If you spend enough time on certain corners of YouTube there’s a good chance you’ve run into “they didn’t have to go this hard” videos where people highlight the kinds of songs they’ve found in obscure places they allege had no reason to be as good as they are. And, should you land on the video game sub-niche of this particular niche, there’s a very good chance the title theme to Donk! The Samurai Duck for Amiga CD32 will eventually show up:

I think a lot of these “they didn’t have to go this hard” posts are overblown, but in this case they have a point. They quite genuinely did not need to go this hard!

Listening to it, I found myself with questions. What exactly did this have to do with a samurai duck? (Nothing.) How did this make it into the game? And who is the eurodance song by?

A quick search online told me I’m not the only person wondering that. I’ve seen quite a few posts by people asking who did that song, but no one seemed to have any answers. Which made me wonder, could I track it down myself?

The game does have credits, which is normally where I’d look to answer this kind of question. Given that it’s still a mystery, you can imagine that it wasn’t too much of a help this time. The game does have a credited composer, Tim Ericson, but the title theme is instead credited just to “Fate!” From context, it’s not clear who Fate! is. Is that a band? A person? The abstract concept?

This Tim Ericson has no other game credits at all, which isn’t rare per se but it’s definitely uncommon. That said, in the early CD game era a number of companies ended up pulling in people with experience in the pop or electronic music world since they were familiar with CD music production. Guessing that might be what was happening here, I went to Discogs where I found a plausible looking Tim Ericson. This one started out doing house/pop music production in the mid-90s before moving onto techno, and, well. Just have a listen to this song from two years after Donk:

I’d say that’s a good match for the duck song, wouldn’t you?

So, at this point, I’m pretty sure I know who Tim Ericson is, but who’s Fate!? I have no definitive answers, but I’ve got a reasonable guess. It’s not unheard of for a production like this to put together a little virtual band; grab a few musicians and a singer you know, or even a group you’ve been trying to launch professionally, and record a song with them. There’s a good chance the name was coined one-off for the game with was no intention of ever using the name a second time. It’s certainly a good way to imply they were using a licensed track from a band that you’re meant to recognize.

Wherever that “Fate!” name comes from, it’s almost certainly the same Tim Ericson composing and producing this track just like with the rest of the game. Is it a bit of an anticlimax to say “the credited composer of the game is the person who made the song people are wondering about”? Maybe, but it seems many people asking this question haven’t connected these particular dots. I’d sure love all the details someday though!