Jiggyicarus - Event Horizon: Temporal Terminus

This four-piece soundtrack, “Event Horizon: Temporal Terminus” was written and produced for KaleOverlord’s Impressions Composing Jam Ambience No. 3. The soundtrack comes from the fictional video game of the same name, which follows the story of clockwork mage, Minoa, as she becomes frozen in time. Whilst searching for a way out, her brother, Caiyo, seeks to find her amongst a maze of forgotten moments and imagined futures, and must battle through evil forces and corrupted mages in order to reach the moment of time’s end, the Temporal Terminus, the Event Horizon.

Inspired by retro/modern JRPGs like Final Fantasy XIII and Octopath Traveller, and their emotional yet exhilarating scores which beautifully blend synths and orchestra, this soundtrack is designed to revolve around a singular motif and tonal centre that is developed and expanded upon through its variety of tracks. It utilises a repeating clock tick to remind players of the narrative/character arc of being locked in time. Given more time and without track limitations, I would love to expand on this four-piece idea and flesh it out into a fully-fledged JRPG soundtrack.

Given that this jam emphasises understanding the mixing and production process, I approached this entire album with a very clear goal in mind. That goal was to expand upon a single musical idea, and to that end, I wanted each mix to feel as if it were coming from the same source. The instrumentation is consistent in being mostly solo cello (Tina Guo, Musio) and piano/synth hybrid, and the approach to mixing was simplicity in all elements, highlighting specifically the booming low end and open highs in order to create space for the emotional cello and ever-present ticking of the clock. I sourced instruments mainly from Arturia’s collection, or Symphonic Symphony Orchestra and did some sound design of different elements using Pigments and through careful automation of different verbs and delays. The mix bus is essentially the same on all pieces (besides the final piece which required slightly more in-depth balancing) and each track was mixed with a top-down approach. The goal of simplicity and cohesion in the instrumentation and the mix approach was to further serve the purpose of conveying the icy, cold and frozen ambience, as well as the themes of loneliness, longing and isolation. Where simplicity meets its end in track 4, is where Caiyo meets time’s end…where the Horizon Fractures.

Track 1 - “Temporal Terminus (Title Screen)” is an emotional piano and cello piece that immediately places the player in the world of Event Horizon. The track’s emotional depth and simplicity evokes the story’s sense of loneliness and isolation, and prepares players for a journey with weight, difficulty, and loss.

Track 2 - “The Frozen Waste” is a looped atmospheric piece that would play as the player is traversing one of the icy and snowy environments in the game – The Frozen Waste.

Track 3 - “Time Moves Through Me” is another looped atmospheric piece with much more vivacity and bounce to act as a contrast to the previous environments the player has encountered. Here the character Cayo would soon be introduced to companions who will accompany them on their journey.

Track 4 - “The Horizon Fractures” is a boss battle theme which, musically, expands upon the previous ideas the score has explored, and puts the player into a battle for their life as time collapses around them. This is the first time the score dives into distorted synths and sound effects and signals that the game is no longer a sombre story of loneliness, longing and isolation, but a race against time itself.