Delve Within

Game Genre

The game is a 3D Zelda like game with an emphasis on exploration of set pieces. 

"Inside My World" artwork by @kawaakar._

A story of an orphaned young girl who deals with the loss of her mother through visiting the imaginary places the two of them would bond over. (Mother's Memory represents a lullaby or a song they used to sing together)

After receiving a vision from a newly corrupted spirit, she finds out that her mother's soul, is still held in the two imaginary lands they would escape to. Her mother is not the only victim, as many others from her village are mysteriously disappearing and reappearing as beasts. Her new mission is to free the pieces of her mother's soul from these two locations before she succumbs to the same corruption.

Overview Of Soundtrack

The music increases in complexity and tension as the main character dives deeper into these worlds, starting with the Sea, and crossing the brine into an underground Mountain where the mother's spirit is revealed to be trapped. The earth motif is inspired by the chalk-like drawings in the prompt picture.

Musical leitmotifs representing the mother and child are peppered throughout the two main level tracks, "Child and Sea" and "The Mountain Below". You'll hear ascending 4ths in the main melody instruments (erhu, oud, shakuhachi). These are the main character motifs.

Instrumentation is a hybrid between electronic, ambient, and orchestral elements. The progression of the music is designed to be dynamic, moving through the sections as the player character moves through the level, going deeper and deeper until finding the corrupted mother (The Mountain Below 3:49).

Process

Most tracks came about through improvising melody lines and chord progressions until something stuck. The first track was Child and Sea. The main motif first came about while creating this track. The Mountain Below came after. If Child and Sea were to invoke underwater murkiness with a semblance of hope and wonder, The Mountain Below was to invoke the opposite. Awe, confusion, fear, and triumph as the character dives deeper to find her mother.

For the other two tracks, I drew from existing ideas and stripped them back to sound nostalgic but somewhat pained. The Missing Piece feels empty as a solo piano piece based on some motifs from The Mountain Below. Mother's Memory uses the main leitmotifs to invoke comfort in memory of a loved one. I wanted to feel like a lullaby.

Inspirations

Music is heavily inspired by Nier, Zelda, Hyper Light Drifter, Bloodborne, and The Pathless

Soundcloud Links:

Missing Piece [Title Screen]

Child and Sea

The Mountain Below

Mother's Memory [Cutscene or End Credits]