A Prehistoric Tale: Amiga Soundtrack Battle

In 1990, a group of highly talented Atari ST programmers and artists known as The Lost Boys released the game A Prehistoric Tale on both the Atari ST and Commodore Amiga via publisher Thalion. The game was "heavily inspired" (ie. a blatant ripoff!) of the Commodore 64 game Dino Eggs, released way back in 1983.

Legendary Atari ST musician Jochen Hippel (Mad Max) ported the game from the Atari ST to the Amiga, and beefed up the soundtrack using the power of the Amiga's Paula soundchip. The title music is rated by many as one of the Amiga's finest compositions.

In 1993, Virtual Dreams and Fairlight released the Amiga demo Full Moon containing a Protracker module called "Nearly There" by Jogeir Liljedahl. The tune is an almost exact copy of Jochen Hippel's tune, and if you play the 2 tunes one after the other, you'd find it pretty difficult to notice any differences.

The main controversy surrounding this tune is the fact that Jochen Hippel was never credited by Jogeir in the module, or as part of the demo credits by Virtual Dreams and Fairlight. Back in 2000, Jochen was completely unaware of Jogeir's version, and it turns out that Jogeir has a bit of a reputation in the scene for "borrowing" music from others without crediting them.

Here's some technical specifications of the 2 tunes:

In an effort to hear the differences between the two tunes, I've mixed them together, with a switch every 4 bars or so. In certain places, one tune had a significantly different sound, so I kept that section a little longer.

The Jogeir remixed version has a slightly faster tempo than Jochen's original tune, and I've kept the original speeds intact. The Jogeir remixed version has a noticeable end part, where the tune changes quite significantly from the original tune.