VANITAS

VANITAS is an soundtrack album composed for OST Composing Jam #7 by Lone Rabbit. The theme for this jam is "Inside my world". 

Soundcloud playlist: https://on.soundcloud.com/7Br73gYwE3hPyujM7

Youtube: Coming soon

Subconscious is defined by the part of one's mind that is not fully awake but which influences their actions and feelings. VANITAS is an adventure game following the profound and humbling journey of an aspiring artist girl inside her troubling mind to become a successful artist. The OST album aims to tell a seven-part story of how the girl sinks into her own subconscious world filled with her artistic imaginations, and through a series of encounters with her past failed and unfinished creations, learns to overcome her paralyzing pride that hinders her creative output and embark on the path to become a better artist. The story of the game is opened to your own interpretation based on the music and their titles, and below I provide my own interpretations.

Track 1, In Between. The title theme of the game. A liminal space between reality and world within the girl's mind. Scorching sun outside the girl's room, lukewarm feeling of unsatisfactory puts her just one feather away from sinking deeper into her subconscious mind. 

Track 2, Embark. Falling, spiraling, soaring. Breaking the wall of reality and enter the world of imagination as the girl's drawings come sprawling to form landscapes, creatures, and skylines. 

Track 3, Plain, Meander, Erupt. It takes some time for the girl to accept her new reality inside her world. A short stroll comes with inspiration that sets her mind running for new creative impulses. The girl begins her journey make amend and complete her unfinished artworks she finds inside this world. 

Track 4, Sand Tower. Every world has its foundation, and in this world it is the sand tower. A symbol of the lost time of the girls' unfinished arts, now stand as both a physical and spiritual challenge for her to climb over. What is inside the tower is what could've be of those never finished works, can the girl recover from her past regrets? 

Track 5, Funny Business. After overcoming her regrets of unfinished arts, a new canvas is ready to be filled with new ideas. But she has yet to overcome her own pride of an artist, a prideful heart striving to achieve perfection, she is again on the path to self-annihilation of her creativity. 

Track 6, There is void. Feeling the futility of her action, in a final effort to prevent a repetition of her past mistake, the girl launches an attack on her own ego, shattering it and eliminating her pride along with her existence inside her own imaginary world. What is left is a mesmerizing void that is waiting to be reborn. 

Track 7, Inside My World, A Great Beyond. The girl's action is not futile at the end, every artwork she encounters and restored in her journey comes back to aid her. Their essence which is created by the girl now feeds back to their creator. Ego reborn, now a better artist and a better person, the girl looks to the beyond for what is infinite possibilities to be created. 

Cover art by 黄菊しーく　／ si_ku.k - https://si-ku.art/profile-2/