I like the cute vibes at the beginning and the dreamy synths riffs near the beginning, even if the samples sound pretty unpolished and generic sometimes. I think the mixing is a bit strained in places, too. The drums aren’t quite as crisp as I wanted them to be, and there might be a tad too much reverb in places. That said, the melodic content in this piece is really strong, and you have a good sense of progression and flow. The breakdown at 1:12 provided some much-needed structural contrast in this piece, and overall the piece comes together really well at 2:12, which feels like a great point of arrival because of the way you set up the tension in the harmonies shortly before. The loop isn’t as smooth as it could’ve been, but that might be Newgrounds’ fault in part. Overall, you have some strong composition skills and a great sense of mood, atmosphere, and progression. My main complaints involve the sound design, which can sound very cheesy at times, and a lack of polish on elements of the mix. Keep at it, Tebyricat! :)

Mixing, mastering, and balance
1.5/2
Structure, transitions, phrasing, and variety
1.25/1.5
Melody, tonality, harmony, and texture
2/2
Instrumentation and sound design
.25/1
Emotion, atmosphere, and catchiness
1.5/1.5
Originality and uniqueness
.5/1
Overall (how do the elements above interact?)
.75/1
Composite score
7.75/10

My love, I had you in my top 20. This was a track that fought valiantly for a higher spot on my list. I recall one of the other judges putting your name forward when we needed two more tracks to round out the final list. Try not to take that personally, we listened, we liked.

I told a few other contestants to write more about the creative process. Your description helps judges find their way through your creative process. If there were any unique challenges or elements you were really proud of, talk about it. Troisnyx wrote 11 flipping pages about her methods and thought process. It was a little excessive but I could totally relate to her passion.

I noticed that your from Brazil, so maybe English isn't your first language, Portuguese? Write in your native language, do a blurb in English for everyone else. We love getting diverse artists on newgrounds. Different cultures have unique perspectives. MUSIC JUDGES LOVE DIVERSITY. Stick some Brazil up in us.

This track had an indie video game vibe. I could easily hear this in a cheap steam video game like Starbound. It's cute little style was a positive but I think where it failed a little was in how short it was. Not everything needs to be long but making a loop for a contest might affect your total score with some of the judges. It doesn't loop proper on my end. I can hear how it's supposed to but I think there's a problem on export or with newgrounds player. Some of my "loops" don't loop proper. Sad face.

JessieYun hit on some points that I think were veering towards dynamics. Live instruments and orchestrations will have dynamic crescendos and decrescendos. I didn't even bother to consider that when I listened because it never felt like you were going for a huge cinematic orchestra. This is a song that feels like it belongs in a video game and I felt it did a good job of giving "Alien Landscape Commision" the atmosphere it needed. Sadly, I know what other judges want and they want orchestrations, expensive sounding sound libraries, and evolving instruments.

On that note, you didn't give the judges what they wanted. I don't like to participate in competitions here because of this. You can't hand the judges your best work and expect them to review with an open mind to things like genre. It's a small bit of luck if you happen to get judges that genuinely love your work. I went to art school, so I can love sandpaper on violin strings. If I went to school for music, maybe I'd have been more critical of your song.

I wasn't critical by the way Teb Cat. I loved this. I just happened to love a bunch of other songs a little bit more :'C

KEEP MAKING MUSICS, PUSH YOURSELF TO THE LIMIT!! FIND YOURSELF AND LOVE LIFE!!! LOVE LIFE TEBRY, LOVE IT >:D >:D

= THIS IS AN OFFICIAL AIM JUDGE REVIEW =

This is based on my own AIM scoreboard alongside with first impression when I first clicked on your track, which is very important for your new listeners who will listen to your future tracks. For Upside/Downside reviews, I listened to your track twice to pinpoint a bit more, the scores(points) are from listening only once. Take this review as a grain of salt, please don't take this personally. I don't want to tore anyone down, I want them to become stronger. The judges have different views on your same track, so just take it as another point of view. Like I mentioned in the AIM Discussion Thread, a badass judge here, giving you a constructive review.

'Comments' section on the overall track (From Scoreboard) : N/A (I'm very sorry, I haven't got the time to write it down for you.)

Upside:
The most interesting thing that I figured was the time signature that you used, I guess it’s 6/4? You created the melodies nicely with this one, and I give compliment on that because it’s not easy to create decent melodies on it. I could hear the melodies from the instrument pretty easily, although it wasn’t very memorable. I don’t know why, but I think it’s because it’s a bit too long in my opinion. But aside that, nice instrument changes for the melody, good time signature use.

Downside:
The downside was pretty much everything aside melodies and time signatures, unfortunately. The instruments sounds very limited, they all sound very weak, and they don’t have much impact during those two minutes. It was more like a sitting boat, than a venturing ship. And we want venture. Use various velocities, impacts, and more stronger and weaker instrument uses. The chord progression itself was a bit uneven, especially the chord melodies (0:48), those really sounds like you just copy and pasted them in triad. If you did, it's not a good method, try to make it sound more harmonized, because for me, it’s not as you might think.

In my opinion, the whole atmosphere sounded like a fantasy rather than a Sci-Fi, mainly I think it’s because the use of Marimba (0:38), I wouldn’t suggest you to use that. The melody in the 0:36 section also played the big role in setting the mood, as well as the instrument setting, it doesn’t really gave much “sci-fi” feel for me, unfortunately. So that was a big downside with the artwork interaction scores. I also wouldn’t recommend making loop music, because it sounds unfinished. But that didn’t affected my score eventually — I was just a bit disappointed.

_________________

SCOREBOARD WITH DETAILS

Art Interaction : 1.5/3
This was a very big and unfortunate cut for you. The instrument choices for the mood in the artwork could have been better, in my opinion.

Overall Music : 2/4
I fixed my score to half out of perfect based on the upside & downside, and I think it’s unfortunate because the downside is basically one of the main points that I’m looking at.

Structure & Variation : 3/4
Why did I gave you 3 scores out of 4 after all these criticisms? Even though melody sounded long, this actually helped in improving your score. Melody variations, it's also good choice for me. But in the future, I think it’s okay to add more repetitions on the melody as well, to let people memorize your melodies. Make sure to balance that out though (and I know it will be hard…)

Mixing & Mastering : 2/3
Decent mixing and mastering, no critical problems were found in my ears. Although I thought it would be better to EQ a bit on the instruments to make it sound less tinny. And as I said earlier, it does sound empty for me.

Instrumentation : 1/1
I honestly wanted to give this half points, but your various instruments on the melody gave less thought that the instruments were limited. So give thanks to your current instruments you have.

Total : 9.5/15