Ether Summoning (2008)

A soundtrack for a game that does not exist by CMYKitsune and alisongrace, made for Lone Rabbit's OST Composing Jam 8!

Ether Summoning (2008) is a fictional game that doesn't exist. It represents all of the games we played in our lives and when we were younger. Games are so much more than the game itself; we interact with them and so they become part of us. In that way, games are kind of like time capsules, or journals. When you reload an old save file on a game, you can see how you've changed, grown, what your life was like back then. Maybe you named a party member after a friend you don't talk to anymore, or after a character from a show you forgot you were obsessed with. Maybe you sped through the game way faster than you would today, or maybe nowadays you've forgotten how to take your time. You've changed. The world has changed. Has the game itself changed, after all these years?

CHOSEN THEME: both! image but also text (ether summoning is an anagram of one summer night... that was izzy's (CMYKitsune) idea and she struck GOLD w that). 

GENRE: kind of all over the place... we were both inspired by persona a lot i think. rock-heavy, kind of. weird also.

RUNTIME: 6 minutes. on the shorter side, we've both been SO busy and just barely had enough time to participate in this jam (we had 2 days i think...)

SOFTWARE/PROCESS: we both used FL Studio, i (alisongrace) used FL Studio 2025, and izzy used FL Studio 12. sending files/midis between each other wasn't very troublesome actually. we split the work up so two of us would have two tracks each, but I (ali, hi) started on the Title Theme first, so we could include its motif in the other songs.

STORY DESCRIPTION:

"Wow, this takes you back... This game was basically your life when you were a kid... it's been so long. You barely remember the plot or even how the battle system works... maybe you should try fighting the final boss again, for the hell of it. Your save file's still right where you left it."

If Ether Summoning (2008) the concept was an indie game that was released today, it'd be a short game. Upon launching, you see can't start a new game. So, you're forced to load the old, well-played save file already there. The save location is set at the last save point in the entire game, right before the final boss. There's nowhere else you can go but straight ahead into the fight. You don't know how the battle system works — maybe you forgot, maybe you can't remember — and since the game won't give you any tutorials (you are at the end, after all), it's up to you to experiment and figure out the controls/mechanics of the game. Once you finally beat the final boss, the credits roll, and that's the end.

HOW IT FITS THE THEME: 

alisongrace: for the image prompt, izzy came up with the idea that the final scene was a group of high-schoolers confronting and fighting the ocean itself at a pier in the beach town the game takes place in. super cool idea. for both prompts, i interpreted both themes in their relation to time. one particular summer night in the past that can never be recreated, and yet the endless imitations of summer that come after it. that alongside the crashes of the ocean waves seemingly being a constant of the world. we made use of reversed pianos to get that temporal feeling, and i played guitar a chorus/flanger effect during a lot of Crashing Waves because it just felt serene and like... as if time stopped during those parts of the song.

CMYKitsune: i tried to capture a kind of warped feel in both of my tracks — like a summer night you can't quite remember right. the memory is there, but you can't put a finger on it. in the pre-boss cutscene track — aptly named... Cut (Scene) — i made use of wind instruments like a rolling breeze upon the shore and the aforementioned reverse piano. things are about to go down, but maybe, just maybe, you can fix it. or something! it's a short one. well, both of them are. Roll Credits, on the other hand, is meant to be half triumph and half bittersweetness. the piano is there alongside some noise artifacts - like a well-worn cartridge. 

i also created the album cover, which is based on the image prompt! i wanted to take the elements in it (the girl, the pier, falling dawn, a lamp post) and pull them into this almost dream-like dimension. very much playing with the ideas of "warping" things, also. the background is actually partially lifted from the prompt picture itself — looking at the words "one summer night" in that font is what gave me the idea to use an anagram for the album title! all in all, i tried to match the feel of the soundtrack with the cover. it was really fun to make :) 

BANDCAMP LINK: https://cmykitsune.bandcamp.com/album/ether-summoning

SOUNDTRACK USE: sure, as long as you credit us!

CONTACT:

• alisongrace:
  
  • discord: alisongrace.music
    
  • email: ali@alisongrace.music
    
  • bluesky: @alisongrace.music
• CMYKitsune: 
  
  • discord: dopestar
  • email: izzytteixeira@gmail.com
  • bluesky: @dopestar.bsky.social