Masashi Hamauzu (little side project)
 

Hey

Hamauzu has been sighted working on a little side project.

Oolongtea

Any comments about this?

Any chance of a translation or summary for those of us that don't speak or read the Moontongue?

Um, all I know is this:

He wrote this music:


Hamauzu music

From my extended knowledge about Hamauzu harmony, I can really say it's Hamauzu! This piece of music is the proof: oolongtea[1][63].mp3
In one of the other pieces he ends in first inversion of the tonal chord: oolongtea[1][61].

He uses the usual instrumentation of piano + violin. Some pieces sound like Musashiden II others sound like Saga Frontier II.

Oolong is supposed to be a tea from China, I drink it a lot.

Some of the samples are so short you can use them for a buzzer for msn.

Technically speaking, this is still game music. It has something to do with making tea.

Is there actual text to confirm his involvement or are you making the assumption based on the similarity in style? Does the game have anything to do with Square Enix or a subsidiary?

katchum, how'd you come across the fact that Hamauzu composed this? The game doesn't have any credits, and I didn't see his name anywhere. Naoshi Mizuta did the tunes to another game Gotmail did a while back (I ripped it), so Hamauzu doing one as well doesn't surprise me, but I'm just curious where the info came from.

It's an escape-from-the-room Flash game, the usual kind of game Gotmail makes. This one was actually pretty easy compared to the stuff they usually make. Beat it in less than twenty minutes and there was only one step that made me go "wait what."

Anyway. The game's an advertisement game for Suntory oolong tea. For the main part of the game, you make a cup of tea. And I really mean make here: you start by harvesting the tea leaves and processing them before you actually get to brewing. There's some frame story with a board meeting, probably where someone is explaining the process of making tea and then you actually act out the steps.

Or maybe you harvest and brew the tea during the meeting in a sign of ultimate disrespect for the ineffective salaryman of a manager who is dragging your unit down with him :D

Thanks for the summary! Katchum, I'll definitely check the track out, all kidding aside.

Ahh, fascinating. Based on your info, Hamauzu's involvement seems much more plausible. I learnt about Naoshi Mizuta's involvement in The Shochu Bar a while ago but I didn't realize that it was ripped. Thanks for that. Is the Internet game Elebest, composed by Square Enix's Ai Yamashita and Masayoshi Soken, also related to this company (and if so, did you ever rip it)?

Got confirmation Hamauzu did the music: http://www.square-enix.co.jp/music/s...uzu/index.html. His most recent post mentions there mentions the game.

And with that:

> download Oolong Tea Story ~Searching for Delicious Tea~ (Game Rip) <

Just a straight extraction from the Flash file that I tagged with track names and stuff. I'd guess the archive katchum posted has the same tracks, but I couldn't download it ("temporarily unavailable"), so I just ripped the music myself. Nine tracks, none more than forty seconds long, 3.6 MB total. Good times.

Never heard of the game until now, but it looks like a different developer. I'll check it out and see if I can rip it. I'm always up for Flash games done by higher profile composers.

Well, I have something official to announce too. I love you, CHz. I really appreciate you and Katchum making this obscure work known.

Even if there wasn't any official confirmation of Hamauzu's involvement, the music has his voice stamped all over it.

And next up:

> download Elebest (Game Rip) <

Another really short rip: 10 tracks totaling 4:14 in length. I actually really like the style here and wish the tracks were longer.

This is the first Flash game rip I've made where the extracted audio files actually had names, so I just stuck with those for the track names. Also, two of the tracks were actually tagged! This is why tracks 2 and 10 can definitely be credited to Soken, whereas the other eight are up in the air. Yamashita might have done them all, but I have no way to be sure.

Awesome stuff CHz, I'll be sure to check these two out. ;) Nice (ear) skillz, too, katchum!

So, it is not until someone posts in Gamingforce it's announced. Okay. ;)

Wonderful! Thanks again.

Personally, I'm inclined to say tracks 1, 4, and 6 are Soken too -- they're very much like Mario Basket 3 on 3 in terms of style. Tracks 3, 5, 7, 8, and 9 are maybe Yamashita.

Where I got the info from?

I have my French Hamauzu fan base site: Noctaventures.com doing all the work for me. Just wanted to promote some Hamauzu music.

Which means the info comes from Squaremusic, which also means it comes from SEMO, so...

Anyway, the link CHz gave definitely confirms Hamauzu's involvement.

This Hamauzu fan is delighted, and wishes to thank you very much!!!

Great find...I can really use some peaceful tunage right now.

Well I'm an idiot. Turns out PQTN announced it at SEMO even before this thread was made but I somehow skipped an entire page of posts. :p

I checked out Hamauzu's blog via a scattershot translation a-la Babelfish. :p
Not only did he mention Oolong Tea Story, but also that the Sigma Harmonics page was up.

So I went there, and...

...Oh crap.
...Oh Crap!
...OH CRAP!!!
HAVE YOU HEARD THAT TUNE YET?!? :o

If not, I have it Freecordered for you RIGHT HERE:
Sigma Harmonics (website version)

...now maybe the thread title should be expanded... ;)

^

Now THAT'S more like it. I didn't even know he was working on another project besides FFXIII. Something more to look forward to...

And pretty soon, too. Sigma Harmonics should be released this summer in Japan!

Thanks for the rip, squaretex, although I'm surprised you only discovered the website today! :p In any case, I can feel a FFX vibe in this sample, which is indeed rejoicing.

I was away and busy this weekend. :)

And I can see what you mean by it sounding like FFX. It kinda makes me think of a sadder version of "Thunder Plains", flavored with a bit of the Dirge of Cerberus feel.

My Hamauzu fan-boy is going crazy right now! Thanks for all the music and keeping us up to date!

I knew about Sigma Harmonics a while ago. You guys should keep an eye on Nobuooo for game music news.

I never even knew that website existed!
Thanks, new bookmark! :)

I learnt from Kago at SEMO that Junya Nakano was also the composer of .JP ~ Bring Back the Internet by the same company. Would you consider ripping this too, CHz? It'd be interesting to see how Nakano treats this project.

I've heard things about Nobuooo deleting news links to high-profile sites that Jeriaska has bad associations with, so I wouldn't exactly call it a reliable or objective source of news links. Haven't used it to link to mine but I'd probably get the same treatment due to exposing my bad experiences with Jeriaska. Neat idea though.

Alright, I feel silly for asking this, but I just gotta know... :)

Mr. X, are you the same Chris over at SquareEnixMusic, formerly known as Darth Maul?

He is the one, so you can reasonably argue that he is in no position to make such comments.

Anyway, thanks for the .JP rip! It has some very nice electronic music. But... I would so like to hear more from Nakano, at least not from a Flash serious game.

That's me. Given I am anything but a Star Wars fan, I felt I needed a more mysterious name. Having had a year's experience with Jeriaska, I think I am in an adequate position to make such comments. Unlike others, I am not under the restriction of editors to censor what I say about the controversial situation, but editors at another site are literally ripping their hair out because of him. I just await to hear the nightmare stories of those currently working with Jeriaska. The bitter Zanasea is one such person -- you can reasonably argue that he is no position to pretend to be objective.

Thank you for the rip Taisai. There isn't much music despite all the tracks, but there were a few nice new age pieces. Interesting listen.

What a bizarre game. Plot seems to be that the Japan Registry Service (the JPRS seen throughout the game) building is sucked into a dimensional vortex for some reason or another, they forgot to pay the universe bill for the month or something. Since they handle the name registry and DNS for the .jp domain, this makes web sites pretty much inaccessible, so it falls on the main character to bring back the internet.

I love advertisement games.

I'm feeling lazy today, and since Taisai already did an extraction, I'll just provide some track names for the actual music tracks for those who are interested:

• jprs_j[1][35] - Ending
• jprs_j[1][36] - Intro
• jprs_j[1][37] - JPRS Building

I did notice that the title screen tune is in a different Flash file, so it's not in that archive. Here's a quick extraction and upload for the completionists: http://www.quiteajolt.com/gff/dot%20JP%20title.mp3

My my, drama just seems to follow you everywhere doesn't it, Chris?

Thanks! There is also another piece of music for Oolong Tea which is not in the game itself, I think. You can hear it here: ƒE[ƒƒ“’ƒ@ƒTƒ“ƒgƒŠ[

I'm not entirely sure if that's Hamauzu or not, but I'm recording it anyway.

*a few minutes later*

...and here you go:
RapidShare: 1-Click Webhosting

To me, this piece didn't sound as "pure" as those in the flash game...probably a lower sampling quality for faster loading...? So I did what I could with it.

And just because, I call it "A Song For Suntory". :)

p.s. Oh, and now's a good time to ask...

Just because I'm a sucker for looped music, I made extended versions of "Plantation", "Inside", "Brewing Tea", and "Ending". Anyone else want? :D

Thank you! That's too bad the quality is lower.

Be our guest! :p

Then here you go...four looped tea tunes! :)
RapidShare: 1-Click Webhosting

Thanks! It makes it a little more pleasant to listen to.

Kind of missed the .JP ~ Bring Back the Internet rip when Taisai put it up. Could I request for a reupload, perhaps via You Send It? The current Rapidshare link is a bit wonkers for me and Megaupload link almost never works as well. Thanks much in advance; I can't quite get enough of Nakano. :P

I find it really neat that established game composers are doing nifty little tunes for... flash/advert games. And the samples I've heard so far are mostly great. Elebest was particularly attention grabbing, for one. Very smooth.

Ok dumb question with the rapidshare site... How can you tell what character has a cat attached to it? I really would like to download the files, but I must be blind and stupid to determine the right characters.

I could never figure that out. Apparently, you are supposed to input letters/numbers attached to cats in a sitting position. Everytime I think I've keyed in the right characters, I get an error message. Sometimes I don't even get to input any characters because an error message pops up first. Sometimes you get a "happy hour" message and you don't have to input any characters in the corresponding field before commencing a download. I've had variable success with that.

EDIT: Sigh, after weeks of trying, the Rapidshare link finally works for .JP with a Happy Hour message. And I'm really glad it did; the three tunes Nakano did are pretty interesting. I've uploaded the tracks to YSI if anyone is interested:

YouSendIt - Send large files - transfer delivery - FTP Replacement