Abandonia Competition #5
 

Hi everyone!

Great news, we have decided to run a much needed competition since we haven't had one in over a year! There are two limited edition Nintendo DS Lites bundled with Zelda up for grabs! Here is the picture:

http://files.abandonia.com/temp/zelda_ds_bundle.jpg

So, what do you have to do to get one? Simple!

Past competitions have been with images and questions so I decided to make this one a little different - namely, it has to do with music. I have picked 40 songs from old games and tried to make them as mixed as possible when it comes to genres. All you need to do is have a listen and try to remember which games they are from.

I have tried sorting them in increasing difficulty but I soon realized that won't work since it pretty much depends on personal preferences. However, you will be more likely to recognize first few songs than last few... I think :) This competition is quite tricky so I will also give you a few hints. The games from which the music has been taken range from 1990 to 1999 and song No. 33 was not originally released for PC/DOS. Also, some songs are remixes of their respective counterparts. However, all remixed songs have been chosen so that the melody from the original can be recognized easily.

The competition will run for two weeks, until 4th of March, so hopefully that should give you enough time to track down that tune that sounds oh so familiar but you can't quite place it :) All the answers should be submitted to me by sending me a personal message (or alternatively you can click here to do so). Please only send in the answers once you have the final version. It will be difficult for me to constantly amend everyone's answers. Of course, if you remember where a song is from after submitting the answers, you can message me again, just don't make a habit out of doing that ;)

Naturally, please don't discuss answers in the forums, I need to stress this because there have been issues with that in the past. OK, enough chatter, here are the music files:

Song 01

Song 02

Song 03

Song 04

Song 05

Song 06

Song 07

Song 08

Song 09

Song 10

Song 11

Song 12

Song 13 (removed because of leftover tag that gave away name, will not count in competition)

Song 14

Song 15

Song 16

Song 17

Song 18

Song 19

Song 20

Song 21

Song 22

Song 23

Song 24

Song 25

Song 26 (removed because of leftover tag that gave away name, will not count in competition)

Song 27

Song 28

Song 29

Song 30

Song 31

Song 32

Song 33

Song 34

Song 35

Song 36

Song 37

Song 38

Song 39

Song 40

Song 41

Song 42

Good luck everyone!!

A small update... seems like I overlooked a few little things... Red Avatar pointed out that two songs seemed the same, an accusation I quickly dismissed, but on a more careful listen it seems he was right after all =) Namely songs 12 and 22 are essentially the same, just with different arrangements. So those two will count as one answer =) Sorry about that! I used to be an absolute addict of that game and it shows =)

Another slip-up as indicated by users! :P Apparently there is something called APEv2 tag that windows media player and older versions of winamp don't support. However, the newest version of winamp does and two of the songs were tagged using this thing, whoever came up with it... Namely songs 13 and 26. I will be replacing those two songs with two new ones that will be numbered 41 and 42 so that there is no confusion. I have also removed the links from 13 and 26... sorry again!

With exception of 12 and 22, all songs are from different games, correct?

EDIT: Kosta, those are not just different arrengements. I can explain it over PM if you want.

If I want a DS I'd better buy it, but man thank you for the compilation. :cool: I did recognize quite some of them though.

Noooooo
 

NGWAAAARGH!
I remember only 10 of this songs! :cry:
i think i'll blow my mind to find the answers XD

Fun contest. Pretty hard though, but I got about 14 down so far. How important is it to get the number right for games that had several sequels and you're not sure which one the song is from? For example, if you know the song is from Game X, but you don't know if it's Game X 2 or Game X 3.

EDIT: Oh look, my post count finally updated, after like 7 posts hehe.

No one will win this competition by getting all the songs. Period. I am willing to bet - if that's allowed! And as long as there is no cheating! :)

Course it may be easier if the Abandonia player worked when you went to it! :(

What was used in the rendering of the music, mostly FM synth with possibly some CD audio/sound files thrown in?

Gawd, after listening to them last night, I could only call two for certain, and was kinda sure about maybe another two or three!! :confused:

Now before y'all spurn me like Jack Thompson, let me explain: in the 90's the computers I had access to were completely lacking in sound cards - the only one that did, was a office laptop of my father's that I'd use to try out demos and the like in the middle of the night when he was asleep, so I'd have to keep the sound down then, too! :rolleyes: As a consequence, game music is something I pretty much missed out on in that time period. It wasn't until 2002 that I got a big tax refund and was able to go build a decent PC of my own with all the requirements for gaming.

Sigh, I wouldn't have minded getting ahold of one of those DS's but I fear - unless I luck out in online research - that I'll just have to champ at the bit and wait with bated breath to find out where these music samples are from and dispell the "gawd that sounds SOOOO familar!" :amused:

Great contest, Kosta; I'm loving it, even if it is torture :laugh:
and good luck to everyone!!

Don't worry Empath. Like it been stated above, nobody is going to win this competition by answering all 42 tunes. Kosta is better check if the guy didn't cheat if that happen. :p

I find myself in the same situation. Never really had sound, or mostly played hacked versions in my youth which had no sound. However, I have 8 tunes I know for certain. It's only a matter of searching for the others. There is a lot of tunes which remind me something but I can't put the finger on it. :)

just curious: what were the 2 removed songs? i listened to the songs right from the page and so i haven't seen the tags... and don't remember if i knew them.

I've got 13 songs identified now, two more I might (might) be getting right but need to make sure.

The problem, as I see it, is that gamers don't play games from every genre. I play RPG's, Adventure and Strategy games only. I don't play retro shooters, I don't play retro puzzle games, etc.

How anyone can play enough different genres as well as enough different games so often they would know all these tunes is so incredibly difficult that I am not even sure these DS's exist and Abandonia intended to give them away! :)

Ah, but here's the catch: you don't need to guess them _all_to win. You just need to guess more than your rival competitors.

Do you call Kosta a liar, then?

I identified song #13 without using the ID tag too. A shame it's out of the competition... :(

I was being sarcastic - hence the smiley at the end of the sentence!

If it's the maximum then I think knowing 20+ will win the competition.

I've been playing DOS games since 1990 and I got my first sound blaster 1992, plus I play LOTS of old games, PLUS I have a certain thing about music. I just have to hear it once to remember it for ages. This competition is bringing back a lot of memories.
Some names you have to sleep on to get though. A few of these songs I must've played like 20 times already, knowing the song from before but can't put the name on it.
EDIT: Also, hanging out on OCR for a few years, clicking pretty much every song there helps too. :)

I know what you mean - #2 did that for me.

#4 is driving me crazy:nuts::nuts: I just can't get it

I was convinced it was from TMNT from NES until I asked Kosta if he used any console games in the competition. :p

Hey, i've played games on my 286 only with computer beeper 'til 1995, in fact, the song no.4 is sooo easy for me :laugh: it's even my phone ring.
But who converted missed a note.

to all who say that you have not to find all the songs.
If i have to guess more song than you, and i guess all songs, you can't guess more songs than me, right?

??? please anybody :cry:

Until that point I was under impression the #2 was one of the SNES Castlevanias. Which it wasn't - turned out I had its remix next to a few CV remixes in my MP3 directory. :P

If you can guess them all correctly, which cannot be done without cheating.

Since they've been disqualified anyway, I guess it's all right to tell you. Command & Conquer was the first, Loom Audio Drama the second.

In Chatbox, this is what Kosta said about the subject:

thanks... i've played both a LOT, and see, didn't recognize them.
just why do some of you think it can't be guessed without cheating? beside that i just can't think of a way how to cheat, i am convinced that i played most (if not all) of the games in the competition, so there maybe is a chance for me to guess them all (just trying to convince myself that my wish comes true :) ). still, right now i recognize at most 10-15 of them. :o

and one more question, if it isn't against rules to ask/answer: are all of the games on abandonia?

It would be against the rules if it helped. It won't, however, since there are quite a few games there that aren't on Abandonia

Joining this contest as of today!
 

I have listened up to #9 so far and I am lost except maybe for one or two of these songs. There are definitely some that are familiar.

How could someone possibly cheat? I haven't seen a set list of rules (with the exception of not discussing song titles over the forum).

By the way, I have seen some discussion about whether these songs originate from console or PC. I have not seen a clear answer to this. Could these songs also come from an arcade platform?

And lastly, are any of these songs remixes of their originals?

Some of the questions are already answered from the beginning:

I guess this means that all but 33 were originally released for DOS, what also implies PC.

By getting others to identify songs for them, perhaps?

Only #33.

Yes, quite a few of them are.

Getting Help = Cheating ?
 

What's wrong with getting others to identify songs for you?

You're supposed to identify those games on your own. Using other people to do that for you gives an unfair advantage.

that's not other people's business, fifth :p
it's somebody's elses fault that he gets less songs than the one who he told it to and could be the winner (but yes of course it's not fair)

Well, it's not impossible. Just really unlikely.

i've started looking on my pc for my old games, and guessed others 3 songs, and so? Is that cheatin? I've played most if not all of this games, and that's what i'm going to do, again :) . Another thing, i've got some of this songs in .mod, .xm , .ogg and mp3.

Last thing: some of these games were released on pc, but also in some others console and arcade.

Comparing with recorded/ripped tunes is okay (as long as you're doing it yourself, of course...).

Very infuriating! I have around 10 that I'm fairly sure of, with another 3-4 that I'm not so sure, and about 5 that are completely twisting my melon...

I've got 18 full positives by now, plus a few that'll need checking.

I myself am now at 13 100% sure, and a dizain guesses I need to check. :)

only got 7 on my quick run through

Man, that's tough! But I love it. Though, I was able to clearly indentify only five of them on the first trial. :(

And I always thought I was a real computer game nerd… What a shame! But hey - isn't theme #1 Metallica's famous 'Master Of Puppets'? :amused:

Two for two or two for one?
 

Am I correct in assuming that the two people with most answers win a Nintendo each? Or the winner gets both of them?

Cheers!

Not quite. But almost.
That would be logical.

TY so very much
 

I can not believe how much I missed these tunes from our begone days on "Ye Ole PC"
Thank-you so very much, I do not have a HIH (Hope In H$@@) of winning because as most people here I either had no sound card or was playing so late at night under the cover of darkness with no sound, just so I could play hours and hours on end when everyone else was asleep. (was the only cpu time I had as it was always busy during the day.
These tunes are so great they are now on my mp3 player, thanx again.

That's even why i could never guess the no.8 without my rips :D i've finished the game without hearin a single note..

Blasphemy! :p

That remix is lousy anyway. There's a ton of better ones around (I know, because I've been collecting them recently).

Ouch this contest is biting me in the ass... I have 5 songs down. 3 more of them sound really familiar, I'll ask my brother to see if he recognizes them!

EoF, Olemars and myself have 30 or more positive IDs each. It depends on how persistent you are in checking things.

:nuts: 30????
:wacko:

I've got 32 to be precise.

I know about 10 of them :)

Wow, talk about nostalgia. These bring back a lot of old memories. :amused:

And for some, a lot of new ones too! :laugh:

I hope it's not too late to write this, but there is a way to cheat ;) I found 6 songs using some simple tricks and I'm sure everyone can do it...
I'm not going to send my answers .. so be cool and be warned!

Reminder to everyone:
The time for sending in the answers will end tomorrow.

Cool competition, thumbs up for Kosta!
Myself, I got three songs figured out, yay!

Oh no! Access denied?
 

Nevermind, I had PM disabled in my profile... Duh....

Reminder: There's less than twelve hours left for sending in your answers!

I won't send my list, 13 aren't enough to win, btw really nice competition. :)

I also have only managed to get around 10 definates and a few maybes, so no hope for me! will kick myself when I see the answer list though...

I have found 31 with a few guesses. I'd be surprised if I get in the top 3 though...

33 full positives plus 2 I'm almost sure of.
Of the remaining five, four very ucertain guesses and one complete unknown.

Oh, well. Guess there's no hope for me, since I'm practically very young. Although I take great joy in playing older games, this does not help me particullarly. Thus , in conclusion I will not send my guess list cause I guessed 3-4 songs and there are absolutely no "maybes".
I'd like to congratulate Kosta for this chalenge.

I'm having the same problem. I think I'm a bit too young to have really played most the games these songs are from. It's a pretty cool contest though.

OK, I tallied up the votes, and here are the results, along with some interesting stats :)

First of all, I would like to thank everyone who participated and everyone else who played along! I was really pleasantly surprised with the knowledge (and scouting abilities) of everyone :)

Now, here are the correct answers:

01. doom 2 - hangar
02. golden axe - wilderness
03. one must fall 2097 - menu
04. xenon 2 - megablast
05. lemmings - main theme
06. diablo - town
07. wacky wheels - main menu
08. duke nukem 3d - grabag (local)
09. pirates - main theme
10. x-com terror from the deep - geoscape 6
11. transport tycoon - track 14
12. dune 2 - ambient 6
(REMOVED) 13. command & conquer - warfare
14. homeworld - mission 14
15. colonization - shady grove
16. terminal velocity - sex
17. little big adventure - theme
18. Day of the Tentacle
19. settlers 2 gold - track 15
20. mdk - prologue
21. legend of kyrandia - timber
22. dune - spice opera
23. reunion - steal the sky 2
24. battle isle 2 - track 1
25. tyrian - track 01
(REMOVED) 26. loom - bobbin threadbare
27. icewind dale - main theme
28. quake 2 - quad machine.mp3 (local)
29. ultima 6 - theme
30. indiana jones and the fate of atlantis - car chase
31. fury of the furries - intro
32. utopia - main tune
33. turrican - techno dungeon
34. flashback - options screen
35. james pond 2 - operation robocod
36. star control 2 - hyperspace (local)
37. jazz jackrabbit 2 - menu
38. earthworm jim
39. hocus pocus (tax5 remix)
40. the secret of monkey island - organ prelude
41. space quest 3 - introduction
42. Supaplex

As far as submissions go, there was a total of 20, and here are the results, sorted in descending order by the number of correctly guessed songs (the winners are marked in red):

the_fifth_horseman 34
thexder 34
------------------------
Nurple 33
olemars 30
eagle of fire 30
davesade 27
marko_river 27
Nightmare 25
rocky 24
a6n0rmal 22
Morrin 16
fjj 13
Shingouki 11
TeaBag 9
Mister.D 9
Dig 9
Jackolantern 6
Lord Vilecore 4
Hewy Lee 3
Kain Doomed 2

As you can see it was a close call! Nurple, don't loose your hopes, there will be more music competitions in the future ;)

I have also compiled a list of all games along with the total number of correct guesses, sorted from the (apparently) easiest, towards hardest ones:

01. doom - hangar 17
06. diablo - town 17
02. golden axe - wilderness 16
08. duke nukem 3d - grabag 15
03. one must fall 2097 - menu 13
18. Day of the Tentacle - intro 13
19. settlers 2 gold - track 15 13
37. jazz jackrabbit 2 - menu 13
41. space quest 3 - introduction 13
11. transport tycoon - track 14 12
15. colonization - shady grove 12
16. terminal velocity 12
05. lemmings - main theme 11
07. wacky wheels - main menu 11
10. x-com terror from the deep - geoscape 6 11
12. dune 2 - ambient 6, 22. dune - spice opera, counts as 1 11
17. little big adventure - theme 11
28. quake 2 - quad machine 11
30. indiana jones and the fate of atlantis - car chase 10
04. xenon 2 - megablast 9
21. legend of kyrandia - timber 9
25. tyrian - track 01 9
09. pirates - main theme 8
14. homeworld - mission 14 8
24. battle isle 2 - track 1 8
31. fury of the furries - intro 8
40. the secret of monkey island - organ prelude 8
32. utopia - main tune 7
35. james pond 2 - operation robocod 7
23. reunion - steal the sky 2 6
29. ultima 6 - theme 6
36. star control 2 - hyperspace 6
38. earthworm jim 6
42. Supaplex 6
27. icewind dale - main theme 5
20. mdk - prologue 4
34. flashback - options screen 3
33. turrican - techno dungeon (lvl2) 2
39. hocus pocus (tax5 remix) 1

Hocus Pocus, Turrican and Flashback seem to have presented the biggest challenge to everyone. I would also like to take this opportunity to congratulate Jackolantern who was the only one that got Hocus Pocus right, as well as Davesade and Mister.D for getting Turrican right! Well done! :)

I will be in touch with the winners shortly regarding addresses and other details! I'll try to organise another competition ASAP, and until then, sit tight!

Congratulation to the winners. Fifth sure worked hard to get that win, I can tell you that from our conversations in the chatbox. :)

Here is the list of my answers:

The vast majority of the 9 tunes I missed were either protected, adventure games or games I never played. At least I am proud to say that I really went to the limit of my ressources and knowledge and could hardly have done better. :)

Yes!!!
 

:nuts::nuts:

Kosta, thanks for the competition, it was indeed a very interesting one... On the other hand, you even got me to check the songs in Daikatana, and this is just not right... :wacko:

Now I better go to sleep -- after the amount of time I spent trying to identify these tunes, if I do not leave the computer now, my wife will divorce me. :)

Cheers!

P.S.: And, nevertheless, I cannot believe I missed "Pirates!" and "Secret of Monkey Island"...

Damn... That was a tight race... But...
Think you want to recheck my list Kosta? Because I did, and I had 34 as well. Every game was right, but I had a few ones where the number was wrong, but you said the number didn't matter. (Space Quest 1 or 2 are both right for example).

Anyway, fun competition. Looking forward to the next one :)

I had 31 too, but #12 and #22 count for one answer.

Oh yeah, forgot about that... bummer hehe.

Great competition, I'm just sorry I didn't take more time to check a couple more games by actually running them. Instead, I searched for gameplay videos on YouTube, hoping they contain the original music.

But then again, running any game, even if it wasn't on the list, would have taken me a couple of hours, because I would become so immersed in the game.

And I have another excuse for not guessing more games. Once I listened to the 40 songs and a couple of tunes on Abandonia Frequency, I started confusing them. :o

(voice from the background) Enough excuses already! Live with it!

Looking forward to the next competition.

I have found Turrican one too :), btw congratulations to the winners!
And have fun with your new Nintendo DS ;)

congrats to the winners, looks like you've earned it! ;)

there are 2 games in the list i never played, so there's no excuse for me for not doing some more research and not submitting my answers. :amused:
that quite surprised me, because there are genres i don't play much. but space strategy is not one of them and see, the 2 games i missed were Homeworld (i know, a shame, and even bigger after i heard the tune :nuts:) and Star Control (ok, you never get me to play that).

so i can just say it was one really nice and also tough competition, i appreciate it in the terms of being an avid (oldskool) gamer and also an electronic musician.

:D Frankly, I wasn't really expecting to win. Congrats to Thexder, and respect to all other participants for their efforts and determination.

Well I bought myself a bottle of finest whiskey (bourbon of course), to gather all my boldness course... And I have come to the conclusion that many titles sound very similar!

For example, the soundtrack of Dune2 at time index 0:40 seconds is just exactly the same as Zak McKraken and the Alien Mindbenders!
Or the soundtrack, of Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis seems to be similar to Final Fanty 7 (Sepiroth's Theme) for the looks of it!!

Can you please check your personal messages on the site? I need some info off you :)

Hardly. You just need to work on your melody recognition skills a bit.

Things I learned because of this competition
 

You guys probably know most of these already, but, anyway:

1) You can tap a melody with your spacebar and have the computer recognize it with Songtapper (but, as expected, that won't help you much with game music, unless it is a Mario Theme :) ).

2) I am amazed at the number of old Game Intro (and Gameplay) Videos at YouTube; DosBox must be responsible for this.

3) Talking about DosBox, D-Fend Reloaded is a front-end for DosBox that tries hard to emulate and improve on the now defunct D-Fend. In my opinion, it succeeds.

4) Typing "Game music pipe organ" into Google will only spit out links to Castlevania, Resident Evil, and that recent performance by Martin Leung at Yale.

Ok, let me go back to playing Gothic now. :)

Congratulations TFH and Thexder! :amused: I didn't spend a lot of time on the competition myself, but I got 4 correct out of the first 10. :)

Congrats to the winners.

Congratulations!
 

Congratulations to the winners! Good job!

This was a pretty interesting challenge. I listened to quite a number of songs and *knew* that I had heard them before, but it was so difficult to pin them down. I ended up with something like seven or eight clear positives (and didn't participate due to that low number). But now that I've read the solution, I should've recognized twice the number. I was somewhat surprised that I couldn't recognize (9)-Pirates!, given that this game used to be one of my favourites. Then again, the soundtrack does sound a bit different on a PC speaker... :)

Anyway, great competition!

Great competition, congratulations to the winners, good job to all competitors.

I wouldn't really bothered playing some competition, but i always loved good music including games, so this one hit the spot. When first heard the tunes i thought i wouldn't score more than 10, so i'm satisfied with result, especially because not having sound card back in the mid '90es. One can always do better but can always do worse :)

There is one thing i didn't like: the range of years was '90-'99. I mean, Quake 2 in abandonia competiton... Oh common, this was supposed to be for old games :P Not to mention that i still play mostly old games, don't really bother with new ones ;)

Thanks to Kosta, i heard some old lovely tunes and some new ones for me. Also, Colonization really hit me, since i played this with sound ONLY ONCE IN MY ENTIRE LIFE, and that was at my neighboor's on Amiga... I remember i didn't even care what was he doing in the game, i just listened to the music and completely forgot about it later. And i played Colonization a lot but with no sound. Man, i could actually spend my entire life and miss this tunes completely :D

Great stuff, love game music :)

My DS just came in. Lovely little thing :)

Argh, you lucky devil :)

Don't talk about it in public! Our government will come and make You pay tax! They need money to pay all these striking people :p

The number of boobytraps I installed on my land is certain to discourage even the most determined tax-collector. :D
And then there's cats. Make that, attack cats. :P

Photo please...let us drool in silence.

Mine too!
 

And my DS came in too. Kosta sent it to a friend of mine eons ago, and such friend finally came to visit us here in Brazil. Pity we do not have WiFi anywhere near us... :( But it is lovely indeed. :)

Finally! I was wondering what happened, not to DS, but to you :)
Everything is fine. Great!

Oh, thanks for the nice comment. I am still lurking as usual, and wondering if I should throw a competition and give away a couple of my old PC games -- you know, those that nobody buys on Ebay, not even for $0.01.... :) Anybody wants my copy of Final Fantasy VII?






Just kidding, of course. :cheesy: The games I want to get rid of are more like Crusaders of Might and Magic, Hyperblade, and Interstate 76 Nitro Riders...

I'm sure you'd find people who would want them... or perhaps just win the competition :P

We need more competitions like this one!