[Joseph Collins]

I'm not sure this is the best place for a topic like this, but I was wondering... The file "BW_GLOBL.MOD," which comes as part of the soundtracks of both yenrab's Spirit Revenge and Eagle Rock Interactive's NiFTO (explicit content)... Does anyone happen to know where this song originally comes from?

I tried running a search for the song on Google, but the only things that came up were the first game (as part of an Amiga software collection?) as well as what appears to be a Pastebin log of someone's MegaZeux music file dump fromm 1995-1998. The file information (like so many other MOD files) also shines absolutely no light on the matter and the song has no title -- not even a default "Untitled song" header.

The thing must have come from somewhere and I have my suspicions it may be from an Amiga game of some sort, but there's no way to know for sure without a little more information (like... what does "BW" stand for, anyway?)

Thanks in advance for any help.

This post has been edited by Joseph Collins: 11 April 2017 - 09:48 PM

[Maxim]

Damn. I just found that pastebin and looked through it. What an overwhelming feeling of nostalgia. Makes me remember spending almost an hour downloading Megazeux 2.07 and not knowing what to expect except that it was supposed to be like ZZT.

Good challenge though. I'll let you know if I can find the source.

[CJA]

I tried searching at modarchive and couldn't find anything. I'll hit up Kom, who has the whole archive downloaded, and see if I can get him to run some checksums against them.

[Joseph Collins]

Alright, so... I decided to play through Spirit Revenge on a whim, today. According to what yenrab wrote in the extended credits back in 1997, it would appear as though the song in-question is by a guy called "Jacob Page."

A search for that name turned up a whole lot of nothing -- or at least nothing relevant. There is a "Jacob Page" on SoundCloud, but I really doubt it's the same guy. There's also a couple of musicians (?) named Jacob Page on Facebook, but again, it's not real likely they're the one I'm looking for.
Jacob Page is also the name of the guy who made Majik's Boomerang Engine... and the engine comes with at least one unique MOD (MAJIK.MOD)... so it's possible (and pretty likely) that might be the guy. And if that's the case... then maybe it's all been a wild goose chase and BW_GLOBL.MOD doesn't come from anywhere but Spirit Revenge, after all...

So, alright. That's kind of interesting info, isn't it? Is it helpful? Possibly...? I guess we'll see.
Incidentally, the song title is supposedly called "Depths of Despair," according to the Spirit Revenge credits. So that's something else. (Nothing turns up on Google for that, though...)

Edit: The thought of just contacting yenrab to answer this question did occur to me, if anyone's curious. Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure yenrab isn't around anymore. (At least that's what the appropriate ZUltimate Wiki page seems to say.)

This post has been edited by Joseph Collins: 26 April 2017 - 05:04 PM

[CJA]

I actually ran a script against the entire ModArchive torrent and couldn't find anything. Nothing with the same file size, nothing with the same date. Maybe if I'm bored, I'll regex the whole kit & kaboodle to search for instrument text.

I dunno why I spent this much time on this, but I know that when someone wants to find out the source of something like this, it's important.

[Exophase]

Seeing as how Jacob Page also shows up on the MZX 2.48g/2.49b beta test list he's probably someone yenrab knew through the MZX community in 1996 and not some random mod artist.

That could have been through AOL or the mailing list but it was probably on IRC (#megazeux on Undernet or Austnet)

Unfortunately I either didn't know or don't remember what everyone's real name was, so while the name is familiar I couldn't tell you what their handle was. I mean, other than "Majik." The founder of #megazeux was majiCk but I don't think that's the same person. I very vaguely remember a separate Majik and that boomerang engine (which is very old) but I couldn't tell you anything else.

djtiesto might know more, he was around more than I was.

As for yenrab, I think the last time I talked to her was on AIM in 2006. I don't think very many people use AIM anymore so I doubt you'll find her there.

[Baby Bonnie Hood]

I think this is the perfect thread for me to bring this up.

There's one music file in Spirit Revenge that's credited to Unknown: "O-78489". In the interest of giving it proper credit when I decided to use it in my games, I googled that exact string; the result is that it seems to have been part of some sort of music competition a couple of decades ago, and it's credited to one "Thomas Lundgren". Googling that name brings up... a rich tycoon? Might not be the same person.

Eh, it's just a little trivia and nothing more. What's more interesting to me is the music contest. Could any of those other songs have become MZX staples if yenrab had used them instead of O-78489...?

[Maxim]

Baby Bonnie Hood, on 26 April 2017 - 09:29 PM, said:

I think this is the perfect thread for me to bring this up.

There's one music file in Spirit Revenge that's credited to Unknown: "O-78489". In the interest of giving it proper credit when I decided to use it in my games, I googled that exact string; the result is that it seems to have been part of some sort of music competition a couple of decades ago, and it's credited to one "Thomas Lundgren". Googling that name brings up... a rich tycoon? Might not be the same person.

Eh, it's just a little trivia and nothing more. What's more interesting to me is the music contest. Could any of those other songs have become MZX staples if yenrab had used them instead of O-78489...?

Those Hornet music contests did get some really, really good entries. I'm surprised more of them weren't used in Megazeux games.

Megazeux history is hard to find these days. A lot of the old sites are gone. If you can find an archive of alt.games.megazeux somewhere, maybe Jacob Page posted there. Or maybe Kevin Vance knows something. He still has a website, and he was active from the beginning of Megazeux.

[Risu2112]

wasn't BW_GLOBL.MOD written by giel?

[Dr Lancer-X]

re: Jacob Page, this is all I have. It's a news item from mworld, circa 1996:

Quote

Clint Nielson (better known as Monthigos) has joined Software Visions.
He has quit Majik, the company that he and Jacob Page formed. Also part
of the announcement is this - Sivion will be put under the Software Visions
banner! Aimed for this Christmas, Sivion promises to be one of the best
games ever. For screen shots and info, check out

Also, I don't think it contains any information you haven't already figured out, but this is from when bw_globl's authorship was discussed in #mzx a few years ago:

Spoiler

Quote

1 06 07:40:13 <wildweasel> Man. So many awesome songs in my mods folder and I have no idea who composed a bunch of them
1 06 07:40:16 <lolilover_> hs_maxim: to acclimatise you to the journey across the ussr
1 06 07:40:25 <wildweasel> aurora and bw_globl remain uncredited...
1 06 07:41:37 <Lachesis> http://modarchive.or...eid&query=34274
1 06 07:41:44 <Lachesis> a post says Horace Wimp
1 06 07:41:55 <lolilover_> horace wimp composed Hymn to Aurora, yes
1 06 07:42:19 <Lachesis> o
1 06 07:42:29 <hs_maxim> what a terrible name
1 06 07:42:34 <hs_maxim> i feel sorry for ol' horace
1 06 07:42:58 <wildweasel> looking that up on youtube reveals this: "The music was composed by Fredrik Skogh aka Horace Wimp on Amiga."
1 06 07:43:17 <lolilover_> Aha
1 06 07:44:06 <wildweasel> Horace Wimp is apparently the name of a song by ELO
1 06 07:44:21 <wildweasel> I also found this "orchestral" version of the song but youtube won't load it for me: http://youtu.be/ZKaIcRVJZbg
1 06 07:44:27 <Lachesis> bw_globl was in Spirit Revenge, I'm guessing an old amiga contest track
1 06 07:45:00 <wildweasel> yeah...the sample names dont' contain an author...
1 06 07:45:44 <Lachesis> that's actually the only reference to it that I can find anywhere, is in Spirit Revenge
1 06 07:46:00 <Lachesis> maybe it was original for the game?
1 06 07:46:03 <wildweasel> Hm. I wonder if there's a chance someone in Autumn Dreams composed it specifically.
1 06 07:46:08 <wildweasel> perhaps Adam Parrish.
1 06 07:46:15 <wildweasel> since he did another song for the game if i recall
1 06 07:46:24 <Ouch> i keep feeling like i want to argue with bolan but i don't actually have much knowledge about communism or "marxism" and i cannot at all bother reading these papers so i guess never mind
1 06 07:47:14 <lolilover_> spirit revenge's credits probably list it
1 06 07:47:57 <lolilover_> hard to work out the name of the song though
1 06 07:48:03 <Ouch> what the fuck
1 06 07:48:15 <Ouch> why is everything in cave story + christmas-themed right now
1 06 07:48:22 <Terryn> why not
1 06 07:48:33 <Ouch> because it looks ghastly
1 06 07:48:40 <Ouch> you hear me? GHASTLY
1 06 07:48:44 * wildweasel converts the cannon fodder theme to mp3.
1 06 07:49:08 <lolilover_> Wildweasel: seems to be Depths of Despair by Jacob Page
1 06 07:49:24 <wildweasel> bw_globl?
1 06 07:49:26 <lolilover_> yes
1 06 07:49:36 <lolilover_> i determined that through process of elimination
1 06 07:49:49 <wildweasel> Ah ha. Thanks for that then
1 06 07:50:20 <wildweasel> now if I could just quit typing his name as "Jacop"
1 06 07:51:03 <lolilover_> thankfully SR had only 8 tracks and credited them all

[Exophase]

Looks like Monthigos was last active here pretty recently (August 2016). It's probably worth sending him a PM.

It looks like Majik was what the original ZZT Sivion was released under. So Jacob Page may have been in the ZZT community. I can't find anything else on that though. I don't remember anyone else other than Monthigos being connected to Sivion except maybe Ibrahim Chisti.

[Joseph Collins]

I really wasn't expecting much interest in this topic, but I'm really glad people are! Thanks to this, discussion I think we've really narrowed down the possible origins of the file. While I'd certainly like a definitive answer (wouldn't we all?), I think some of the sidebars and related topics have been really interesting! Adding in amusing anecdotes and stories of the past days of the community is just a bonus, for me. Heh heh.

In any case, thank you all for everything, so far! Here's to someone coming out of the woodwork with more information at some point, eh?

This post has been edited by Joseph Collins: 01 May 2017 - 10:46 AM

[Baby Bonnie Hood]

Quote

http://youtu.be/ZKaIcRVJZbg

Wow, that orchestral version of AURORA.MOD is pretty neatsome.