Shenzhen Nanjing's sound driver: origins?

[codeman38]

OK, so we all know how most of Shenzhen Nanjing's latter games have a... distinctive... sound to them. They're very easily identified by overuse of vibrato in the melody line and clunky-sounding percussion using the noise channel.

The interesting thing is, Nanjing's music wasn't always like this. Based on Gil Galad's NSF rips, the first game with this sound driver appears to be Jin Yong Qun Xia Zhuan (NJ031); all prior games had a very different sound driver, with several of these games using the same tune heard on the menu of the OneStation 99-in-1 carts.

But here's where it gets interesting.

There are two NES Dance Dance Revolution clones with very similar music, heavy on the vibratos and noise-channel percussion: "GLK Dance", credited to a company called Feng Li, and the anonymously developed "Hot Dance 2000". They seem to be based on the same engine, and judging from the name of the latter game, they're probably around 2000-- i.e., probably predating the Nanjing games. (Nanjing's FF7 is copyrighted 2004, for instance.)

So I guess Nanjing hired the sound programmer from these games and had them do music for their RPGs. Or something.

But it gets even weirder.

In 1988, Beam Software of Australia-- yes, the same company behind the utterly infamous Back to the Future game-- developed a cricket game for the NES titled "International Cricket". Naturally, it was PAL-only, because the only people interested in that sport were in Commonwealth countries. I only discovered its existence thanks to a pirated multicart ripped by cah4e3.

Now admittedly, I don't know much about NES assembly, and know even less about NES sound chip programming, but the music in this game sounds shockingly similar to Nanjing's stuff-- same vibrato effects, same percussion noises. If you want, you can find an NSF of it on the HCS64 archive. (Someone who does know more about NES programming, could you look at this to see if my suspicions are at all correct?)

So did the GLK Dance developer, and in turn Nanjing, steal their sound engine from an obscure cricket game? Because that would be a wonderfully bizarre story if it is the case.

Edit: Hm, Beam did several other sports games with the same sound driver. "Aussie Rules Footy" (another PAL-only one, naturally) and "Bo Jackson Baseball" (this one's NTSC, naturally).

[Awesome Panda]

Well if Shenzhen Nanjing ripped the sound engine from another game, it could've been from International Cricket. It was included on that pirate multicart you mentioned (which has the horrible Harry Potter game on, BTW ) and the menu of that cart uses an 8-bit rendition of a song called "Serenade" (I think) which can be found on one of those music player applications on a Famiclone computer ROM I had at one point. If I remember correctly the main menu on that ROM used the same sound driver as SNT's later games, but don't quote me on that.

[codeman38]

Cheetahmen

Sep 18 2010, 06:42:15 PM

Well if Shenzhen Nanjing ripped the sound engine from another game, it could've been from International Cricket. It was included on that pirate multicart you mentioned (which has the horrible Harry Potter game on, BTW ) and the menu of that cart uses an 8-bit rendition of a song called "Serenade" (I think) which can be found on one of those music player applications on a Famiclone computer ROM I had at one point. If I remember correctly the main menu on that ROM used the same sound driver as SNT's later games, but don't quote me on that.[/quote]Ah, yes, that's another thing-- several Famiclone menus that I've seen have that very same vibrato sound on their tunes too.

[Awesome Panda]

I've seen those as well. I'm assuming whoever did the music for SNT's games also did the same for those Famiclone menus as well. Maybe SNT did PC Famiclones at some point or another?

[codeman38]

Cheetahmen

Sep 18 2010, 07:11:24 PM

I've seen those as well. I'm assuming whoever did the music for SNT's games also did the same for those Famiclone menus as well. Maybe SNT did PC Famiclones at some point or another?[/quote]I'm wondering if there's a connection with GLK Dance, myself. Gold Leopard King is a fairly prolific brand of keyboard Famiclones.

Edit: Oh wow. GLK Dance is indeed Gold Leopard King. Here's proof from a random Argentinean YouTuber.

Edit again: And here are some Gold Leopard King Famiclones made by Feng Li. Yep. Definitely the same company.

[Awesome Panda]

codeman38

Sep 18 2010, 07:18:58 PM

Cheetahmen

Sep 18 2010, 07:11:24 PM

I've seen those as well. I'm assuming whoever did the music for SNT's games also did the same for those Famiclone menus as well. Maybe SNT did PC Famiclones at some point or another?[/quote]I'm wondering if there's a connection with GLK Dance, myself. Gold Leopard King is a fairly prolific brand of keyboard Famiclones.[/quote]I wouldn't be surprised. A fair few of those keyboard Famiclones have those DDR knockoffs on them, and if they distributed them, then it would seem very likely. I think it's possible that earlier on (around about 2000 before SNT was officially established) some of the developers involved with SNT made those DDR clones and possibly the Famiclone menus as well.

[SpaceNinja]

Let me get this straight. Beam got ripped off by Feng Li/GLK got ripped off by SNT?

...

HILARIOUS :lol:

[Awesome Panda]

SpaceNinja

Oct 6 2010, 05:09:22 AM

Let me get this straight. Beam got ripped off by Feng Li/GLK got ripped off by SNT?

...

HILARIOUS :lol:[/quote]I wouldn't assume GLK were ripped off by SNT. If anything, I'd guess that some developers from there went to SNT later on or something like that.

[Doommaster1994]

Actually, they didn't use Beam's sound driver. Beam Software's instruments used the hardware decay and square waves for instruments and this one doesn't. Most of the later Beam Software games were composed by Marshall Parker of Shadowrun (SNES) fame. Another staff member at Beam told me all who programmed the sound driver.
I have the source code for Beam's NES sound driver, but I have been told strictly not to give it to anyone until it's licensed, and I don't know when that will be.
If anything though, this actually sounds like TOSE's sound driver. I'm not sure who programmed the sound driver there, but I do know a couple composers who did music for them back in the day. If anyone's still interested, I could see if the games do in fact use TOSE's sound driver.

[taizou]

If it's the TOSE driver maybe it came from Toxic Crusaders originally - that sound driver (along with some of the music) was used in various educational keyboard famiclones in the 90s, and most Nanjing games contain the font those clones used, so there's probably a connection there...