Project [Continue?]

The project started out as a playlist of my favorite VGM remix songs from places like OCRemix and various VGM bands. However, it evolved into an art project, wherein those songs are represented visually as specific locales on a World Map, similar to Super Mario World.
Something relatively simple, yet that allows for designing maps, which is awesome to me. The user would be represented as a cartoon-like figure/effigy, that would then get pushed along to the next point of interest, which would be represented musically by the next track.

In my head, I visualize something heavily inspired by Octopath Traveller's pixel-art style in using Unreal's beautiful FX to make a modern-retro style to visually express what we're hearing. Mom actually siggested the opening Myst-map, which I also thought was a badass idea. Still mulling that one over; if it doesn't quite fit here then I can certainly do something else with it.

In this case, each of the 4 Playlist Albums would correspond to a World Map. How that map looks and the progression of the user through it is dependent on several elements: the song dictates land or sea (or air), as well as beginning/end song transitions in both the sonic and literal narrative.

Voyage starts out, the user is on a journey (Odyssey), with chapters from a diary (in style of Screwtape Letters), sailing across the sea, on a world map like Earthsea, a world of islands, necessitating etheral travel (and room for hallucinations). The ship travels onward, exploring the world and the known map.

Tempest then starts, as most ships sooner or later will run into stormy seas. The violent thunder crashing and lightning alighting the churning, swelling seas. This is where the journey gets rough, but the adrenaline comes to the fore. You are alive, and you spit in the face of annihilation. Lots of clouds and cliffs, occasional shelter and land issues.

Questions arise during all this chaos, as the storm subsides, you realize you've been blown way off course: Where am I? You are now in unmapped territory, among the strange and fantastic lands of legend only whispered of in higher circles and illicit tongues. You are now in places that drive men mad, and for others chain them fast to their choice of sirens. You must find your way out of the maze and the haze as daylight dies. Lots of fog and more islands, along with weird spots...

Once you've found your way through, the fog parts and the stars come out. The storm is over and the waters are calm, reflections of the moonlight dancing a slow waltz to the night breeze. The Serenade is taking you home, with a soul growing with wisdom, peace and acceptance as you float toward your remaining destination. You are different now. Nighttime, stars are out, open sea, to nice sounds and valleys and rivers as you float toward home.

You have arrived and have reached the pinnacle, as you hold and marvel at the beauty of the golden Chalice before you. You are now in the clouds, as each song gives you flashbacks and satisfaction, all that messy chaoes curated and coalesced into a beautiful form you never knew you had. The best of the best are here, your life's journey; the memorable highlights that when mashed together form a different perspective of existence. You are Above, ala Super Mario World star level. The moon is out, the stars, maybe a Saturn ring or some such? Not sure, but make it magical, right?

The end includes a forced-included Soundcloud upload of "Escape Into the Twilight," which has a heart monitor audio going throughout the entire song, and at the end it flatlines. It is here that I'm hoping the user/viewer starts to understand that this story is ended because of death. All of this was a hallcuination in a hospital bed, of someone likely so in love with gaming and the escapism it brought him that he took one final, grand journey into the great unknown with a smile and his own dreamlike interpretation of his last moments. A nerd to the fucking core. This was Heaven, and that was all that was needed before the final dissolve.

All of this here talkin' leads me to the next major portion: the written diary. Each song is it's own unique snowflake, and as such, it ignites a certain narrative or series of images in my head. As this whole thing is essentially my personal interprestation and tribute to game OSTs and their eventual remixers (predominantly amateur), I like the idea of making a diary entry for each song that makes the cut of roughly 20-25 songs for each playlist album.

The full playlists are mainly around 100+ with the Question around 60, so making diary entries for each song would be way too much work, and wouldn't be good anyway as I don't feel so strongly about the songs after a certain point (there tends to be a drop in quality for me around 25-40 tracks in). Though my glorious playlists are specifically engineered to transition and make a certain amount of narrative sense, they are still largely favor-based. Some might say, "top heavy