Génération Delphine
Discover the huge Synthwave tribute dedicated to Delphine Software!

By Frédéric Gechter
June 22, 2021
Original article in french : www.rom-game.fr

Génération Delphine - A Synthwave Tribute to Delphine Software will be a huge and new exclusive collection of concept albums. Its goal is twofold: to safeguard cultural heritage and pay tribute to the gaming universe of the famous French publisher of the 90s, Delphine Software, and in particular to its adventure games and its mythical composer, Jean Baudlot. Discover all the details of this ambitious project which would like to snowball and generate an enthusiasm for reviving the idea of a sequel to Future Wars - Time Travellers/Adventures in Time...

A long-standing project...

In October 2020, Fred Ayato modestly presented the project entitled Génération Delphine - A Synthwave Tribute to Delphine Software to us. If you are a fan of the Delphine Software studio and an enlightened synthwave fan too, this collection may cause you unbounded joy with so much content: revisited soundtracks, new music inspired by the different old-school musical versions... and, as a bonus, the original soundtracks of the old-school games in remastered versions.

A first volume devoted to Jean Baudlot and Future Wars – Time Travellers/Adventures in Time (Les Voyageurs du Temps).

The 1st part of this collection will be available in November 2021 [EDIT: Postponed to 2022]. It will be devoted to the game Future Wars, a project obviously related to the memory of the composer Jean Baudlot who recently passed away: "we want to offer the most beautiful tribute ever made to the Delphine years, and especially to the compositions of Jean that have always been close to our hearts."

Preserving the heritage

The remastered old-school original soundtracks will be available for free. This is the preservation part of the project. It's during this process that copies of each volume of this collection will be donated to the BnF (the national Library of France) and the MO5.COM association.

These old-school original soundtracks will be made up of two parts:

The first part will contain audio remasters of the Amiga versions (all tracks of each theme will be completely restored by a sound engineer, then will benefit from a mix specially adapted for optimal listening comfort on CD).

Atari fans will not be forgotten in this project since the remasters of Atari ST versions will be available in each volume of the collection as an added bonus.

The second part, will offer new re-recorded and completely rearranged versions from the old-school tracks - while remaining extremely respectful to the original themes. Here, the team will have a “refurbishing” approach in order to bring the tracks a more “symphonic” dimension closer to the spirit of a movie soundtrack.

A project upset by tragic events.

Since its genesis, more than two years ago, the team has always wanted to offer much more than albums of revisited soundtracks. But after a first delay following the announcement of the launch of the first album (mostly due to the pandemic), the plans were disrupted in the wake of the recent passing of Jean Baudlot.

A much-needed tribute to Jean Baudlot.

Of course, posthumous tribute was not intended. And even if Jean Baudlot's music was planned to be at the center of the project, many other additional contents were also planned to be dedicated to the other artists of the golden age of Delphine Software.

Paul Cuisset, Eric Chahi will have to wait a little bit...

It was also a matter of paying tribute to Paul Cuisset, of course, as well as to Eric Chahi (especially for his graphics in “Future Wars”), and they also wanted to pay their respect to other extremely talented people, who are unfortunately less famous to the gamers, such as Denis Mercier and Thierry Perreau (graphic designers on “Cruise for a Corpse” and “Flashback - The Quest for Identity”), Christian Robert (who tragically passed away in 2010, and was also one of the graphic designers on “Cruise for a Corpse” and “Flashback - The Quest for Identity”), or Michèle Bacqué (graphic designer on “Operation Stealth” aka “James Bond 007 : The Stealth Affair”), and many others...

Don't worry, the additional content dedicated to the various other artists of the golden age of Delphine Software are not cancelled but just postponed in order to be brought together in what will be the last part of this collection, in a way, the purpose of the project.

From 2022 to 2024: 5 volumes for an essential collection

At the moment, 4 volumes will be released one after the other, with a release schedule going up to 2023 (let’s add to this a big surprise for the end, which we will detail below).

The biggest fans of Jean Baudlot who dream of a whole VGM set (including everything he had composed for the video games, like his soundtracks at Ocean France, with Ocean Beach Volley, etc.), can be reassured: it's already on the way. The release date will however be unveiled later...

A Tribute to Another World - the icing on the cake

Kept secret for quite some time, A Tribute to Another World, is now confirmed, which should correspond to Vol.5 of the Génération Delphine collection. This concept album is a tribute to “Another World” (and thus to Eric Chahi) and its composer Jean-François Freitas. From an artistic point of view, it seemed more appropriate to dedicate a project solely to this famous title and its unique universe.

Towards a sequel for Future Wars?

This generous, exciting and serious project will keep us on our toes for a long time. Things will now go pretty fast and at a regular pace: the remasters already exist, ready to be pressed on CD, and the 1st synthwave concept album for “Future Wars” was fully completed last September.

As for the different types of packaging: there are currently three of them planned by volumes in total (you will understand why when the time comes).

Finally, know that this beautiful project cultivates the secret desire to generate an enthusiasm for a sequel of Future Wars. Moreover, despite the recent announcement of Flashback 2, the team behind Génération Delphine wanted to reassure us: nothing has been called into question, and they still want to undertake something at the end of this collection... to be continued!