Open Hatch

[Update: this music has been revised and re-posted]

In reference to Pilcrow’s prescient request, I now present a remix of title in subject from the Nintendo 8-bit era of glory. The overlaying melody on this thing (I argue) makes the work substantially different enough from the original that this is a new work, which I provide for your download.

(Download mp3, ~2.5MB)

This combines work done in Melodyne and Cakewalk with a nintendo sound font.

For an idea of this game (or a strange nostalgic glimpse), here are several YouTube videos -

I don’t like the weird video intro for this one, but it’s the only thing I find that gives the game title sequence (without a painfully elaborate or nerdy uber-over-narration) from which this title remix was built:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=hTl1gTTOFNA

Level 1 play-through:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=Wakyt-KtoBU

For the excellent finale music and sequence, skip to 2:44 in this one:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=Ct1Ins6oZY8

There’s this tune from the game Mother (the original Nintendo version of what later became the brilliant EARTHBOUND on Super Nintendo), evidently this is the music when you die. (Or that’s what the track ripper says; “Game Over”: I wouldn’t know because I never played the original. Also, the music when you die in EARTHBOUND is different but equally cool.) One day I was listening to this tune and I heard and started singing a high harmony melody. I’ve now re-rendered the music to include that melody, also altering the bass line enough that I can call this an original - if blatantly ripped off and extended - work, without conscience - so you can download it.

(Download mp3, ~1.7MB)

How I made this was tricky - and yet produced results far faster than if I’d figured and re-did all the notes by hand. I’m kinda proud of it. I’ve mentioned Melodyne, which changes pitches very well. I used a Winamp plugin called NotSoFatso that lets you mute tracks in an .nsf (emulated nintendo music) file. I rendered each part (or instrument or harmony) to different wave files via Winamp’s wave writer - bass, lead, and lead echo. That was easier with NotSoFatso allowing me to “shadow” or list one of so many songs in the .nsf (right-click the song listing, click “file info”, then click “shadow->Winamp). I moved the notes of the bass wave file around a bit in Melodyne, and also copied it to another track and divided and moved around the notes and overtones (formants) to make this higher lead part (several of the notes were barely audible until I moved the formants).

Bingo.

Melodyne gave it a sing-song quality, if it is still very much a “nintendo” instrument - because Melodyne is designed to emulate the formants of the human voice in particular. It also made it too “clean” to be a “nintendo” instrument, so I processed the result in Audio Mulch using a “DigiGrunge” distortion decimator simulating a bit depth of 8. Then I mixed it all back together in Guitar Tracks Pro 3, and converted it to .mp3 with foobar2000’s “convert to same directory” right-click option.

Update: I slightly revised and expanded this song.

I composed and rendered in a Nintendo sound font the following tune.

(Download mp3, ~3MB)

This is from that game they might have made, and which you should have won, but you didn’t, because they might not have made it. But it might have involved a hero running through fields defeating the forces of evil, solving puzzles pertaining to the salvation of the world, acquiring mysterious relics, conversing with wizards and sorcerers and friendly beasts, and advancing in skill and stages toward defeating the ultimate foe.

You are free to download, copy and use this song for any purpose (see the license in the tag), and I request a link to this page in any redistributions. I don’t demand credit but request it in any commercial re-use.

[’Nother update 08-11: I just wandered back to his blog to download music and found that the side bar on the left of his blog contains links to pages where he organizes his downloadable portfolio. Nice Also, amid his blog is a link to his Professional Contact/Portfolio page, which itself I think has more (other?) music - I dunno, I’m using an automatic downloader to grab the music files but indicating that he has done a lot of scores to imagined, nonexistent games he made up. Ha ha! That’s insane! That’s awesome!]

[Update: a commenter corrects a mistaken fact; this musician didn’t do the original original music on CONTRA; he did a lot of fan remixes of it. The rest of this is apparently correct.]

I just found this blog of a guy (by Googling the author and title of a file I nabbed from my brother; a chiptunes version of “Thriller”, in this post) who does freelance video-game music, including chiptunes (NES style). Apparently he worked on the original CONTRA, a huge (as in popular) Nintendo game; and he’s doing music for a new installment in the series fashioned closely after the old platform style. Awesome. Anyway his page of new chiptunes has awesome stuff, free for downloading and sharing with restrictions that wouldn’t affect most people.

So here’s his chiptunes version of Michael Jackson’s tune “Thriller” (this song is also at his page for downloading). Weird. Awesome.

(download mp3, ~4MB)

I think I’m going to be downloading and enjoying a lot of his work

One day a few years ago, my brother and I burst into invented overlay melodies for this Nintendo music, as we drove in my car - I think this was on or near Halloween (2003?). But to me, this music is just downright.. I dunno. Christmasy.

[note: In time I’ll update this to play it in the page with a little music player (flash), but it’s at a mHz that makes it freak out right now]

- download .mp3 -
- download .m4a (.iTunes) -

[This was moved over here from my wiki - date unknown]

The Adventure Game! .. An old one. ..King’s Quest.. um.. I don’t remember which one.. at some point I was playing through this game with my wife, and laughing at some of the very funny (unintentionally so?) sound bytes. Here are captures I made of those sounds.

Leave my harp alone! ..

Ah, life giving water, nectar of the Gods! ..

Yonder lies the crystal cave! ..

Ech, a dead fish! Hmm..

[This was pulled from my wiki which I am overhauling - I don’t know the original date of this.]

I bought the game CIVILIZATION IV. I played it some, got a new video card to support it, and have mostly shelved it. WAY TOO EPIC. And the justification of buying the card to enjoy it with others is null. I’ll get back to the game when I have an interent connection fast enough to actually enjoy playing it with others. More, more, more, the drum of modernity. Anyway, in this game you discover technologies and ideas and so forth to advance your conquest, and Leanord Nimoy always informs you: “You have discovered thus-and-such”. When I play the game with others who haven’t heard the joke, I type in the game chat:

You have discovered pants.

This gets a good laugh.

As for myself, I really have discovered pants.

This game expansion I wrote character dialogue for was released yesterday. It’s for the game in the subject header, on the XBOX 360 Live Arcade.

The company forum had some positive player feedback here.

Earlier positive reviews for the game were noted here.

All that running and resolve, and Mrs. Pac Man hasn’t lost anything. Doesn’t she get that she’s taking in as many calories as she burns?

She should just face it, her basic shape is round. In older times, this shape was more ideal because it signified farming power and the luxuries of living carnivorously. It’s too bad they stopped making farms to remind us that fat is power. And poor Mrs. Pac Man isn’t adored like the farm girl she should be. She was born in the wrong time.

At least we still have those holdovers of farming and fat power: Thanksgiving, and McDonald’s. Was Mrs. Pac Man ever in a happy meal? With a little straw hat? I bet they didn’t add a straw hat. They should.

No, Mr. and Mrs. Pac Man are silicon children. The best they can hope for is liposuction and plastic and silicone reshaping.

And isn’t it time for Mrs. Pac Man to have some equality? Shouldn’t she resent having Man in her name? Shouldn’t she be Mrs. Pac Myn? And isn’t it unfair that HE is in more games? Why does she keep hanging around that loser?

[This post updated]

Outpost Kaloki X, which I helped make, was reviewed by teamxbox.com with a a higher rating than any Live Arcade game available at Xbox 360 release.

They say:

“…there’s some very funny text…the Sarge’s garblespeak is damn funny”, “…a great family game”, “…Fans of tycoon-style gaming will finally feel like they have a place in the console world too.”

ign.com has rated it the number 2 game to download on the platform.

“..a pleasant surprise”, “..a totally different experience”, “..load this title up and you’ll be hooked”, and “This is one of the most unique experiences on the XBLA.”

I’ve created levels for a video game. It’s a cartoony space station simulation, on the Xbox 360. Here’s a list of reviews. My levels are a love story. The goal is to date any or all of four girls and marry one. These are excerpts of dialogue I wrote for the levels. Player responses are in brackets.

Ann, the Librarian
Would you like to hear part of a poem I started?
[Yes]
Brutish swagger, mop my heart,
Flooding sorrows ‘ere thou part . .

Great Museum! Look at those kids just sucking in the knowledge! I wish I sucked as much as they do!
[You do!]
Really? Oh, I’m so flattered!

Are you enjoying our romance?
[Yes]
Does it sometimes seem like there is only one possible response to anything I say?
[Yes] [No]
What about now?
[Yes]

Poppy, the Hippie
I realized I was a robot when my third boyfriend contracted tetanus. My parents tried to blame my braces, but I knew better.
[Okay]

Will you build me a Comedy Club? It would be only for me. But it would reach out to everyone. Except for the people I make fun of.
[Okay]

Want to hear a joke?
[Yes] [No]
Okay. How many robots does it take to change a light bulb?
[ 3? ] [I don’t know]
None! The enslaved humans do it for them! A ha ha HA HA HA WRAAAA HAAA HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!
[Heh. . .]

Figures. They didn’t program you right.
[Okay]

Blenda, the Cheerleader
So that you know, my favorite drink is deep fried oil.
[Okay. . .]

Did you know Poppy said I was a bad, bad human in her.. journal? .. Isn’t Poppy awful?
[No]
But I thought you hated everyone I do! I hate you! No, I don’t, because then if you hated everyone I do, you would hate yourself! I’m so confused. . .
[All Right]

Wanna be my boyfriend? I’m not jealous or judgemental like those other terrible girls.
[Yep] [Sorry, no]

Wraeth, the Goth Chick
It’s very nice that you liked Ann’s poem, but I had a thought. If her heart flooded, wouldn’t it be a river of blood?
[I guess so]

Here’s a poem you inspired:
Black Hole spins, devouring all
Matter binding to the fall
Inward screaming, mute I call
None can hear the crushing pall.
[Thanks?]

Want to go on a pretend date?
[Sure]
Wahoo! That was fun.
[It was?]

I asked a question at a forum (Utah Game Developers yahoo group) about what people are playing lately. Here I answer my own question, after a sad explanation of everything I don’t play.

The last game I greatly indulged was Animal Crossing (hard to describe), which simulates time passages between game sessions. I passed the interval threshold of game-gluttony happiness, and the attention-starved neighbors and weeds overran: this only reinforced my wish to abandon them. I also got bored with materialism.

Other games I abandoned that all share the same cardinal sin of games; spawning you way too far back from where you progressed before death: Zelda Windwaker, Zelda 64, Homeworld, Half-Life. Far overdue investigations: Final Fantasy VII, Metal Gear Solid, Neverwinter Nights.

I played and don’t like WarCraft III. You spawn impossibly micro-unmanageable armies of fantastic creatures to execute genocide. BIG. WHOOP.

But what I do play is Wario Ware occasionally (Frenetic weirdness and I think a riot), Super Smash Bros (a cartoon brawl), Super Monkey Ball (strange sporting), I’ve dipped back into trying to finish Metroid Prime (exploring a strange planet and destroying mutants), and the game I worked on.

My wife plays games more than me - or that is played before our first baby was born and lately she played Harvest Moon, which is so cool because it supercedes materialism. I’ve played it a little when I have time.

I’ve played board games more frequently lately, with family: Settlers of Catan, San Juan, some bidding/buying game I forget the titled of (and always get wolloped at), Ticket to Ride, Trias, Starship Catan. Own the world, build the most, build and own the best, own the train stations, outrun your contemporaries, ditto. Somehow these games are fun despite the themes.

And yet the answer to Darwinian/competition games is not induced sharing (emotional Socialism?) The place to get didactic is Family Home Evening (or how about just unconditionally praising instead of preaching?), but spare us of too much and get on with the games. Don’t mix the two. That’s weird.