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The Great Giana Sisters (C64, 1987/88)

entity song C64 / SID #song #game #c64 #sid #huelsbeck #rainbow-arts #1988 #samples
aliases Giana Sisters, The Great Giana Sisters
sources VGMPF wiki: Soundmonitor, TFMX Editor (C64) and The Great Giana Sisters (C64) · Retrogaming Planet / EmuWiki — Interview with Chris Huelsbeck (2011) · Remix64 — An Interview with Chris Huelsbeck (2001) · VGMPF wiki: Chris Hülsbeck · 64'er 2/88 — Von der Spielidee ins Regal (Rainbow Arts, with Hülsbeck)
created 2026-08-30 · updated 2026-08-31

rainbow-arts' platform game (label Time Warp, released 1988-01) whose soundtrack made chris-huelsbeck's name: seven songs and fifteen sound effects composed in soundmonitor and converted to his private The Final Musicplayer driver, "which takes over 4 KB less and, for the first time, can play a sound effect over 3 channels of music" (source: s-vgmpf-soundmonitor-tfmx).

Facts#

  • Songs (VGMPF): Title, Main Menu (2:26), Get Ready (0:05), In-Game (1:48), Castle (2:11), End of Round (0:13), Greatest (1:33), Unused (0:47); voted 25th favourite SID by the HVSC crew and fans (source: s-vgmpf-soundmonitor-tfmx).
  • Inspirations: the in-game tune "was supposed to sound a little like Reggae, because the Rainbow Arts Boss was a fan of Bob Marley", the title music (not the menu music, often mistaken for it) "a homage to True Blue from Madonna" — "the only part of the game that wasn't heavily borrowed from Super Mario Brothers" (source: s-emuwiki-huelsbeck-interview).
  • Its digitised drums came from the hardware sampler Hülsbeck built with a friend, also used on Jinks, Bad Cat, Antics and To Be On Top (chip-samples; sources: s-emuwiki-huelsbeck-interview, s-vgmpf-chris-huelsbeck).
  • Chip dependence: "The bass of all songs and the melody of Castle sound different on every 6581 because it uses SID's infamous filter. On the 8580 revision, the percussion of Title is quiet" (sid; source: s-vgmpf-soundmonitor-tfmx).
  • With To be on Top it "did become very succesful titles for the company and all that helped to spread the word" (source: s-remix64-huelsbeck-interview). The game was withdrawn under pressure from Nintendo (no lawsuit, per VGMPF) and became a collector's item (source: s-vgmpf-soundmonitor-tfmx).
  • 64'er's February 1988 visit to rainbow-arts lists it among the games of the moment next to Down at the Trolls and To Be On Top, and describes the house pipeline in which the sound designer came last, after concept, graphics and code — the context this soundtrack was made in, set out on rainbow-arts (source: s-64er-rainbow-arts-feature).

chris-huelsbeck · soundmonitor · rainbow-arts · chip-samples · sid · sid-player-routine

Sources#

s-vgmpf-soundmonitor-tfmx · s-emuwiki-huelsbeck-interview · s-remix64-huelsbeck-interview · s-vgmpf-chris-huelsbeck · s-64er-rainbow-arts-feature

source file wiki/entities/great-giana-sisters.md · graph