Arcane Dragonfly

Hi everyone! This is my 5th orchestral composition. I hope you enjoy it - this is something I’ve spent quite a bit of time with and it was a lot of fun to work on. Of course, more piano covers are also on my to-do list but I will likely continue to alternate between covers and originals on this channel. I have numerous solid requests from you all to choose from for my next piano cover, but there are also a few others that are calling to me. The Ergo is whispering... Artwork by Grigory Gore: I worked closely with my friend Vincent Bender on the mix, and he did the mastering as well. I took a few mixing lessons from him as part of this process, and I highly recommend it to any other aspiring composers. He is also a talented composer, check out his work here: Lore Scenario I always try to compose my tracks with a specific hypothetical game scenario in mind. I imagined this as the soundtrack to a two-phase boss fight against a mystical and supernatural dragonfly. It takes place in a large underground cavern inspired by the Siofra River area from Elden Ring. It bursts out from underneath the water as you approach. It’s not just a giant insect, but one glowing with arcane energies and specifically water magic. I have really been enjoying working with the more ’mystical’ and ’mysterious’ veins of harmony lately (but still dark), so this scenario fit well. There are so many amazing animal/insect based bosses that I have loved across Soulslike games (Guardian Ape, Moonlight Butterly, Centipede Demon, Sif, Aava The King’s Pet, Rom the Vacuous Spider to name a few) and I want to explore this territory further rather than more armored knights or kings that I’ve focused on so far. Phase 1: (0:00 to 2:28) In phase 1 the dragonfly is playful and beautiful, yet still dangerous. It darts around firing greenish blue magical/water-based projectiles at the player and perhaps using sound-based attacks with its wings. It occasionally swoops in for an agile and precise physical attack, giving the player an opportunity to strike. It’s almost toying with the player at times, hence the more lighthearted musical sections in phase 1. This phase also contains mystic/otherworldly sections like the main motif in the intro 0:06 and returning at 1:26, conveying an alien-like being that is a force to be reckoned with. However, at 0:24 to kick off the ’verse’ I took a more Final Fantasy or classic JRPG harmony approach to give it a bit of a playful interlude. I wanted to convey an ’excitement of battle’ vibe before the reality sets in later that this is actually an incredibly dangerous cosmic being. The music of this phase is a bit inspired by Neptune, The Mystic (Gustav Holst), which I recently saw performed live in orchestra! Phase 2: (2:30 to 4:34) In phase 2 the player has dealt enough damage to the dragonfly to change the vibe of the battle. It falls dramatically into the river and stays there for a second during the break in the music - on a first time go it might be unclear if you won the fight or not. It erupts from the water in a fury at 2:35. It’s enraged and far more physically aggressive during this phase, recklessly charging at the player even slightly damaging itself against the walls of the cave. It still uses magic but in a more chaotic and frenetic way. To deepen the lore scenario, I imagined that a climactic moment occurs after the tension-filled rise at 3:47. At 3:55 the Dragonfly fades away and blankets the arena in pitch dark, like the Four Kings from Dark Souls 1. During this part, blue-green magical attacks come unexpectedly from all angles in the shape of dragonfly wings. This is like the outer space move in Living Failures from Bloodborne (a top moment in the entire Fromsoft catalog imo). The player just has to survive the attack until the end of the song at 4:33, when the darkness is automatically dispelled and the dragonfly is nowhere to be found. Of course this ’Darkness’ move would be some sort of scripted game event when the Dragonfly boss takes enough damage during phase 2. The section previous to this would loop until the move is activated (2:35 to 3:46). I still am not sure the best way to showcase the looping potential of the tracks on Youtube, but it is something I keep in mind and have tested on my own to make sure it’s smooth. Due to the character limit here, I have moved the music theory breakdown to the comment section below. Please give it a read if you are interested in that kind of thing. Thank you for listening and taking part in my channel! More to come soon. My Discord server for discussing all things game music: Bandcamp: Musescore : #gamemusic #bossmusic #vgm #gameost #videogamemusic #composer #soulslike