Need retro Halo-style title music - $500

[JForceGames]

Hey, composers! We’ve been making a game for Xbox Live Indie Games and PC called Murder Miners (It’s an online FPS with construction / destruction---Think Halo meets MineCraft. Check out some rough gameplay).

We’re looking for an awesome retro take in the style of the Halo main menu themes (E.g.,

,

,

,

) to play during the intro/title screen/menu. We don’t want to be too specific here in order to give you some creative freedom, but we want something sort of “cerebral” like the Haloz, and ideally it would pick up at some point near the beginning into something more epic/heavy. Another reference could be the

, although that’s pretty simple. Something more complex like

would be great (but might be too upbeat). And it doesn’t have to be purely 8bit/16bit chiptune stuff. It can have some modern flare to it if you think it fits. The length is really up to you, but obviously we wouldn’t want something only 45 seconds long or so.

Email us your submission(s) at admin@jforcegames.com if you have something we might like. If we want to use it, we’ll give you $500. If we don’t want to use it, at least you’ll have another track you can license out to somebody else!

(You obviously retain all rights to your submissions. However, we ask that the accepted track be kept exclusive to our game for at least 6 months after its release.)

And we don't have a concrete deadline yet. The game won't be released for another 1-2 months probably. Once it gets close, we'll post a deadline here (unless we've already gotten a track that's just absolutely perfect that we definitely want, then we’ll post here that we’re no longer taking submissions).

[Garpocalypse]

Not too crazy about the name. Or I love the name in an anti minecraft kind of way.

I'll try getting something to you I just need to know the total amount of Duke Nukem references you're planning to have and what the name of the largest and smallet gun is called.

[Rozovian]

I'm gonna shoot you some sketches tomorrow when I've had some time with my gear. This seems much in line with the kind of stuff I do anyway, and I'm a huge fan of Marty and Michael's work on the Halos.

[Meteo Xavier]

I sent you a full track and a MIDI composition. When will you be checking your submissions and making your call?

[JForceGames]

I sent you a full track and a MIDI composition. When will you be checking your submissions and making your call?

Probably within a month or so we'll set a deadline. We'll give a warning at least a week in advance.

[Arceace]

After working on the song for a couple of days, I've come up with something that I am very happy with. However, I am wondering when I should submit it. Is it better to do that sooner, or later? If I wait for a little longer, I might be able to improve the quality even more. However, it is in a state where I am ready to submit it at any time. If you pick the one you like, will you be asking the artist to modify the theme slightly, or are you just going to use it as it is? If you plan on taking it as it is, I think I should wait a little more and master it a bit more.

Hope you guys find an awesome theme to use! I see that there are some other amazing artists working on this too, so I have no doubt you'll find something good.

[JForceGames]

After working on the song for a couple of days, I've come up with something that I am very happy with. However, I am wondering when I should submit it. Is it better to do that sooner, or later? If I wait for a little longer, I might be able to improve the quality even more. However, it is in a state where I am ready to submit it at any time. If you pick the one you like, will you be asking the artist to modify the theme slightly, or are you just going to use it as it is? If you plan on taking it as it is, I think I should wait a little more and master it a bit more.

Hope you guys find an awesome theme to use! I see that there are some other amazing artists working on this too, so I have no doubt you'll find something good.

We'll most likely ask for some modifications if we're considering your track, so I'd say go ahead and send it in. We've had several tracks submitted by some really talented dudes. So far there's two that stand out from the rest in terms of quality/suitability, but we'd still want to see some changes to both those before we make the deal (one of them isn't really finished yet).

Also I just discovered I have some PM's here. Will reply to those now...

[JForceGames]

Hey guys, quick status update. First off, we’re setting a deadline: June 7th. And since many of you have requested feedback on your submissions, we’re just gonna answer all those requests with this: If your name isn’t K-wix or Danimal Cannon, then your track wasn’t what we’re looking for. These guys’ tracks are the only ones we’re considering right now---They’re a whole tier above the rest (not just in quality, but mainly suitability). So feel free to submit another track, but if you want us to give you specific, individual feedback then your first draft needs to be in the ballpark of these other two tracks.

Thanks!

[WillRock]

June 7th huh. I think i'm going to give this a shot. I'll shoot you an email sometime before the deadline!

[Meteo Xavier]

We’re just gonna answer all those requests with this: If your name isn’t K-wix or Danimal Cannon, then your track wasn’t what we’re looking for. These guys’ tracks are the only ones we’re considering right now---They’re a whole tier above the rest (not just in quality, but mainly suitability). So feel free to submit another track, but if you want us to give you specific, individual feedback then your first draft needs to be in the ballpark of these other two tracks.

Thanks!

Why the hell would anyone want to submit a track to you now?

Much respect to Danimal Cannon and k-wix, but this is the most condescending public message on a game music submission I've ever seen. If you've already made your choice (and anyone with experience in the freelance market knows you pretty much have) and told the rest of us we don't come close to the choice you're going to make anyway, why the hell would you invite us to DO IT AGAIN?

How are we even supposed to know the benchmark for quality anyway? Clarvoyance? Should we message DC and K-wix to hear the track so we can try to cheat them out of the $500 prize they've earned? What kind of bullshit is that?

I'm not angsty about missing the prize, btw. When someone offers big bucks for a relatively simple task on a board full of spirited non-professionals and hobbyists, you know there's going to be some bullshit - that's why I only offered stuff I already did, I knew anything else was a waste of time. I'm just appalled at your submission response. It's not only pretty disrespectfully written, but the invitation to keep wasting time submitting more music, dangling the fucking carrot somehow, expecting us to know what Danimal Cannon's and k-wix's submissions sound like and emulate it to cheat them out of what they've earned, is nothing short of a ***damn slap in the face.

Yeah, I'm ranting pretty good here, but honest to God, where do you indie development teams get off treating amateurs like that? If you wanted something that professional, why didn't you just hire a professional? Why come here? Do you think we're so fucking desperate to get our names in the credits of a game that we'll just hopelessly shit out music and pray you use it? What other possible reason would you STILL invite people to submit to you AFTER YOU TOLD US WE SUCK? $500 isn't chump change, I realize that, but dignity is worth a shitload more than that. I'd rather build music for free and still get rejected if it meant I got a much more respectful rejection response than that.

Man, that felt good to get out finally.

[JForceGames]

Apologies for the bluntness, Meteo. Didn't mean to disrespect anyone, just wanted to be upfront about everything. But really when I said suitability I meant that. There were many tracks that sounded really cool (yours included, especially the "need insurance" one) but they just weren't what we wanted for our game's main menu. Also there were a few guys who basically said "here's my track, let me know if you want any changes or something completely different." So this is an invitation for them to try something different, if they want to. I figured it could only help us in getting the perfect track.

[WillRock]

Why the hell would anyone want to submit a track to you now?

Much respect to Danimal Cannon and k-wix, but this is the most condescending public message on a game music submission I've ever seen. If you've already made your choice (and anyone with experience in the freelance market knows you pretty much have) and told the rest of us we don't come close to the choice you're going to make anyway, why the hell would you invite us to DO IT AGAIN?

How are we even supposed to know the benchmark for quality anyway? Clarvoyance? Should we message DC and K-wix to hear the track so we can try to cheat them out of the $500 prize they've earned? What kind of bullshit is that?

I'm not angsty about missing the prize, btw. When someone offers big bucks for a relatively simple task on a board full of spirited non-professionals and hobbyists, you know there's going to be some bullshit - that's why I only offered stuff I already did, I knew anything else was a waste of time. I'm just appalled at your submission response. It's not only pretty disrespectfully written, but the invitation to keep wasting time submitting more music, dangling the fucking carrot somehow, expecting us to know what Danimal Cannon's and k-wix's submissions sound like and emulate it to cheat them out of what they've earned, is nothing short of a ***damn slap in the face.

Yeah, I'm ranting pretty good here, but honest to God, where do you indie development teams get off treating amateurs like that? If you wanted something that professional, why didn't you just hire a professional? Why come here? Do you think we're so fucking desperate to get our names in the credits of a game that we'll just hopelessly shit out music and pray you use it? What other possible reason would you STILL invite people to submit to you AFTER YOU TOLD US WE SUCK? $500 isn't chump change, I realize that, but dignity is worth a shitload more than that. I'd rather build music for free and still get rejected if it meant I got a much more respectful rejection response than that.

Man, that felt good to get out finally.

Meteo, relax. I agree that perhaps naming the 2 who they are considering is perhaps not in their best interest, but it doesn't warrant a response like that. They did not say they had made their choice, but that danimal and k-wix had put forward the most suitable track for their game so far. If they didn't want any more submissions they would have said so in the same post. You're getting borderline offensive in both your language and the way you're posting, which there really isn't a call for. Try to keep things civil.

[Rozovian]

Bad form or not, it does set the bar. Not so much in sample quality (considering some of the suggested influences) but certainly in overall quality. I mean, _I_ now feel that I have a better shot at this , I'd just need time to find/make something (silly me, went and got myself a job). It could have been phrased better, and/or handled in part privately, tho.

Also, nobody vents here.