MindWanderer

First, this isn't the title track. It's the main theme but it plays during the demo, not the title screen. These primitive, MIDI-ish synths are not doing this any favors. Every single one is tough to listen to, especially the pounding kick, which threatens to give me a headache. It has over 2 minutes of "intro" in a 4:18 track; far too slow a burn for such a track this length. The source doesn't even start until 1:36; combined with the bridge at 3:04-3:32, it's still 52% source, just over the 50% we usually we look for. It cuts out abruptly at the end, with a mid-waveform pop, which would absolutely have to be fixed even if this passed. The arrangement itself isn't too bad, although it's extremely conservative if you look at just the melodic parts and not the filler parts. It has a good beat. But the issues are significant. NO

A perfectly serviceable reinterpretation of the original. A more full arrangement, almost a sound upgrade except much more involved. Considering the intent that this be able to be swapped into the game and used as the playing soundtrack, it's a good fit. Quality stuff. YES

This is an extremely conservative arrangement. It's mostly a re-instrumentation, with some minor re-arrangement that requires some effort to detect. It's a thorough re-instrumentation, done very well for the most part (although I object to the extremely fake electric guitars), but it's not much more than a cover. It's also pretty repetitive: 3:24-4:20 is identical to 1:55-2:51 except that the string pad is swapped for a vox pad, and the harp is swapped for rhythm guitar. The production is mostly fine, except for that guitar, but mostly I don't this is transformative enough for OCR. NO

I don't really have anything to add that wasn't in the blurb already. It's exactly as promised. Production is just fine. No concerns here. YES

I don't really have anything to say except that this is weird and wonderful and should be posted. YES

Oh, man, Jade Cocoon. I spent a ton of time on this when it came out. This arrangement hits me right in the feels. An excellent debut effort, great interpretation all around, very enjoyable. Great use of the traditional approach of starting off conservative and adding more and more originality to it as it goes. That said, it's not perfect. The guitar and strings are very fake-sounding, and I imagine they'll bug some people. Balance could use some improvement, especially with those bandwidth-devouring guitars over the wood blocks, and at 2:54-3:20 when the second, louder guitar comes in. The melody in 1:15-1:38 and 2:06- 2:29 is a bit drowned by the strings. I imagine some of my fellow judges will take more issue with the production than I do, and I'm probably a bit biased here because Jade Cocoon, but this arrangement is so strong I don't want to see it sent back. That said, a cleaned-up version would be even better! But I'll go on record with a YES (borderline)

It's a pretty conservative arrangement, but mostly what we have here is a really thin, monotonous soundscape. The bass is really quiet and there are no mids to speak of. The percussion is also minimal. And the sounds don't really change throughout--I'm hearing at least 3 different tracks of square waves, and there's not much else. The arrangement itself is repetitive, too. Take another look at the instrumentation, add some depth to it and switch things up from time to time. NO

I can't think of anything to say about this that I don't say about most of Rebecca's remixes, except that the production just keeps getting better and better. It's definitely recognizable as the Twilight Princess version of Saria's Song. Works for me. YES

I was worried when I heard the source that any remix of it was likely to be repetitive, but this arrangement does a good job retaining interest, for the most part. Great soundscape, cool dynamics and flow. There are just a couple of issues, but they're substantial ones. First, which gets worse every time I listen to this: those kicks. They're huge, meaty, throbbing kicks that cause some serious pumping in the whole track. Second, the last section (4:52-6:13) does indeed get too monotonous. There are some variations in the kick, but I dislike the kick, and some minor variations in the accompaniment, but they're hard to hear. I definitely felt like I wanted it to end about 30 seconds earlier. Lighten up those kicks, let the rest of the soundscape breathe, and I think this will be okay. Do that and also make that one section shorter or more interesting and this will be great. NO (resubmit)

To get the bad out of the way first: the volume of the samples is still very inconsistent. "Float like a butterfly" and "There ya go" are very loud, "Who da man" and "You got it" are very quiet. If this gets sent back, those definitely need another tweak. That said, I'm really loving the funky grooves here. It's still a bit repetitive towards the end, but not as badly as I remember (which, granted, was 2 years ago). The leads are more than adequate in quality. My one concern isn't a dealbreaker, so from me this gets an enthusiastic YES

Production and performance are on point, as expected. Excellent bass work in particular; it's well-emphasized. Several clever variations on the theme. That said, this arrangement is 6 and a half minutes long. I'm not at all sure it has enough ideas to fill out that space. 2:31-3:34 is over a minute of breakdown, which drags. The organ, bass, and hats are too loud during the keyboard solo from 3:34-4:37, which has the effect of sapping the energy out of it. And everything after that is mostly a rehash of the first sections, just with a simple extra harmony line. As a result, I had a hard time maintaining interest throughout. I think mostly the quality is there. If it does get sent back, I'd shorten that breakdown, tweak the balance during the keyboard solo so that it sits in front, and add something to the last two minutes to make them less similar to the first two minutes. Definitely room for improvement, but I'm OK giving this a YES (borderline)

This is a fun little arrangement. Lots of entertaining riffs and harmonies. Great use of new age synths. Gets just a little repetitive in places, but for trance it's not very repetitive at all. My one complaint, and it's a big one, is that the soundscape is really thin. The bass sits at a fairly high frequency, and it's pretty quiet in the busier sections, like 1:00-1:38. It also stands out at 0:23 and 1:41; most new age trace would really hit you with that low bass you can feel in your gut, and this doesn't. As a result, it feels empty, almost incomplete. Since there's nothing competing with those low frequencies except the kick, I think this is probably a quick fix, maybe even a single change to an EQ filter, and it would make a huge difference. This is super close, and I don't want to be discouraging, but I'm coming down on NO (borderline, please resubmit!)

I've heard several revisions of this now, via the project, which is why I held off on voting at first. The lo-fi sounds are still not my cup of tea, and 3:39 sounds like an error. The rest is clearly intentional and my issue with it is mostly my personal preference. It's a smooth arrangement, and the issues I had with earlier versions have been addressed. I think that one sound needs to be fixed, but otherwise I think this passes muster. YES (Conditional)

Yeah, I could nitpick but overall this is a fantastic performance, an entertaining arrangement, and overall just a lot of fun. I could nitpick if I tried hard enough but I don't really see the point. YES

Very straightforward, relaxed ballad-ish take on the source. The tremolo on the keyboard and the glides on the guitar combined to cause a lot of brief moments of subtle dissonance throughout, which bugged me, but I seem to be the only one. That one flat note didn't leap out at me. Perfectly serviceable otherwise. YES

I held off on voting on this one for a long time, but ultimately I don't think the issues are substantial enough to hold this back. It's muddy but not severely so, and the vanilla synth is not just adequate, but thematically appropriate. YES

Yeah, most modern games that are made for young children are for mobile. She's quite proficient at those. She's doing the Advanced difficulty levels in a couple of puzzle games. But she can't handle an analog stick or D-pad to save her life. I had to gently steer her away from any games where it was easy to fall in a hole and die, and firmly steer her away from any game where she could fall in a hole repeatedly and game over. Older (pre-iOS/Android) kids' games are mostly either point-and-click or complete rubbish. That's why Spyro was such a pleasant surprise and why I'm looking for suggestions. Chibi-Robo looks promising, but it's hard to get ahold of legally. Same for Kirby Air Ride, looks like $40 used is the best I could do, and that's a bit steep for an experiment.

I wasn't thinking of point-and-click, although I suppose I will have to train her on the mouse at some point. Sly Cooper and Kingdom Hearts are way too hard, and Pokemon and Kingdom Hearts are way too complicated. Decent choices for older kids, but definitely not for preschoolers. Kirby's a good choice for an early platformer; she might be able to handle that in a year or so. It still has a lot going on.

Sonic Adventure and Bonk are both precision platformers. They're very unforgiving when it comes to movement. And they both have rather complicated movement that you need to get around at all. Mr. Do is too cerebral. Trying to explain the logic behind digging channels underneath the heavy objects and then cutting to the side after luring enemies into its path is a couple years out at least.

I took my 4-year-old daughter to MagFest this last weekend and gave her the chance to play a bunch of different games. The clear winner, surprising me, was Spyro, which she spent almost 2 hours playing. I had to help her a lot, but she did much better at it than at other games she tried. In retrospect, I shouldn't have been surprised. The platforming is generally very forgiving. Spyro has only two attacks, both of which have very generous hitboxes. And his glide means that he'll go forward if you hit the jump button in midair, which makes simple jumps onto higher platforms easier. Compared to something like Mario games (which I tried her on), there's a lot less coordination required. Anyone have any other suggestions along those lines? Cute aesthetics, low precision requirements, minimal reading required, nothing that really requires explanation? I have the Spyro trilogy (just have to install a PSX emulator), but some more options would be nice.

Except that apparently the SNES Classic actually does a better job of playing Playstation games than the PS Classic does, when modded to do so. I'm pretty sure they outsourced the development to someone lazy as hell.

Given that this is supposed to be a chill arrangement, almost trance, the length and lack of variation are understandable to a degree. Bearing that in mind, nothing repeats verbatim. 4:02-4:31 is pretty similar to earlier sections, and 5:02-5:32 comes very close to 1:30-2:00. These two sections, placed where they are, drive a lot of that feeling of repetitiveness. If this does get sent back, I think it's those two sections that need a second look to try to make them more distinct. As for source usage, I don't see an issue. A good part of the source is simply that pad, so using it as background constitutes source usage IMO. And the source's melody (0:27-0:54) is used extensively, both verbatim and with varying degrees of interpretation. While I do think this could be more engaging, I think it's successful at what it's trying to do. It didn't feel padded to me, nor longer than it actually is. It's very clearly a Credits Concerto remix on even a casual listen. I don't have a problem accepting it as-is. YES

I've been thinking about this one for a while. I see both Chimpz' and Larry's crits. That dissonance is subtle--I think the lead synth in the intro/outtro has a component that's just a few cents off, making it sound out of tune. It's notable but forgivable IMO. As for the vocals dominating the melody, that's a tricky call. There's not much to the Great Fairy's Fountain, so from an arrangement perspective, it's a good idea to use it as backing. The question to me is whether it runs afoul of our source standards. For reference: It's definitely identifiable and substantial. The question to me is whether it counts as "dominant." This is an arrangement that uses the Great Fairy's Fountain, but I'm of two minds whether to call it an arrangement of the Great Fairy's Fountain. It does remain faithful to the chord progression and frequently harmonizes with the source. The chorus in particular strongly conveys the sense of building on the source rather than just running roughshod over it like the first part of each verse does. I think this would be a stronger submission if the first part of each verse (e.g. 0:24-0:37) was more closely related to the source material. However, while there are a lot of these "disconnected" sections, they're short and don't disrupt the connection for long. I don't have a problem with the balance for the rest of it; the rap is structured in such a way as to emphasize the source's pattern despite being louder than it, and I didn't have a problem hearing it at all. I have mixed feelings, but ultimately I think there's more about this that works than doesn't. I wouldn't mind that dissonance being cleaned up, but I think that there's room on the front page for it as-is. YES

The new age-esque intro doesn't really match up with the rest of the arrangement, especially since there's a second intro of sorts after it. There's no melody until the mix is over 25% in. I think this would be stronger with the first 30-36 seconds simply lopped off. Other than that, this is a lot of fun and I don't have any notable concerns. The result is exactly what it says on the label. Nice work. YES

Been listening to these all day, still can't choose. Great work, both of you.