Faithful Journey

What Are These For

These tracks are for the OST Composing Jam #5. I'm asked to create a series of soundtracks for an imaginary game. To make it clear:

• It's a jam for composers to make game music.
• But I'm just a composer, I can't make a whole game by myself.
• Okay, so I could imagine a game with several levels and others.
• Cool, now I can work on the music.

About The Imaginary Game

Faithful Journey is a game about a girl who starts a hard journey to save her father. Here is the story:

Once upon a time there was an old fisherman and his daughter. They lived a happy life.

But one day, the old fisherman was stung by a deadly poisonous jellyfish. His daughter tried everything, but failed. She cried.

Suddenly, a voice appeared and told the girl that there was a fairy at sea. She had to sail there, find the fairy, and bring back the blessing, all before the next morning.

Without the slightest hesitation, the brave girl set out to sea. And that's where the story begins.

And the game goes like this:

• Storytelling: To show the background story so the player has a basic idea of the game.
• Day travel: With a short tutorial, the player starts the journey. To make the game more interesting, there are some rocks on the sea and the player has to avoid them. At the end of the day, some seagulls appear and try to attack the ship. The player must either avoid them or fight them with the harpoon.
• Night travel: After sunset, the voyage becomes even more dangerous. Sometimes a large wave will form ahead. Sometimes a vortex will form around the ship. The player must avoid them all or the ship will be damaged. Later in the game, tentacles will appear and try to destroy the ship.
• Game ends: Finally, the player finds the fairy. After a short cutscene, the fairy sends the player back home and heals the father. The game ends.

About The Tracks

There are 6 tracks in total for this game:

ID	Usage In Game	Name In Soundtrack	Description
01	Main Theme	Journey Started	Main menu and the storytelling
02	Day Calm	Peaceful sunny day	Day travel without the seagulls
03	Day Battle	White visitors	Day travel with seagulls around
04	Night Calm	Moonlight on the sea	Night travel without tentacles
05	Night Battle	Slimy tentacles	Night travel with tentacles around
06	Fairy	Blessing of faith	Fairy cutscene

For all tracks:

• All tracks except the last Fairy can be looped. They are looped twice.
• They are in the fantasy genre. I personally think it fits better with the theme of faith and fairy.
• A lot of harps and strings are used. I love the sound of the harp.

Design Of Music

For the Main Theme:

• At this point, the player should be a little worried about the father's life. The music is a bit depressing and worried. The cello is used to show this.
• The tension is gradually increased by raising the pitch and adding another set of cello and celesta.
• I rarely use the celesta because it's too bright. But for fantasy music, well, it fits.
• The musical form is a simple AB form. I don't think the player will spend too much time on it.

For the two day tracks:

• They have the same tempo and melody. It's simple. I make the day track first, duplicate the project and add some updates to it.
• Well, by some updates I mean replacing most of the instruments, adding a drum kit, and replacing soft keyboards like ambient piano and marimba with strings. This is actually a big change.

The Day Calm one is simple:

• I want it to be positive, relaxing, and bright. Yes, the father is still sick, but everything looks fine by far. It should be relaxing.
• To make it relaxing, the tempo is only 92 BPM and the instruments are high attack and high release. To make it ambient.
• I like to combine a keyboard and a string. It makes the sound lush and rich. In this track it's an ambient piano and violins.

The Day Battle one, well:

• All instruments are replaced to fit the battle theme.
• Ambient keyboard instruments are replaced with trumpets and hard.
• Broken chords will use 16th notes. I cannot change the tempo, this is the only way.

The night music should be more relaxing than the daytime music:

• It's slower than the day tracks. The BPM drops from 92 to 70.
• Choose instruments that are more "warm" than "bright".

The Night Calm track is quite simple:

• The whole music consists of three parts: some long notes as melody, chords to make it feel relaxing, and broken chords to give it some energy.
• Some woodwinds are used for the melody. It makes the music warm and calm.
• A big pad and some strings handle the chord. I need them to make it rich and balanced.
• For the broken chords, again, marimba and harp.
• The harp is ideal for the dream and fantasy feeling.

For the Night Battle:

• Again, strings replace the keys. Woodwinds are taken and brass are added. With a drum kit. It feels like a piece of battle music now.
• I try to use a pair of instruments for each section. One on the left channel and one on the right. It's a bit tricky to balance the volume between the two channels, but it feels great.
• It feels more like a march than ambient music. Anyway, I can feel the danger of the tentacles, I think.

The last track is the Fairy.

• There is nothing (for the player) to do now. Just watch the cutscene, the little girl will meet the fairy, pray to her, be teleported back home and the father will be healed.
• The music is split into two parts, before the teleportation and after.
• Before the teleportation, it's a bit deep, mysterious and uncertain. The girl is still not sure if this is the fairy she's looking for.
• Then comes a riser and a gap. In the game, this could be a white flash. Then the girl (along with the boat) and the fairy are back home.
• After that, there are four steps
  • The fairy heals the father
  • The father gets up from bed
  • Both the father and the girl thank the fairy.
  • The game ends.
• Each of the four steps is accompanied by a broken chord. The music gets higher and higher until the very end of the game.
• Since the music ends with a "Game End" scene, there is no need to loop it.

Copyright

Because I make music just for fun. Whoever comes here is free to use my music in their project as long as they give me credit.