About System Lincs

Welcome to this here interactive booklet for this album I've gone and done; System Lincs!

This has been a long time coming, with the majority of the work being done during that thing that happened in 2020/21. I originally fancied writing games for the NES, assembly looked like a good challenge to get stuck in with while nothing else was happening. Then I found the 2a03 chip, and well, the games never happened. Instead, I got massively into writing music for this limited little chip. Well, not writing so much as transposing, but there'll be more of that to come.

Since I started this I've changed careers, gotten married, had a kid, started a record label, formed bands, joined bands, left bands; a lot, basically. This has been my little go to when I just wanted to do a bit of fun music. There's no particular rhyme or reason to what songs I decided to transpose, just that I was getting better at it each time and having fun.

Now in 2023, after a lot of tests with exporting wavs, NSFs, compiling ROMs and lots of other methods, this is how I've decided to release the album; if I didn't do it this way, chances are it'd be sat on my hard drive unreleased for another few months. (Edit in 2024; it happend again!) I originally wanted to compile a ROM that brought up text track-by-track in an emulator or, with great hope, on a cartridge. But if I continued down that route, this album would be delayed, I would have even less money, and I have so much more to be cracking on with. So, that aformentioned text will now be given to you like this instead!

I understand this album, this text, and a lot of other things about this release are EXTREMELY niche, so if you're my kind of nerd that cares about this kind of thing, you're gonna have a fun time! If not, some of the commentary may be a bit technical, but I hope you enjoy the music anyway!

Chiptune may not be the easiest thing to relax and listen to (though I think it is!), but that's not what this is about. I would implore you to have a listen to these tracks while reading along to this commentary, then go and listen to the original tracks; those guys are the true talent here! I just crunched them down to 8-bit and made them sound cool for my own, and hopefully your own, personal amusement.

'Cause we all need a bit of amusement now and then.

How To Play

This program is provided in two forms; NES ROM and NSFe. Both are similarly easy to get running, you'll just need one of two programs to run them:

For NES ROM: Mesen Emulator

For NSFe: NSFePlay

To play the album, simply download one of those players and open the respective file in that player. I'd recommend the NES ROM, as it comes with graphics!

If you'd prefer another emulator, give it a go, though I've only had chance to test it on Mesen. The ROM uses mapper 31, so your emulator of choice needs to support it. Heck, if you get it on a flash cart, please send us a video; I have no idea if it’ll work on hardware, but I’ll be thrilled if it does!

About The Interactive Booklet

Below you’ll find the commentary written around these songs. It is recommended you read along with the chiptune album, but can also be enjoyed individually. At the bottom of each section is a link to the respective ‘real’ version of the songs, ranging from studio recordings to naff phone recordings, depending on what is currently available. These will be updated to the best sources if they become available.

Beneath the song commentary are YouTube videos of the songs that are available on that platform, for your convenience.