Home Data
| Home Data | |
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| Founded | 1985-05-29 |
| Headquarters | Home Data Building, 1-10 Umadome, Thatchiai-cho, Chuo-ku, Kobe 651, Japan |
Home Data (株式会社ホームデータ = Kabushikigaisha Hōmu Dēta) was a Japanese game developer and publisher. It was created in 1983 in Kobe, Japan and founded on May 29, 1985. While the company developed all sorts of video games, they mainly created video game adaptations of board games like Mahjong, Igo, and Shogi, with some of the games containing adult themes. Though their work rarely made it outside of Japan, they released a few games in North America. However, even in the west, they are known for their Japanese-exclusive games such as Cosmic Epsilon and Tetra Star: The Fighter for the Famicom, shooting games that took advantage of the Famicom's limited hardware.
It appears Home Data didn't usually put credits in games they did not publish. Sometimes, individual audio staff would be credited under various aliases. Some of the company's key staff included Takashi "Organ" Ogawa, Masahiro "Kaze no Ofu" Kobayashi, Toshiyuki "Alice Kagamino" Hirota, and Yoshihiro Jinnai. Another programmer who worked for the company was Satoru "Sakimi Ruto" Miki, though he is not to be confused with the Satoru Miki who worked at Opera House.
It appears the company had some connection with TOSE as well. The company originally developed "Hermetica", which would later end up as Yoshi's Cookie, which TOSE developed. In addition, Magical Company worked on some Super Famicom games with TOSE.
In 1993, ten years after the company's founding, they changed their name to Magical Company. This company has its own page on VGMPF as the audio staff is different. To this day, Magical Company still exists and creates games. Some employees would stay with the company after their rebranding, while others left for Biox and Gaps.
Contents
Games
Audio Development
Arcade
For Mahjong Lemon Angel, the composers used a SN76489A with a DAC. For Battlecry, the composers used the YM2203.
GEN
The developers used Sega's SMPS sound system. Shogi no Hoshi uses the Z80 version while Dragon's Eye Plus: Shanghai III uses the 68000 version. Both games had their music arrangements done by Junichi Ueda. According to composers at Sega, music was entered in a custom MML on a PC-9801 computer.
NES
Home Data used two different sound drivers; an earlier driver, and a newer driver.
According to the credits of Tetra Star, the newer driver was by Kazune Hiiragi, which was later revealed to be an alias for Toshiyuki Hirota, a programmer for Home Data. Looking at the sound code of the games that use this driver, music was entered in Music Macro Language, most likely in standard notation.
PC-9801/X68000
Most of their games use a sound driver by Yoshihiko Kurata of Bandit Inc. Some of these games had their driver modified by Ariko Kagamino.
The X68000 version of Marble Madness has the following text, and other games have similar text:
X68k MUDRV music driver version 2.00
Copyright (C) 1990,1991 Yoshihiko Kurata / BANDIT Inc.
Last modify 1991.3.11 Alice kagamino / HOME DATA Corp.
SNES
Most of the company's games used a variant of Nintendo's Kankichi-kun sound driver and software. It was either created by Home Data themselves or by Sting.
For JB The Super Bass and Koushien 4, the games used TOSE's second variant of Kankichi-kun.
Miscellaneous
To create her music at Home Data, Novko Hasebe wrote her music using her Kawai Q-80. She sent over her compositions over to the company via sheet music, and their sound team Eurythm converted her music into code into the various sound engines. These arrangers included Hiroshi Endo, Kenichi Fujii, Junichi Ueda, and Takashi Nakajima.
Audio Personnel
- Aki (Aki Hata?) (Composer for Reikai Doushi (ARC).)
- Eurhythm (In-house sound team.)
- Hiroshi Endo (Audio Director; 1989-1991.)
- Junichi Ueda (Composer and arranger; 1991.)
- Kenichi Fujii (Composer anr arranger; 1990-1995.)
- Takashi Nakajima (Composer/Arranger.)
- Yoshihiko Atarashi (Composer for Dragon's Eye Plus: Shanghai III (SMD).)
- Novko Hasebe (Composer for company's board game titles; 1990-1992.)
- Murata (Koji Murata?) (Credited for "Delta Driver" (DPCM) in Tetra Star: The Fighter (FC).)
- Papiyo (Composer for Reikai Doushi (ARC).)
- Tappi (Tappi Iwase?) (Composer for BattleCry (ARC).)
- Toshiyuki Hirota (Sound programmer.)
- Yoshihiko Kurata (Contractor from Bandit Inc.; Provided PC-9801 and X68000 sound drivers.)
Image Gallery
Main logo with text and emblem.
Home Data's office; from the manual of Marble Madness (PC98/X68).
