The "Game" Idea

Alrighty here's my submission. I call it "Clara's Dreamfall". Based mostly on the picture theme, and partially on the word theme.

The premise is that a young girl, Clara, finds herself falling into her own dream. The only thing is is that she's fully awake and is not coming back out soon. She'll have to adventure through and find her way out. The world is made up purely of things she's dreamt about, including her nightmares (dun dun dunnnnnn).

By the way, you can use the music for things (non-commercially) if u want :3, just be sure to credit me and let me know! I'd love to check out if this music ends up elsewhere!

About the music

Overall, this music is a sampling of the main ideas and points I would explore throughout a full-length game/OST. All of the tracks (except TRAILER) are meant to be looped or at least easily turned into loop-able music. I wanted the music to represent the story I imagined through genre. The deeper into this dream world we go, the more electronic and heavy the music gets, and the closer to reality, the more organic and orchestral. Overall, my main inspirations for this come from games like Celeste, Spiritfarer, and the Xenoblade series.

I imagine a 3D single player adventure game, Clara's Dreamfall. The game is very open-world and dynamic. and with visuals stylized similar to the picture theme. The rough story is that you play as Clara (I decided that's the character's name in the picture), who falls, physically into her own dreamworld and needs to find her way back to reality.

TRAILER, is well, trailer music. I wanted to hint at some of the main motifs and textures used throughout the soundtrack, and I kept it mostly orchestral. I think of it more as an overture than anything. The Main Menu track is meant to be a sort of impromptu on the trailer music and sort of ease the player into the soundscape with very little electronic sound. EXPLORATION is meant to be early-mid game level music. Where we have some more ambient electronics and a much bigger feeling to the overall sound. BIGBAD is meant to be boss music for the nightmare-villain, and Clara's fight against it. Fully electronic, big, scary, and headbaning! FALLING is a major plot point where we see Clara nearly make it back to her own world, only to just miss her window of opportunity. Much smaller orchestration, with a more sensitive and solemn feel.

As for the musical process. I composed/mixed entirely in Studio One, mostly with Musio/Cinesamples, Vital, and Kontakt instruments. As a classical musician, this was my first time making this much music entirely in a DAW in such short time, but I quickly overcame the learning curves and I was able to really stretch my creative muscles with this soundtrack! Most of the tracks just kinda started with a motif or synth noise that I liked and developed into something fuller. I'd love to keep working on this after the jam is over and really dig deep into the soundscape I have carved out.

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