HER TEARS WERE MY LIGHT is a visual novel created for NaNoRenO 2016. it's a short love story about time and space. as time, you can move forward, backward, or warp to any moment you create a save point for. can you use that power to save space from her feelings of loneliness?

content advisory: mild horror elements. incredibly sappy romance.

https://nomnomnami.itch.io/her-tears-were-my-light

Downloaded it. I may not be able to play through until the weekend's over. Romance Detective, by the same developer, is also on my list.

Finished it. This is tremendous. I love it when romance takes place amongst the stars, or in dreamworlds, outside of normal perception. There's a gorgeous loneliness to that kind of setting.

The game combines a lot of clever game engine tricks, and metaphysical turns, with a lot of heart. In some ways, it's a far sweeter, smaller cousin to Qualia The Purple and Serial Experiments Lain.

The music is lovely as well. I adore naive synthesizers that don't fall into the familiar patterns of chiptune's insular fetishism. The music feels more 'Soundblaster' than 'Game Boy', which I appreciate.

I hope a few other people have a look at this.

I hope this thread isn't too old for me to comment on, but hi, I composed the music for Her Tears Were My Light! (I've read manga here before but haven't been on the forums)

I'm glad you liked the game and the soundtrack! I was a fan of Nami's art style before this, but yeah, the gameplay got me even more excited about the game when I was playing through early versions of it.

Regarding the music, the instrument timbres I chose were mainly influenced by an early draft of the title theme that Nami came up with as well as game soundtracks like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TyspcHlBWco&list=PL392784AE8CE5A03C&index=10

I did intentionally choose virtual synthesizers that are meant to imitate older sound chips (without limiting myself to purely 8-bit sounds) since I wanted to maintain the general style that Nami tends to go for in her own music, which you can hear in her RPG Maker games.

Also, the game's plot does seem to have the kind of yuri romance that people here would enjoy, so there's that going for it too!

Good to hear from you. I appreciated your decision to broaden your pallette beyond 8-bit. I'm a little sad there's a whole generation of synths and samples that have been swept under the rug because of how they've dated, but I feel the tide's turning a little. The Saturn/PS1, and the Soundblaster 16 eras are personal favourites.

I do like your composition style, with all those wandering, fragile melodies, free from stressful dynamics. It's very romantic and intimate, a welcome staple of a lot of RPGs. There's a pianist called Harold Budd who all but specialises in a comparable style. I'm starting to regret having only one album of his.

Thanks for your response, and good luck with any future projects.

Thank you for the feedback! I didn't know about Harold Budd until now, but his music is really interesting! Actually, making the soundtrack for Her Tears Were My Light was a somewhat new experience for me since the piece with the most tension was supposed to be [spoiler character]'s theme, and even that wasn't supposed to be too intense. Normally, I'd be writing at least some aggressive battle music (and I have turned said character's theme into a battle theme since then: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCMImH4IyNw), but writing gentler music is also enjoyable.