Unholy Heralds - Revelations

Heya folks, here's my submission(s) for the Impressions Game Jam project under the "Death on a Pale Horse" art prompt!

Soundcloud link: https://soundcloud.com/nova-607800663/sets/unholy-manifestations-revelations

I wanted to use this as a project to practice original compositions and mixed orchestral/electronic pieces. I usually create remixes, so coming up with a buncha individual themes was a lot of fun! Without ado, I'll go over a few things about this fake game idea and soundtrack!

"Unholy Heralds - Revelations" is a boss rush, pure and simple. Death is attempting to bring ruin to the world through his heralds and it's your job to stop them! At first, only three horsemen appear - a secret fourth is revealed after the last of the three is defeated. This boss rush allows the player to fight any of the horsemen in any order, but bonuses are awarded for fighting them in their listed order and you get a special set of cutscenes. Defeat the last boss and you win!

Theme DevLogs:

Fear Life, Fear Death:
This was the primary vibe and feel I wanted for a majority of the game's soundtrack (save for the secret boss - related themes) - Dark, electronic, orchestral, and full of juicy sound design and some fitting ambience. I wanted to have the listener imagine a cool cutscene in their head, so I tried to communicate that through audio.

Revelations:
There are a lot of atmospheric audio cues in this that are incorporated in later boss themes - ticking clocks, insects, whips, crackles, thunder, steel clangs, etc. Doing the sound work for the menu button presses was honestly my favorite part about this and gave me a lot of respect for folks who make UI interface sound effects for games!

Machinations:
The first boss, cinematically, is the Knight representing War. You could say that war is the machine that creates a lack of resources (Famine) which leads to the inevitable results after the loss of life (Conquest), so I wanted these next three themes to flow into each other a little bit. Lots of Doom-inspired guitar and synth design, and this is the one boss (for sure) that can't communicate with you. Pretty much just a screaming rage monster of a villain.

Unceasing:
Golly, this one was tricky. I wanted this theme to move on from the first one, so I choose to up the signature from 4/4 to 5/4 for a lumpy, unbalanced feeling. Famine could also be considered as Pestilence, so an insect theme seemed appropriate. Lots of buzzy and sawtooth synths panned or using spreaders to put them close to your ears, alongside creeping strings. This is probably the most orchestral of all the themes made, but I think the 5/4 makes it very interesting. This guy also can't talk to you but he probably breathes insects and venom, so I'm not sure he'd have vocal chords to do that.

Cultures of Conquest:
Easily the best-mixed theme, personally. This one got extra time in the oven and was heavily inspired by Inscryption's thematic and OST design. I had an idea to convey a decaying, cactus-covered corpse of a cowboy who's skin groaned from each movement of his body and I think I succeeded. Moving on from the 5/4 theme makes this one a 6/4 theme, which fit the western style quite well. I had some fun making little fight interludes and, although not musical, it was very enjoyable to design around.

Unholy Manifestations:
All of a sudden we have a piano? Hrm. . .I didn't put a piano in anything else prior to this theme, and that's on purpose! It's jarring and deep, with whispers whooshing by each ear as the true depth of Death's plan unfolds. Prepare to fight the secret boss! Getting the guitars to do that awesome Radiohead-styled thing was a doozy but I think they came out ok!

Revelations Etude:
The most anime-esque, video game-esque theme I could think of. We drop the orchestral expectations because the Void Knight should look like a DMC villain and he needs a DMC theme fitting of that expectation subversion. Maybe you'll like it! Or maybe not? Time crunch really bit me in the ass with this one but I tried to use my roots in game remixes and write something I would enjoy listening too on a final boss. Never really been a fan of big orchestral final-boss themes myself, so I went with something like Ultrakill with lots of drum breaks and main guitar melody.

Under Clear Skies:
This was a simple piano melody I made right before I joined the jam and, seeing where the project went piano-wise, I decided to revise the chord progression and reuse it as a simple ending theme. Feel free to discredit this one since it technically didn't follow the rules of the jam.