracks sound too similar throughout. Even though I was aiming for consistency in sound, I ended up sacrificing variety in order to make tracks that I was happy with, so I need to find more balance with that for future jams. Still appreciate the feedback on this! I don't think I checked out your submission yet so hopefully I can get to it soon.
Wow. Im listening to these and Im so glad to have a chance to hear their final forms since picking up bits and pieces throughout your development in the discord!~ I really dont have much to say from a feedback perspective. Its just positive. You manage to hold the listeners attention even with relatively slower and lower energy songs. Thats not an easy balancing act and shows that youve put some real time into studying how these inspiration tracks tick and how to make them your own.
I hear the inspirations for each track but at no point am I put off or look at them as anything other than your own very detailed works.
This has been a beautiful soundtrack and Im really glad you reached out to me about my tiny songs so I could get an opportunity to hear this. I dont think I would have stumbled into it on my normal scrolling. Thank you a ton for this experience!
Glad you enjoyed my project too and had a chance to check it out, and of course, I was happy to help out even if it was just some minimal feedback. I’ll be looking out for your music again in future jams hopefully!
I think I owe it to myself to stop being so scared of making music and just make music.
I appreciate all your reinforcement!
Beautiful story and music! The warmth and longing in this OST was very touching. I do wonder if you could mix up the instruments a bit more in your tracks, it felt like many of the same sounds and textures were re-used between the pieces. For example, I noticed that you often lead your melodies with the piano, while using the strings in a supporting role. This has a very beautiful, lush effect, but when that expansive string section is present so often, it starts to lose its impact and charm. I think swapping out the supporting instrument from the strings to something else from time to time during pieces, or between tracks, would help make your beautiful music make an even deeper impression on listeners. I really think your melodies and atmosphere did a great job of capturing the feel of a bittersweet visual novel, and this was very enjoyable to listen to, thanks so much for sharing!
Hello BodoTheSelf, yes yes I agree with your critiques on this! These songs were ones that I originally wanted to design for Piano only, but because I felt like the Piano was lacking some depth that I wanted to achieve with the music, I added strings to help support its sound and to give breaks between the ideas I had in mind with the Piano. I've gotten this critique before from my old composition teacher so it's a habit I still need to work on in making sure I give each sections more time to shine.
The instrumentation itself was meant to be the same across the tracks, however what I failed to do with this project compared to last year was that I failed to create more diversity in sound across each tracks as I decided to lean into the feel of the bittersweet melancholy I created with the first track, but yeah I agree that it can lose the affect when listening to each track back to back. On their own, I think they are all fine, but it was a risk I took to keep consistency between the tracks. Still highly appreciate the feedback, I will be looking to adjust for next year's jam!
the melodies are strong and memorable !! though adding more variation in instrumentation could make the emotional phase feel fuller, but regardless of that this is a solid submission !! awesome.
These are some very beautiful songs!! I noticed myself wanting a little more variety from them, but with your game in mind I think having them sound more similar works absolutely fine. I could definitely see myself crying to these in an emotional scene, great job!!
Very quaint soundtrack, I really enjoyed listening to it. I totally caught the homage to Willy Wonka's Pure Imagination while listening in Pure Memories List in Imagination and was glad to see it referenced in the title in a creative way. Great job with this :)
Can’t help but notice that the melody in the Festival at the pier reminded me about the Mad World
I think you could play with reverb a bit, not use the same reverb for piano in all the tracks. It’s nice, that’s for sure, but I felt like you would benefit from turning it off in some tracks.
I’m a sucker for melancholy themes, the Piece of Mind is absolutely amazing, so take my 5 star for compositing you gorgeous bastard! :D
I'm glad you said something about the reverb, cause yeah even I think that I could've changed it up a bit, but I challenged myself to use the same instrumentation and editing effects for this project so I could keep the consistency between the tracks, but it is something that I plan to work on for future jams. Thank you for the feedback, hope to check out your project soon (gotta get past the voting queue first).
Oh, kudos then! It sounds like a hard balance - same instruments for consistency but enough variability for distinction.
(Was it all a dream or never was to begin with?)
My favorite is Love Beyond Existence and In Pieces of Mind
Could you put whole novel in this submission description? It would a shame, the effort of writing words, yet people don't know and get to read. I currently have to read from project description.
I’ll keep that in mind for future jams cause I’m not sure that I could change it now, but I like the idea that the story is kind of hidden away within the other descriptions too cause it means that people can also choose whether or not to make their own stories based on the music as well.
Thank you for taking the time to read the story I made for it though, I appreciate it! Hope to check out your submission soon as well.
Lovely music! I love that if it swims in reverb, it gives it a very romantic feeling. Stars Crossed Above is my favorite.
This is a Very pretty soundtrack! It just oozes emotional response.
The third song feels like its about to start singing willy wonka world of your imagination. very similar notes. It even has the word Imagination in the title. Was it intentional?
I think the songs all sound a little too similar however. Very similar tempos, instruments, everything. They are still distinct, but I think some even more distinctness could do them good.
Hi Jofes, thanks for checking out the project!
Yes, the third song was my own variation on the theme of Pure Imagination, I figured it would make for a perfect middle track. I do agree tho that each song sounds similar, and even though I always aim for continuity between tracks, even I agree that these sets of songs lack the sound variety I was able to achieve in OST7, so I think it's a fair critique. I will probably find a way to adjust the variety between tracks for the next jam, so I'm not too worried. Thank you tho for the feedback!
Great work, all the tracks are very well composed and have really nice dynamic changes throughout. They all fit well with the story you described, which I also really like, especially the unique ending!