Sauce Digest: New stuff for February; writer$ wanted

Prepare for another rollercoaster of downtime, nonfunctionality, and slowness over the next few days as we add some new features. Most of these are designed to make submitting news and promoting ThaSauce easier.
First off, we’ve got Digg links on every story page, in the “Related Links” section. Soon we’ll add a button somewhere around the RSS feed button to make it easier to find.

The next new feature is going to take a few days to put in, but should really help towards making submissions easier. If you have a link or short tidbit of news that’s not quite a full story, you can drop it in our new news hopper where we collect these short bits and links, and once every few days will post a digest-style summary of what we’ve got. This will be placed on the left bar somewhere, for easy drop-and-go functionality. We’ll have more details once it’s implemented.

In addition, we’re working on a new sorting system for articles. In addition to being able to sort articles by date and category, soon you’ll be able to browse stories sorted by reads, rating, and a new system called SauceRank, which takes all of the pieces of a story and factors them into a single “score”, giving highlight to new, popular, highly linked, and highly rated articles.


Call to all writers

As you might’ve noticed, our recent push to have daily columns failed spectacularly. Obviously the reason for this was that we didn’t have enough people to keep up with the volume of writing required, so we’re putting out a new incentive: money. I’ll give out a portion of the advertising revenue for whoever can take over at least four columns a week. For more details, visit us on IRC at #thasauce on irc.enterthegame.com.

That’s all for this Sauce Digest, stay tuned for the aforementioned updates and another edition next month.

Featured… Artist?! uncleBen of the Mod_Shrine

Ok, so you’re probably like ‘hey, where is Garian and his weekly ‘featured song?’ Well, I haven’t forgotten about you guys, but Rama had some ideas for this last week’s featured song, but never posted it, so I’m taking this time to feature my friend uncleBen as a ThaSauce featured artist. His style is quite chaotic, ranging from zombie spliff raggae to circus jazz to classic democheese, and he has at least one song you’ll fall in love with, if not many. His weapon of choice is MODPlug tracker, but not all of his modules will work in other players (sometimes not even in XMPlay!!!). He is quite notorious for breaking the standard WinAmp module loader, so please, please, PLEASE have Bass.dll (located here) installed in your WinAmp if you’re too lazy to use MODPlug Tracker/Player.
Hopefully Ben will appreciate my efforts to share his music. You can grab the tunes he has publicly released on the modarchive for free. He is also quite interested in working in indie video game music composition, so if that is your bag, give him an email, or come get ahold of him on irc.esper.net, in #mod_shrine and #modarchive.

My personal favourites are Esperanto Anthem and Pineapple Popsicle (the former because I did a semi-ripoff of the bassline in an all gear compo, the latter because I have been working on doing a vocal vocal mixdown with my own original lyrics).

http://modarchive.org/panel-profile.php?action=view&id=uncleben

OLRmageddon Month One: Voting Has Started

The voting stage of OverLooked ReMix’s newest monthly competition, OLRmageddon, has finally begun. This month’s theme focuses on “The Games of Capcom” and entries include remixes from games such as the Megaman series, Power Stone, and even Phoenix Wright. We encourage you to stop by, take a listen, and enjoy the music.

OLRmageddon voting rules can be found here: http://olremix.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6603

The official OLRmageddon voting thread with links to this month’s entries can be found here: http://olremix.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6770

Voting ends Wednesday, January 31st, 12AM EST

Happy voting!

Remix64 Remixer Of The Year 2006 results in!

lman writes:
“During the ROTY 2006 show hosted by The Dutchies, the winners of the
Remixer Of The Year 2006 awards have been announced. Sebastian
Bachliñski alias moog won
a stunning 3 awards, that’s “Best c64 Remix”, “Best Newcomer” with a
tremendous majority, and the main award “Remixer Of The Year”, with
Dejan Subotin alias dafunk coming in a close second.”

“Last year’s big winner Makke won #1 for “Best Veteran”.

“Firefox’s “Sleepwalk” was voted for best Amiga remix.

“In the categoryRadio Personality Of The Year” Ziphoid managed to supersede Boz, who came in second this time.

“Please check out the full list, more winners there! Congratulations everyone! :-D

“Thanks go to the Dutchies for making a fantastic ROTY show, to the
staff for the voting analyses, and of course to all Remix64 voters as
well as the remixers, composers, radio hosts and everyone I forgot
who’re making it all possible. You’re a great community!!!”

Conceptual Music Competition 4: The Beginning (CMC goes Multi-forum!)

The Conceptual Music Competition begun its fourth round Friday, “The Beginning” after some delay over the results of CMC 3. With this new round comes a new twist. The competition is now open to members of six forums across the music community!
This competition is based on the rules of the classic TOMC (Thematic Original Music Competition).

The CMC (Conceptual Music Competition) is designed so that each participant enters a piece of music based on a set theme. The participants take the theme and interpret it as they will to come up with something that fits. Any style can work, as long as it portrays a sense of what the theme is. During the run of TOMC, the idea was to make it fit an RPG feel. In CMC, you shouldn’t necessarily limit yourself to that. Feel free to be imaginative!

Each successive theme will be chosen by the winner of the previous competition. For example, say the theme of the last competition, CMC 10, was “The Desert” and the winner, Gabe, submitted a piece that knocked the socks off of everyone, so he won. Gabe then gets to decide the theme for CMC 11.

This competition is open to registered members of the forums of
OverClocked ReMix, VGMix, Newgrounds, ThaSauce, Ormgas, and VGMusic.

CMC 4: The Beginning
Long before all that we know came to be, there was the source… the beginning…

Voting Rules!:

  • Voters will be allowed to pick a first place (3 points) and any number of honorary mentions (1 point). Only one set of votes from any one voter will be accepted and a person cannot vote for any one piece more than once. Corrections to votes, from the original voter only, will be accepted, but corrections will void the previous votes. Basically, a voter can vote and correct the vote, but only the final form of that vote will be counted. Send all votes to Abadoss by PM. Please include any and all constructive critiques (not to be confused with bashing) about them with your votes as well, so that there’s always a sense of growth in the artform. If you wish to remain anonymous, just state so in your PM. Thanks.
  • The voting period will last from the moment the entries are posted in the thread to the Saturday of the following week. The voting period for this round ends on February 17, so be sure to spend some time really listening to the pieces.
  • Any participant in the competition can vote, but not for their own pieces. However, in an effort to encourage voting among participants, any participant who votes will have 2 points added to their voting score.

Official Rules!:

  1. Each piece must be originally composed for this competition. Arrangements and remixes will not be accepted. (Pieces composed by the participant prior to the competition will not be accepted.)
  2. Each piece must be 2:00 or longer and match the competition theme.
  3. Only one entry per person. Collaborations will be allowed, but each collaborator may not submit any other pieces. (This also means that a person cannot collaborate on two or more different pieces at the same time.)
  4. A link to the entry piece must be e-mailed or PMed to Abadoss prior to the deadline set for each competition. DO NOT POST THE LINK IN THE THREAD! However, feel free to post in the WIP:Other forum.
  5. Important: Each file must be labelled accordingly: Composer_Name_-_Composition_Title_CMC#.mp3
    (For example, if Reginald Nunez submits a piece called “Walking Through Candycoated Forests” to CMC 14, then his filename would be: Reginald_Nunez_-_Walking_Through_Candycoated_Forests_CMC14.mp3
  6. MP3 file format is required. Know that even OGG will need to be converted into MP3. (If someone is unable to do so themselves, Abadoss would be willing and able to do it for them.)
  7. Entries should be accompanied by a description and/or story to help listeners understand what the piece is about. (Not required, though.)
  8. All entries must be submitted by Saturday, February 3, 2007 at 11:59 PM – PST, GMT-8.

You can find the competition threads for each forum listed below:

Good luck and have fun! 😀

Previous CMCs: http://www.warnerpacific.edu/personal/kkeyn/CMC.htm

Forgotten Favorites: Faxanadu

Many nights have I dreamt of the day I may finally ascend to the top of the World Tree to defeat the dwarven hoard, only to wake up the next morning wishing I hadn’t spent the last of my gold on the Death spell. While maybe not everyone has enjoyed this fun, although somewhat clichéd platformer, it is one that shouldn’t be totally “forgotten.”
Faxanadu was liscenced by Falcom, as a side-game in their Xanadu series, and was developed and released by Hudson Soft. In the game, the unnamed Hero returns to his home village to find that the dwarves have invaded, and nearly everyone has already either attempted to ascend the World Tree or had fled. Upon his return, the King of the Elves grants him 1500 golds to prepare for his journey to save the world from certain doom.

As our hero, you must defeat hideous dwarven monsters, solve riddles involving keys, mattocks, and pegasi boots, and buy an impressive arsenal of weapons, armours and magics! You are our final hope!

Buy the game from an auctioneer at eBay!

Hudson Soft Wikipedia Entry!
Falcom Wikipedia Entry!
Faxanadu WIkipedia Entry!

Timbaland Visits Scene.org, Ripping Ensues

Here is the Digg.com entry.

It’s all explained there, even a few posts from Tempest himself, but basically here’s the lowdown:

Timbaland used about 15 seconds of a song by Demoscener “Tempest” as the base for a Nelly Furtado song, which he “produced.” Tempest’s material is clearly audible when you listen to the Furtado track. You can hear the chip sounds and the distinct arpeggios. Tempest’s song is also quite popular, and he writes: “Acidjazzed Evening competed in Oldschool Music Compo at Assembly 2000
in Helsinki, infront of more than 4000 people (voters) and won the
competition. There are good documents on this. You can of course
believe that the whole event never took place, but would require heavy
dose of self-deluding and not doing your research properly.”

Here’s the original, in .mod format. Use VLC or Modplug to play back the file.

Here’s a YouTube video of the Nelly Furtado version.

It’s unclear whether Tempest will go through the courts at this point in time, since he states he doesn’t have the time or the money to take on a major music label. He says much more in his Digg post, which I linked above.

I haven’t heard Timbaland’s or Nelly’s response to all this, and I’m unsure if they’ll even respond at all, but if they do, please comment on this article and let me know [or I will post it, if I find it first].

Video Games. Rock. Your Mom.

Holy Crap, what a weekend. Wayyyyy too much stuff happened this year to put in ONE news post!
Look for articles to appear as we sober up and can get our thoughts
back in order. Read more for a few highlights, though!
djpretzel and virt shaking hands and having drinks. OCR’s
Background/information panel. The VGMix 3.0 panel. Hell of a lot of
shows going on (most of which I missed, why don’t you guys post
pics/vids please?) including Shael Riley, Shawn Phase, Smash Bros. and
Chromelodeon’s final show! Snappleman wins DoD for December 2006! TREASURE BOXES and SAVE POINTS!
Also, I got my dog tag for <250 preregistration (freaking AWESOME!), and I want to get ahold of MrMagFest to find the website of that company for other custom etched stuff (they freaking ROCK! Rama got an OCR/Rama shotglass that he will never use!). Also, there are reports of a carpet fish swimming in the concert room from the people who were playing a bingo games download. Oh man, the Game Room was awesome too, I got to catch Bahamut and TriForce break the crap out of Tetris Attack by dropping wayyyyy too much garbage on each other. Empire Arcadia swept the tournaments and have graciously decided not to participate next year! The LAN room got super pwnted by the ISP and had to rely on a telephone jack for steam authentication! Also, the hotel’s wireless got super pwnted and was only available in certain rooms (sorry guys, thats why ThaSauce didn’t have any feeds this year, we’ll get that fixed next year, I PROMISE!).

so yeah….

best. weekend. ever.

PS: Planet Skill ROCKED THE FUCK OUT (I had no idea that Tumult had skillions!)

Zircon has left the building?

Due to extenuating circumstances, Zircon has left his position as co-host of VGDJ. The podcast is not officially dead yet, but Pixietricks is not currently looking for a replacement co-host at this time. Essentially the show will be on indefinite hiatus until we hear otherwise. However, don’t get your hopes up. Sorry folks. 🙁

You can read Zircon’s news post with an explanation for what happened at vgdj.net. Best of luck to both Zircon and Pixietricks from us here at ThaSauce.