BFMA Soundtrack (40+ Songs) Looking for Reviews

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Started by WidgetKitty 9 posts View original ↗
  1. EDIT: Everything's been changed to Soundcloud, should all play fine now.
    Hello everyone! I've been pouring a lot of effort into my game's soundtrack over the last year, but very few people have heard any of it. Big Friggin' Magical Adventure's music is geared to match the cute and whimsical style I'm going for, and I want to make sure they suit it. Most of these songs have been developing in my head for decades, since I was forced into music lessons as a kid - nice to finally get them made!

    So, here are forty songs from the WIP OST, which is probably only half the soundtrack but the important ones are ready. These are the unmastered versions, and anything can still be tweaked; speed, instruments, melody, or whatever. If anyone wants to comment on the songs, how suited they sound to their descriptions and such, or point out if something could sound better, then I'd be much obliged! Or just have a listen and see what you think.

    I'll put them into categories in spoilers.
    Each song is embedded, but their titles are also links you can open in a new tab if it isn't playing here.

    Theme Songs
    New Game


    This plays as you are choosing your character's gender, race, and style. Might be used in other spots too.

    World Map


    I thought a cool, jazzy theme would go well with this world's map. There's nine versions of this song, since each province is a separate map - this one is for the royal province in the centre, which you'll visit the most.

    Player House


    A humble shack is given to you early on, and has dozens of upgrades. This song sounds boring to me, but perhaps that's best. I'll probably make remixes of it to go with the upgrades.

    Regular Battle


    Your standard random battles, intense but not too threatening.

    Title Screen - "Big Friggin' Magical Adventure!"


    I figured a silly march would do. The first couple lines are supposed to be singing the game's name.

    Grimstone Academy of Magic


    The player starts here as a student, and a simple errand kicks off the first quest. The school and its NPCs feature heavily in the third questline as well.

    Minigame - Farms


    For games like vege picking and horseback riding. It's a remix of "The Happy Farmer", from an 1848 album of childrens' music.

    Minigame - Carnival


    For the carnival minigames, which you can have a look at HERE

    Little annoying how big these embedded songs are, but I'm not sure who else to put them directly in the post - oh well.


    Familiars
    Familiars are animal spirits that you summon to create your party - ten altogether. They are rambunctious and not well understood - always cheerful and playful, but often dangerous. Lost familiars are hiding in the world map and dungeons, defeating (desummoning) them yields a lot of EXP and a special gift for sending them home.

    The Familiar Place


    Located in the town of Bogside, this is where you summon, practice, and learn about familiars. It's always understaffed and in a humourous state of chaos.

    Battle - Lost Familiar


    The battle music when you find one in the wild. It's meant to have a slightly sad element in the bridge, as these monsters just want you to win so they can go home - if they deal a fatal blow, they do a heal & run. So you can't get a game over on these battles, but will lose the EXP and gift.

    Battle - Big Familiar


    For battling one of the three larger familiars - for instance, the sea serpent, which serves as a chapter boss in questline 1 (and a boat once you can summon them!)


    Towns
    Elmanoak


    The town nearest your starting point, full of busy and nosy people.

    Bogside


    Small town on a creek, near swampland. A pair of elderly NPCs that help you with quests I & II reside here, but they are bickering neighbours who fight over what you ought to focus on.

    Pineshade


    A logging camp in the woods that grew into a small town, with a bit of a criminal element. Pineshade is out of the way, and an excellent place to hide.

    Cratervale


    Nestled in a crater left by a volcanic eruption, people from all over the kingdom travel here for training to become soldiers, mages, and mercenaries. It's a softer, shorter remix of an associated song below, the Way of Might and Magic.

    Farms


    A slow, country arrangement of Offenbach's "Galop Infernal", better known as the "Can-Can". One of a handful of classical songs I'm remaking for the game.

    Royal City


    The largest city, with a carnival full of minigames and several unique shops. Lots of quests take you here, and there's plenty to find if you look around. The city is more crowed and colourful than usual, since the game takes place during an annual festival.

    Peasants' Village


    A casual district attached to the city, made up of a school, gardens, and magic shops that aren't so welcome inside the walls.

    Sandhaven


    Sandhaven is a war-torn, Egyptian style fortress, which in recent times has been converted into a getaway resort. It is also the only place you can gamble and buy certain items.


    Loot Dungeons
    These are the various dungeon songs, specifically the versions used for questline IV's 50 "loot dungeons". The different being these have intros, bridges, more instruments, etc.

    Airship Base


    A blimp belonging to the group putting on this tournament. You can return here to check stats, buy resources, etc.

    Airship Dungeon


    Toward the end, when the true plot is revealed, the airship engine room becomes dungeon #50, a dangerous obstacle course. You can watch it HERE

    Caves


    Gotta have your slow, mysterious cave music. There's three remixes of this, for ice & lava caves, and mines.

    Outside


    General bright, outdoor areas like cliffsides and the royal hedge maze. Wanted something jazzy to go with the colourful look.

    Forest/Seashore


    Deep but not dark wooded areas, beaches, etc.

    In-Town


    Dungeons in warehouses, a sewer, abandoned prison, etc. Any that you enter from within a town.

    Mechanical


    Remix of the in-town music, this is for places like the railway depots, or climbing structural towers.

    Spooky


    Used in haunted forests, graveyards, etc.


    Questline I: Fate of the Future
    All about stopping the energetic chaos destroying the world, and replacing the dead guardian entity.

    Royal Clocktower


    Central hub of the city, containing all the kingdom's knowledge, and the receiver for the world's magic.

    Guardhouses


    This plays when solving puzzles in the guardhouses, or cutscenes involving soldiers or the royal family.

    Battle - Royal Guard


    When soldiers challenge you to a battle, either as part of the main quest, or as punishment for a crime. Like battles with familiars, guards are not allowed to kill you. Losing means getting a mild health potion, along with laugher and your consequences.

    Boss - Mechanical


    Quineline I's chapter bosses are typically statues or machines that have come to life and are looking to exterminate you for digging too deep.

    Way of Might and Magic


    A two-section, mountain-climbing course that takes up chapter five, making you earn the respect and authority needed for the rest of the questline.

    Corrupted Clocktower


    In the final chapter, the city's beloved clocktower is transformed into a chaotic mess of floating platforms and traps. This song has three parts, for the three increasingly harder sections of this massive dungeon, but they're mashed together in this file. You can see the beta version of this dungeon HERE


    Questline II: Unnatural Horrors
    This line has you confronting eight monsters from the past, in their Zelda-inspired dungeons.

    Unnatural Horrors Dungeon


    Slower, puzzle-heavy dungeons, with a lot of keys and locked doors, and a dark, creepy vibe. The boss(es) will also taunt you with a few cutscenes and a minigame as you progress.

    Unnatural Horrors Battle


    The chapter bosses are alchemical monsters mixing various animals, and all have combat or defense gimmicks that differ from any other battles, like playing 3-way rock, paper, scissors with elemental magic, for one.


    Questline III: Who Holds the Power
    The Scarlet Coven is a group of corrupt mages who are secretly mining the kingdom's magical resources, and working on a scheme to eliminate all magic users but themselves, and monopolize it. This questline is much heavier on story and characters than the rest.

    Scarlet Coven Theme


    Plays during cutscenes, chapter intros, and before bosses

    SC Dungeon


    The coven's encampments, mines, and castle that serve as chapter dungeons. This version is missing its intro. You can watch a WIP of the first chapter HERE

    Mine Escape


    A few of these dungeons have timed events, chase or escape sequences, and this song plays for those.

    SC Miniboss


    Mid chapter bosses are the coven's generals, a team of sentient robes and armour. They appear to be a mix between a robot and ghost.

    SC Chapter Boss


    Music for the end chapter bosses, in each case the group of mage NPCs you've been sabotaging and harassing throughout the chapter. They pull out their best spells, and summon their familiars, since they're enraged by then and just want you dead. So this boss music should be more epic and threatening than the others.


    Whew! OK, so that's most of what I've done so far. Thank you so much to anyone that took the time to listen, and any kind of feedback is welcome!
  2. Can't open anything.
  3. BCj said:
    Can't open anything.
    I just updated permissions, they may work now. They play fine for me, but I won't know if they do for anyone else until they say so.

    Can anyone else listen to the songs?
  4. Two extras I'll throw on here, to make sure these things are actually playing.

    First is a more intense version of the regular battle music, used for later chapters and special battles, second is the mine version of the cave music, with much more of a beat. Are these imbedding right for anyone? They seem to take a moment to load.

  5. From my side, after listening to some of the songs, it will start saying "There is a problem playing this audio file". After refreshing the page, the songs can be played again. Or I can also click the pop up button to check out the song, and it works fine there.


    As for the songs, I am nowhere near a pro in music, but after listening to the first few of them, I feel like you are doing great! I always hope to make my own music for my game but I am still unable to do so :( It is easier for me to play a music piece than to make oneo_O
  6. rawang45 said:
    From my side, after listening to some of the songs, it will start saying "There is a problem playing this audio file". After refreshing the page, the songs can be played again. Or I can also click the pop up button to check out the song, and it works fine there.


    As for the songs, I am nowhere near a pro in music, but after listening to the first few of them, I feel like you are doing great! I always hope to make my own music for my game but I am still unable to do so :( It is easier for me to play a music piece than to make oneo_O
    Ah OK, I was seeing that same issue, usually after playing 7-8 songs, and refreshing would fix it. I made all the titles into direct links in case the embedded ones don't work.

    Thank you so much! I know writing music is very hard, most of these songs are not new at all, but developed over years for various projects I couldn't finish. I wasn't hard to create them all again from memory, but just cause I know them so well
  7. I just started a Soundcloud account and uploaded everything, the music should pay fine now. Two more dungeons tunes - ice caves and dark or swampy areas:

  8. I guess the big question here is the synergy between instruments and melodies.
    does the same melody stand on it's own if you change the instruments? does the same ensemble sound good if you play something else?
    I feel like the title theme should be your biggest asset. It's the first thing the player will hear, and that's gonna impact a lot on their willingness to hit "play".

    and I address that theme particularly, because I don't know about that underlying bass playing those long deep notes.
    that bass, with that instrument, in that configuration, it just sounds like noise to me, and it keeps me from focusing on the melody.

    also: are you playing these songs directly from a MIDI mixer? if that's the case, don't.
    it doesn't matter how good the mixer is, there will always be a tiny delay between the playing of one note and the next.
    the more complex the melody, the more the mixer gets clogged up, and the piece starts sounding like it's out of cue. Every time I hear a MIDI song, I feel like the drumming is out of tempo.
    if you have an audio editing program, bounce every instrument to it's own waveform and align them properly, as a WAV.

    I'm no musician, I just can notice the difference between true 8-bit/16-bit, and something more modern that tries to mimic that, but gets so overloaded with modern quality that misses the point completely.

    just to give you an idea on how to look at it, here's a soundtrack I know very well, in original form, a re-orchestration in MIDI, and a re-scoring altogether.
    same music, different instruments..... see how the re-orchestration looks like it's missing something with respect to the original: some instruments occlude each other because they're within the same wave range.
    Shining Force, original

    SF, remake

    SF, modern
  9. gstv87 said:
    I guess the big question here is the synergy between instruments and melodies.
    does the same melody stand on it's own if you change the instruments? does the same ensemble sound good if you play something else?
    I feel like the title theme should be your biggest asset....

    also: are you playing these songs directly from a MIDI mixer? if that's the case, don't.
    Every time I hear a MIDI song, I feel like the drumming is out of tempo.
    if you have an audio editing program, bounce every instrument to it's own waveform and align them properly, as a WAV.
    Definitely agree on the theme, I was afraid to put it first, it's one of the more unfinished ones. It's a bit further down now - you're right that the bass needs to be toned down, maybe switched, especially the part in the melody.

    I lot of these could have better instruments, while others work pretty well I think - I'm using a synthesizer called ZynAddSubFX, and these are just the .ogg exports. For the final songs, I can export individual instruments as Wav, yes. I use Goldwave for mixing and mastering, and Audacity for a handful of things.

    I do here the percussion sounding off in some songs, parts of some, and others not really at all - a lot of it comes down to the drum sample itself, I should probably edit the delay on a few before mixing. For now, seeing if which sound as though the instruments work together, and which ought to be different. The reactions coming in from Soundcloud should let me know.