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Title card source (http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/88902520/misc/titlecards/hardwood_games_titlecard.psd.rar)

Hardwood Games is a series of classic card and board games for personal computers produced by Silver Creek Entertainment in the U.S. The games have been presented in rich color and visual effects since the first versions, which have been steadily improved in later titles as computer hardware advanced. The graphics and music follow a medieval, fantasy theme.

The series began with Hardwood Solitaire, released in 1995 for Windows 95. As far as I am aware, the first game to include music was Hardwood Solitaire II from 1996, which came with one music track titled only "3daysx" and later known as "Royal Ballet". Clint Cole was credited as the composer in game documentation. Around 2000 an updated version of Solitaire was released with three new tracks by Curtis S.D. Macdonald and Clint Cole, and a crudely expanded arrangement of the "Royal Ballet" theme.

More card games were later added to the collection: Spades, Hearts, and Euchre, all under the Hardwood brand. These games included more dynamic music written by Aaron Walz and Jamie Allyn Pohl. Spades featured one unique composition. Solitaire III added more music by Saul Bottcher. Solitaire did not include the more upbeat versions, shared among the previous titles.

Since around 2004 these games started shipping with music rendered to digital audio instead of MIDI. At first MIDI was still an option, but then the dialog to select a playback device was removed, and later support for playing back MIDI as well as compatibility with older OS was gone. The digital audio music, while remarkably well arranged, was encoded in Vorbis format at an extremely low bitrate.

Besides these classic games, the series later brought Ruckus Buck's Dangerous Mines, an implementation of Minesweeper, Hardwood Backgammon and Video Poker Duel. To my knowledge, these games did not include music.

These versions have been rendered using the YAMAHA S-YXG50 VST with some samples taken from the 2006LE. It is mostly a straight playback and sounds similar to YAMAHA XG soundcards of the late 1990s, except overall brighter. Regular soft-synths can't cope with this dynamic and tonal music without adding noise. Care has been taken to avoid clipping or cutting any notes. The MIDI sequences were also modified accordingly. The MIDI or Ogg Vorbis files may be imported and played in most games.

Please contact me with corrections to the release years and composition credits. The originally released versions are available from few or no sources, as most distributors and the official site have silently updated, and I am uncertain on which year these games and music within them were first released. Recent versions also lack features like network play, or compatibility with existing computer systems.

1. Clint Cole - "Royal Ballet (Simple Version)" (2:41)
2. Curtis S.D. Macdonald - "Elven Summer" (2:05)
3. Curtis S.D. Macdonald - "Fairy Rings" (3:11)
4. Curtis S.D. Macdonald - "The Unknown" (3:16)
5. Saul Bottcher - "Meditation Chamber" (3:32)
6. Saul Bottcher - "Moonlit Journey" (3:30)
7. Saul Bottcher - "The Darkened Road" (3:09)
8. Clint Cole - "Royal Ballet (Expanded Version)" (2:40)
9. Aaron Walz - "Spades" (5:15)
10. Aaron Walz - "Defeat" (1:06)
11. Jamie Allyn Pohl - "Breaking Hearts" (7:24)
12. Aaron Walz - "Forest Walk (From Another Shore)" (3:37)
13. Aaron Walz - "Glenda's Theme" (2:56)
14. Aaron Walz - "Tavern Tales" (4:14)
15. "The Road to Lisdoonvarna" (2:28)
16. Aaron Walz - "Triumph" (0:47)

Playlist of streamable Vorbis audio files:
http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/61700377/gamemus/Hardwood_Games_(XG_Vorbis)/00_playlist.m3u

Standard MIDI files, original and modified:
http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/61700377/gamemus/Hardwood_Games_(unmodified_MIDI).zip
http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/61700377/gamemus/Hardwood_Games_(MIDI).zip

Download in FLAC (381 MB, 48,000 Hz, 20-bit, stereo):
http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/61700377/gamemus/Hardwood_Games_(XG_FLAC).zip

Download in Ogg Vorbis (95 MB, 256 kBit/s, 48,000 Hz, stereo):
http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/61744023/gamemus/Hardwood_Games_(XG_Vorbis).zip

External links:
Silver Creek Entertainment (http://www.silvercrk.com/)
Curtis S.D. Macdonald (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtis_Macdonald)
Aaron Walz: Walz Music (http://www.walzmusic.com/)
Aaron Walz: Walz's MIDI Home (http://www.midishack.net/)
Aaron Walz on Last FM (http://www.last.fm/music/Aaron+Walz)

MIDI files can be played through synth in almost any platform, but just like with emulation, it's always better to use real hardware. Thanks for the upload.
I knew these games from their XBLA versions but didn't know they had that much history.

Did you Remove This Midis??

DropBox has gone through two transitions since and has removed the files. Cloud hostings are clearly not built to last.

It was a mistake for me to post here, because the music is neither official, nor professional quality. Moderators, please remove the thread.

Esteban, you can either extract the files with a hex editor and play with an application of your choice, or download here (http://j7n.sytes.net/malbums/Hardwood%20Games%20(XG%20-%20FLAC).zip). I have heard an opinion from people that the music sounds wrong, because they remember hearing it on another sound module.