Whacked! - Previously unreleased uncompressed OST

[Jill]

Whacked! was an XBOX exclusive game developed by Presto Studios (creators of The Journeyman Project and Myst III). The game was relatively obscure and received average to mixed reviews.

 

Most of the people who did play and still remember the game tend to have quite fond memories of it though and for good reason. It was pretty fun!

 

One of the most memorable elements of the game however was the soundtrack, composed by Jamey Scott, who now works in sound design for movies and TV. Unfortunately, because Presto ceased production of all new titles and closed its doors after Whacked!, the OST never saw a proper release and if you want to listen to it today you'll have to either boot up the game or listen to a recording of the music on YouTube. While these may be acceptable quality for most people's listening purposes, they're not great.

 

A pretty sad story, right? Well, it has a happy ending!

 

I recently contacted Jamey myself (apparently, I'm the first person to ever email him about Whacked!). I only really wanted to ask a few questions about the music and the game's production. I did sneak in a question asking if he still had the original files available however.

 

I got far more than I expected. Jamey responded to all of my questions in great detail in an extremely wonderful and touching response. On top of that, he also included a folder featuring all of the original, uncompressed files for the game's soundtrack. I was goddamn ecstatic.

 

There's still more though as Jamey talked all about how Whacked! came to be and what it was before it was the game that got released.

 

Before "Whacked!" there was "Boing", a single room mash-fest testing out Presto's new game engine (they had previously only worked on pre-rendered adventure games and were now making the leap to real-time technology). This demo featured playable food (still unlockable in the final game through a cheat) fighting each other in a very Animaniacs-esque style.

 

This demo needed music of course and Jamey came up with 6 compositions, created with sampled orchestral instruments. The music was selected at random when playing the demo's 3 working levels and everyone on the team loved the tracks so they stuck around for quite a while.

 

When the style of the game changed to be edgier with more attitude, however, the music needed to as well. So Jamey, not being one to waste the original tracks, rewrote them in the new style and then redid them completely (he also made some new tracks as the final game has more levels, which use specific music tracks). Unlike the music of "Boing", all the music of the final game was done with live instrumentation recorded out of Jamey's garage. He was even able to hire some horn section buddies from a ska band he was in to play and wrote brass into every track because he loved writing it.

 

Jamey was kind enough to send me a track from the prototype in his response and this got me even more excited. I'm a completionist, so after thanking him gratuitously I asked if he had any more of the tracks from the original music lying around and lo and behold he found all 6 tracks after some digging. These tracks have probably not been heard by almost anyone outside of Presto and Microsoft for around 16 years

 

I've received permission from Jamey to share all of this information and so after all that backstory it's time to get to the point: I'm finally releasing the uncompressed OST and the Boing demo tracks. This music has been locked away for almost 16 years now and it's high-time it saw the light of day. If it isn't shared now it may be lost forever.

 

Below are MEGA links to both the uncompressed OST and the Boing demo tracks. It's worth noting that every single file in here is exactly as it was sent to me by Jamey. I've not touched them in any way. All files barring 4 of the 6 prototype tracks even still have the original "last modified" dates on them. (I assume the lack of preservation on those 4 tracks is a result of him needing to dig them out from wherever they'd ended up). Also worth noting is that almost all of this music was specifically composed to loop so the tracks may seem to end abruptly.

https://mega.nz/#!v1FnRSLJ!ltiFjU0nMANBpsoaOVz8aC2nDE-2AL61s9IUELqCCSQ - Final OST

https://mega.nz/#!elNGASgR!Ch5HlwY3hyr0m6fiZNzuAMckAJXB4ST-uhnWmwG-tT0 - Original "Boing" demo tracks