The music of Hazel's Mirror is very important to the atmosphere. Here's a bunch of mostly-finished songs I didn't end up using for one reason or another!
The music of Hazel's Mirror is very important to the atmosphere. Here's a bunch of mostly-finished songs I didn't end up using for one reason or another!
One of my most important inspirations for the sound design of Hazel's Mirror is the OST of the game Inscryption (specifically, Act 2). I frequently listened to one compilation, linked below, when brainstorming the locations and story. The soundtrack really helped me get in the right headspace.
While Hazel's Mirror was in its 4th iteration as a Game Guide, I made a track named "Haterium" influenced by the idea of "The Lost Chapel" as a location.
This track was notable because it only used a single instrument in my DAW (Garageband IOS) named "Button Masher". It inspired two more tracks that also only used that instrument: "Neverending Story" (used for Hazel's Mirror's opening cutscene) and "Twisting Spelltower" (used as Morgan's Tower).
In this early phase, where I was still convinced I was making a Game Guide, I wondered whether each page could have its own music. With this idea, I cooked up concepts for each of the different pages I already had planned:
Almost every other song in the soundtrack was made chronologically - aside from a rare few. I'll cover those when we get to them.
Also, I kept the rule of only using the "Button Masher" instrument for the final project, with the addendum that each location was allowed one extra instrument. Can you work out each one?
For this first section, there's not a whole lot of scrapped/demo content to listen to!
I guess one notable thing is that the Poltergeist's theme "ENDURING SPIRIT" was made at the very beginning of the project alongside these other tracks. Then, I made the stripped back version, "Beware The Key...", based off of it.
There's this early attempt at The Lost Chapel's main theme after I scrapped "The Cathedral of Stone Statues". The vibe of this song influenced "Resting Place".
There's also this early attempt at Blanc's theme "The Unfeeling You". I have a later attempt saved, but it's basically just the drums from the final version.
Here's where things get interesting. I have a LOAD more demos to show here!
I wanted Stitches' Factory theme to contain the same motifs from the factory boss theme I'd already made, so here's my first attempt at that.
That sounded a bit rubbish, so I tried something else entirely - which ended up being an early demo of the finished song. It was equally rubbish but I somehow made it work.
Next up, an attempt at making The Nest's theme. I reused many of these elements in the finished piece...
...but not before trying a completely different direction (and then scrapping it)! I'm kind of upset I didn't use this second attempt. It goes hard.
The Itti boss theme was super difficult. It was only on try SEVEN that I actually landed on correct vibe. One of the attempts (it might have been attempt six?) was fantastic, but sounded far too upbeat. I later repurposed it as Stitches' boss theme "GOOD OL' SCRAP" and it went virtually unchanged.
The only other notable demos are demo 2:
And demo 4:
This area probably gave me the biggest headache. The guitar/sitar/string instrument I'd picked for this area had terrible velocity settings and sounded pretty bad in most instances. But I think I made it work?
Here's three tries at "Inner Basin" that all got a bit too exciting for their own good. I'm so mad none of them matched the vibe, because they each have a LOT going for them.
Here's an early idea for "Mountain Base" that took a completely different direction to the final track.
If I was mad before, this is where I get furious. These are two attempts at making "Holly's Lodge", and they're both complete songs. Their only problem is that they sounded too happy!!!!
My initial attempt at remixing "The Caravan Chases" into a boss theme. It was missing most of the sauce. I remember making the final section and thinking "Oh, the whole song should be based around this riff instead," lol.
And here we plunge into the depths of more fine-sounding songs that didn't meet my impossibly high standards.
This was a demo for Reveravine's theme that I made, and then forgot about, and only found it after making the current Reveravine theme. Oh well. I guess it's not that memorable.
I was so close to making this the theme for "The Fallen Village". It's a perfect encapsulation of the vibe I feel when I think about it. Unfortunately, I felt like a more "groovy" song was necessary to break up the ambience of the surrounding songs.
An older demo of Gotcher the Mimic's boss theme "MIRROR IMAGE". The main motif was way too overplayed in this version...
And here's the actual early version of the finished song. Since it's literally just the skeleton it sounds really bad.
The only part that gave me trouble was Mindmeld's theme. It was only on attempt four that I actually worked out what the vibe was.
Here's Demo 1, which sounded too circus-y for my liking.
And here's Demo 3. I considered re-using this for a "secret boss" theme against Miri (the mother of the Eggs in Reveravine). The idea didn't really fit anywhere so I just didn't bother.
This is an early attempt at smashing together "The Unfeeling You" and "Resting Place" into the song that would eventually become "Cause & Effect", the song played after "His World".
This is the last section, since I don't have any demos from the final section that are interesting enough to showcase.
Early on, the Stitches boss fight was planned to go somewhere else (I was considering a backtrack to Stitches' Factory), so I wanted The Ice Wastes to have its own ice-themed boss. Here's a demo for that idea.
The first attempt at remixing the Life Dew motif into an area theme for the Bathhouse.
"The Ascent" was another song that gave me trouble. This is a previous version that I very nearly used. I ended up scrapping because I, for some indescribeable reason, cannot stand to listen to it.
And that's all the unused music of Hazel's Mirror! Well, all the interesting bits anyway.
I hope you've enjoyed this look into the behind-the-scenes! Bye-bye, now!