Freddy Pharkas complete soundtrack?

[gortmertl0]

Just wondering if anyone was interested in recording the complete "Freddy Pharkas: Frontier Phamacist" soundtrack.

Was re-listening to the few MIDIs and Digital files from here this evening, and it has a nice folksy, faux late-19th-century-hollywood-cowboy-movie kind of sound...

A digital recording (OGG/MP3) would be nice since I don't have a MIDI card, but even a MIDI-only 'complete soundtrack' would be great.

Thanks for any interest or feedback.

[Alistair]

Heh. I fully intend on recording at least a 'complete soundtrack' for Freddy. My brother and I recently bought the CD version (before I came to the US) and are only up to chapter 3. Nevertheless, it's an absolutely awesome game with a VERY good MIDI score, and I fully intend to make a SC-55 GM MIDI soundtrack for it. I very, very nearly began before I left.

- Alistair

[gortmertl0]

...it's an absolutely awesome game with a VERY good MIDI score

Agreed.  I thoroughly enjoyed playing it back in the mid-1990s, and thought a complete soundtrack would be great.

Thanks, and I hope your wedding goes off without a hitch -- except for you getting hitched and all...  

[Alistair]

11 days..

10 now, since it just hit 12:00.

It's actually kinda annoying, since I was literally on the verge of beginning recording, and also trying to finish the game.
As it is, I keep wondering what'll happen, and the music keeps playing in my head! Especially those damn 'Golden Balls Saloon' Honkytonk pieces.

I love Al/Josh.

Seriously, I hope to have it recorded by mid-February, maybe even edited.

- Alistair

[gortmertl0]

I love Al/Josh.

Yes, and FP:FP was one of their better collaborations...

Seriously, I hope to have it recorded by mid-February, maybe even edited.

Sweet!

Hopefully you won't have a problem completing the game.

I bought the "Sierra Originals" version, 1995 (C), and it was missing a key recipe/formula from the CD liner notes / abridged manual/copy protection.

You need to make Estrosterane at some point during the game, and it was left out of the printed liner notes.  You couldn't proceed.

Looking back in my CDR collection, I have a TXT file I made from the old Sierra.com website concerning this omission (circa ~1995/1996).  It explains how to make the Estrosterane.

I also have two old TXT walkthroughs, one from 1993 and another (date unknown) for FP:FP that I made from websites at the time...

Not sure how easy those walkthroughs are to find on the Inetrnet now (my experience searching out walkthroughs for old games is rather limited lately), but I could send them your way if you are interested.

[Alistair]

Yes, and FP:FP was one of their better collaborations...

Why, what was one of their worse ones?

Josh Mandel wrote me recently, saying he basically wrote it while 'apprenticing' under Al Lowe. I thought that was kinda interesting.

Sweet!

Hopefully you won't have a problem completing the game.

I hope not either!

Not sure how easy those walkthroughs are to find on the Inetrnet now (my experience searching out walkthroughs for old games is rather limited lately), but I could send them your way if you are interested.

No thanks. Thankfully, the great man Al Lowe himself has the Freddy Pharkas manual on his website. Unless the manual is missing it too..


Incidentally, is "Estrosterane" a reference to the planet of "Estros" from the SQ world? I wonder..

- Alistair

[Tom]

Estrosterane" a reference to the planet of "Estros" from the SQ world?

Or, "estrogen", where the SQ4 Estros reference is based on.

[Alistair]

<facepalms> Oh, duh. Yep, Tom's is more correct-sounding..


I'll try to do Freddy ASAP. 'Course, I have to finish the game first, and I'm obsessive/compulsive about looking at everything. It's always worth it, it's a frickin' hilarious game.

- Alistair

[gortmertl0]

Why, what was one of their worse ones?

Not sure if they did have 'worser' games than FP:FP -- I was just trying to be supportive of their tremendous efforts on FP:FP!  

Add to that my lack of Sierra knowledge about what other games they DID collaborate on...

Geez, now I'm gonna have to get my old 486 up and running one of these days -- I wanna play FP:FP again!  (Not to mention all the other older Sierra games, and those two great tank games from Dynamix, Stellar 7 and Nova 9!)

No thanks. Thankfully, the great man Al Lowe himself has the Freddy Pharkas manual on his website. Unless the manual is missing it too..

Just checked Al Lowe's site, and not only does he have the COMPLETE original manual (so much more than the truncated one I have), he also has a walkthrough or two there as well...

Looks like you'll be in good shape.

Hey!  One of the Walkthroughs on Al Lowe's site is the same one I downloaded 10 years ago...  How about that!

THE BEST SOLUTION Ver 1.1 dd 15-08-1993
                  MADE BY HAFEEZ AHMAD

[Alistair]

<grins> Memory lane, eh?

Not sure if they did have 'worser' games than FP:FP -- I was just trying to be supportive of their tremendous efforts on FP:FP!  

Add to that my lack of Sierra knowledge about what other games they DID collaborate on...

I'm pretty sure they worked on Torin's Passage together, and that sure as heck is much worse than FPFP.

Geez, now I'm gonna have to get my old 486 up and running one of these days -- I wanna play FP:FP again! (Not to mention all the other older Sierra games, and those two great tank games from Dynamix, Stellar 7 and Nova 9!)

Heh. 'S why I always have my old gaming machine running.

And it's funny you should mention those, because recently I've been thinking about purchasing those two. Are they nice?

- Alistair

[Tom]

I was absolutely in love and hooked on Stellar-7 for a long time.  When my joystick finally broke...and I never did replace it...I bid a fond farewell to Stellar-7.  I didn't get into Nova 9, for some reason -- though I don't remember why.

[Dustin]

I was absolutely in love and hooked on Stellar-7 for a long time.  When my joystick finally broke...and I never did replace it...I bid a fond farewell to Stellar-7.  I didn't get into Nova 9, for some reason -- though I don't remember why.

Me too. I still play it to this day. Never got into Nova 9? It's so much more enjoyable then Steller-7. If you get a chance Tom, have look a at Nova 9. Wonderful stuff that game.

[Alistair]

In an ironic note, today I found Dynamix's SEGA CD remake of Stellar-7, "Stellar-Fire", with mucho coolo graphics. I can make a SEGA CD ISO if anyone wants.

- Alistair

[gortmertl0]

<grins> Memory lane, eh?

Yeah, I'm certainly an old curmudgeon here in my mid-30s...  

"Back in my day, we had played games on 4-bit systems -- and we liked 'em that way!"


I remember my uncle being so enthused about his old Radio Shack Color Computer back in the late 1970s -- he upgraded it from the original 2 Kb of RAM to a whopping 16 Kb of RAM...   :?

Heh. 'S why I always have my old gaming machine running.

I am envious.  I don't seem to have the time to get the old 486 running like I want to.  I wish I could have held onto my original 486DX2-66, but I sold it in mid-1996 to get my Pentium-166...

Ah, the price of technological advances...

Anyway, a friend of the family gave me his dad's old 486-133Mhz.  My wife is already complaining about my two machines now; I don't think I will be allowed to have all three in the same room without getting a little grief...  

And it's funny you should mention those, because recently I've been thinking about purchasing those two. Are they nice?

Very much so.  I highly recommend both.

Stellar 7 is nice -- being the 'original' -- but I really enjoyed the 'upgrades' to gameplay found in its sequel, Nova 9.

Better graphics, movable camera angles, extremely imaginative enemies -- not just the same box on wheels to hit, extras like weapons upgrades...  Some of it was even puzzle-like.  You had to move 'boxes' over certain areas to activate or deactivate force fields, etc.

World one was a frozen planet.  Enemies were gliding around on skis, and the boss was a big bulldozer/snowplow that attacked you with a huge snowplow on the front.  You had to let him pass by, swerving in reverse as he attacked, and fire from behind -- the snow plow deflected most weapons and protected the dozer-section.

World two was a water world, with various boats and hovercraft attacking you.  Boss was a big and sleek stealth boat that tossed bombs at you (I think).

World 3 was like a dinosaur planet, with palm trees.  Triceratops on Tank Treads attacking you, with smaller Ostrich-like two-legged machines chasing you and flying Pterodactyls dropping bombs on you...  'Can't remember the boss enemy on that planet, though.   :x

The next world was a swamp world, with insect machines skimming the ground and attacking from above.  The boss there was a huge Centipede, and it was literally like plaing Atari's Centipede -- first-person!  You had to destroy it by shooting its rear segments first, slowly making your way to destroying the head; otherwise, like in Atari's Centipede, if you hit mid-section, it would split off and have more 'heads' to fire at you...

The only think I remember about the next world -- I think it was the next world -- was the boss: a huge bouncing checker-board sphere.  It always tried to land on your tank, like the Antwerp from QFG1; and when you hit it, it split into smaller, quicker spheres.  Even with adequate shields, I seldom made it past this level.

The next world was all black, with neon, TRON-like colors; an electrical world, and I only made it there a couple of times.  I think it even had lightning.  You had to do a lot of 'box' movement, and there were a TON of forcefields to contend with and electrical wires sparking shocks...

The boss on that world was a big Robot, but alas, I never defeated it, so I never got to the end of Nova 9.


Yeah, memory lane...  


I never made it to the end of the Nova 9 to get Gir Draxon (spelling?), but I did defeat him in Stellar 7 a couple of times (all 7 worlds won).  There were a couple of cheat codes being passed around the BBSs at the time for both games, but unfortunately none of them ever worked...  

Hey, I even got to play the precursor to Stellar 7, Dynamix's "Arctic Fox", when I was in college!  Someone had it on a machine in the room where I did some tutoring for a semester at a nearby middle-school.

[Alistair]

Yeah, I'm certainly an old curmudgeon here in my mid-30s...  

"Back in my day, we had played games on 4-bit systems -- and we liked 'em that way!"


I remember my uncle being so enthused about his old Radio Shack Color Computer back in the late 1970s -- he upgraded it from the original 2 Kb of RAM to a whopping 16 Kb of RAM...  

Hah!

I am envious. I don't seem to have the time to get the old 486 running like I want to. I wish I could have held onto my original 486DX2-66, but I sold it in mid-1996 to get my Pentium-166...

Ah, the price of technological advances...

Anyway, a friend of the family gave me his dad's old 486-133Mhz. My wife is already complaining about my two machines now; I don't think I will be allowed to have all three in the same room without getting a little grief...  

Well, my 'old gaming rigs' are Pentium 133/166's. I don't like them any older or slower, or they are just old and crappy. This way I can actually get some mileage out of them, and they have Windows 95 installed.

I guess the main reason is because they serve as my MIDI recording PC's as well.

Thankfully MY wife is more like, 'I want to play Space Quest!'

Very much so. I highly recommend both.

Stellar 7 is nice -- being the 'original' -- but I really enjoyed the 'upgrades' to gameplay found in its sequel, Nova 9.

Thanks for all the info. I purchased Stellar 7 CD and the SEGA CD supposed remake (which seems nothing like the Sierra/Dynamix version) 'Stellar-Fire' both in the last week for like 5 bucks.

Incidentally, Stellar-Fire is terrible! And reading the Stellar 7 manual, the games seem different. Anyone know why? I'll play the DOS version ASAP and let ya know.

Never heard of Arctic Fox, either..

- Alistair

[gortmertl0]

Well, my 'old gaming rigs' are Pentium 133/166's. I don't like them any older or slower, or they are just old and crappy. This way I can actually get some mileage out of them, and they have Windows 95 installed.

That's some good advice.  I was even thinking of putting an old copy of System Commander to have the option of DOS/Win 3.1 or Win95 at the start-up...

I'm not looking forward to getting back into DOS (spent the last 15 years trying to forget!   ), nor getting the sound card and 5-1/4" drives working.  The machine had a built-in modem/sound card, so I know it'll be a bugger to get my old Sound Blaster '8' working on it...

Thankfully MY wife is more like, 'I want to play Space Quest!'

Lucky man.  She sounds like a keeper!

Thanks for all the info. I purchased Stellar 7 CD and the SEGA CD supposed remake (which seems nothing like the Sierra/Dynamix version) 'Stellar-Fire' both in the last week for like 5 bucks.

Incidentally, Stellar-Fire is terrible! And reading the Stellar 7 manual, the games seem different. Anyone know why? I'll play the DOS version ASAP and let ya know.

Never heard of Arctic Fox, either..

Hopefully I didn't spoil Nova 9 for you...  Man, after starting to think back to that game, I can't believe how influential it was to me 10+ years ago...

Yeah, Arctic Fox was a Dynamix game somewhere between Atari's old vector classic "Battlezone" and Dynamix's next attempt, "Stellar 7".  If I recall correctly, the PC I played it on in 1993 was set for CGA mode (it was a jr. high computer, after all), so it was the old black-white-blue-pink color scheme and had 3-dimensional wire-frame enemies with some solid rendering.  Don't think it had much sound between bleeps and bloops from the PC internal speaker.  With White being the predominat background color, it makes sense it was some sort of 'snow-tank' game.  Gameplay was rather fluid.  I only got to play it once for 20 minutes, so that's all I remember about it.  Being so long ago, some of my rememberances might be wrong...

[Alistair]

Been meaning to reply to this for a while..

That's some good advice.  I was even thinking of putting an old copy of System Commander to have the option of DOS/Win 3.1 or Win95 at the start-up...

I'm not looking forward to getting back into DOS (spent the last 15 years trying to forget!   ), nor getting the sound card and 5-1/4" drives working.  The machine had a built-in modem/sound card, so I know it'll be a bugger to get my old Sound Blaster '8' working on it...

Heh. I don't care much for DOS either. I never have any memory in DOS!

Sound is easy to run on old PC's though. Remember, config.sys/autoexec.bat are your friends!

Lucky man.  She sounds like a keeper!

Hell yes she is. We're currently playing, "Freddy Pharkas" as I'm typing. Well, she's getting a drink right now. But then it's back to "Chester Field's".

Just posting to say, I'm getting further in the game, so the MIDI score recording approaches.

Took AGES to fix my old amchines; I found out today my brother had taken the hard disk out of one of my old rigs and then when it went in it wasn't recognised. Took all day to fix! So finally I can enjoy the wonders of Freddy again.

Hopefully I didn't spoil Nova 9 for you...  Man, after starting to think back to that game, I can't believe how influential it was to me 10+ years ago...

Nah, the plots of the Draxon series all appear to run along the lines of "Gir Draxon's forces want to conquer Earth". Wanna play though.

Yeah, Arctic Fox was a Dynamix game somewhere between Atari's old vector classic "Battlezone" and Dynamix's next attempt, "Stellar 7".  If I recall correctly, the PC I played it on in 1993 was set for CGA mode (it was a jr. high computer, after all), so it was the old black-white-blue-pink color scheme and had 3-dimensional wire-frame enemies with some solid rendering.  Don't think it had much sound between bleeps and bloops from the PC internal speaker.  With White being the predominat background color, it makes sense it was some sort of 'snow-tank' game.  Gameplay was rather fluid.  I only got to play it once for 20 minutes, so that's all I remember about it.  Being so long ago, some of my rememberances might be wrong...

Coolness. Must check that out!

EDIT: http://www.the-underdogs.org/game.php?id=1407

Regards,
- Alistair

[gortmertl0]

Just posting to say, I'm getting further in the game, so the MIDI score recording approaches.

Sounds great!  Look forward to your MIDI with much anticipation.

Gary

[Alistair]

Just saw the conspirators in Act 2.
I haven''t looked forward to recording a MIDI score so much in a long time! Surprised Tom didn't latch onto this GM original score (with both hands!) a long time ago.

- Alistair

[Alistair]

Finished Freddy! What a spectacularly marvellous game. About ties with "Shadows of Darkness" for my favourite game ever.

MIDI Soundtrack work will begin as soon as I finish my Kyrandia CD project. Hopefully I knock it off soon!

Regards,
- Alistair