Peter Clarke

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Peter Clarke
Peter Clarke - 04.jpg
Born 1958
Birth Place
Nationality British   UK.svg

Peter Clarke scored Commodore 64 games at Ocean Software and freelance for Software Creations and other companies in 1986 and 1987.

Peter owned a Commodore 64 and was trying to figure out how to get all of the sounds out of it. One day, around 1983-1984, he was visiting his favorite game store, Bluechip Computers. He met a customer of the store who said he wanted to make video games, and Peter said he wanted to write music for games. The customer recommended Electrosound to Peter, which he bought and didn't regret. The customer he talked to turned out to be Paul Hughes. When Paul was developing Repton 3 for Superior Software, he asked Peter to write the music, even though he wouldn't get paid for it. Peter agreed, as he wanted to get his name out. Paul and Peter then worked on Scooby Doo, and Paul ended up getting hired by Ocean Software. In mid-1985, Peter wrote a tune for the Commodore 64 which he gave to Paul, which he gave to Ocean. The song ended up becoming the theme for the game Double Take. Peter also offered the same song to Software Creations game Mission of Mercy, which never got released. One day, Peter saw a monitor in the window of a shop with the title screen of Double Take. The staff roll gave credit to Paul Hughes for the music. Clarke was unhappy, and contacted Ocean, and they hired him so they could use his song. When Peter worked at Ocean, he had to use the Ocean Development System to create music. He left Ocean after 18 months.

Since 1978, Clarke plays guitar and keyboards in musical and comedy acts. He used to play with analog synthesizers and Roland TR drum machines. In 1986, he met aspiring game programmer Paul Hughes at the Blue Chip Computers store in Wigan, Lancashire. Hughes recommended him Electrosound 64 and Clarke found himself finally able to write proper C64 music.

Hughes suggested they work at providing music for developers, and Clarke scored Repton 3 (C64) for Superior Software and Scooby Doo: Elite (C64) for Elite Systems. Next, Hughes introduced Clarke to Software Creations and joined Ocean Software, both in Manchester. He wanted Clarke to join Ocean, too, though this was ultimately triggered by a misunderstanding around Double Take Theme.

At Ocean, Clarke worked in one room with Martin Galway. Clarke later left and was freelance again after 10 or 11 months.

Since July 2011, he remixes C64 music. He resides in Blackburn, Lancashire.

Audio Development

Commodore 64

Clarke used Electrosound 64, Soundmonitor and Martin Galway's driver (also for Software Creations). Hughes converted Repton 3 (C64) and Double Take (C64) to his own, faster driver.

Clarke explains:

For the very early tunes, (before I worked at Ocean) I used Electrosound to compose.. Paul Hughes used to tweak the 'save file'

Once I was at Ocean, I used Martin Galway's music driver.. It was written in 6502 assembly language. I gradually tweaked and rewrote MG's driver as I became more knowledgeable about assembly language.. After Ocean, when I worked 'freelance' I used a re-written version of the MG driver for games like 'Bubble Bobble' etc...

Gameography

Released Title Sample Notes
1986-11-?? Scooby Doo: Elite (C64)
Unreleased Mission of Mercy (C64)
1987-0?-?? Repton 3 (C64)
1987-01-?? Double Take (C64)
With Ocean Loader 2 by Martin Galway
1987-04-?? Gunstar (C64)
1987-05-?? Head Over Heels (C64)
1987-05-?? Kinetik (C64)
1987-0?-?? The Big K.O. (C64)
1987-06-?? Denarius (C64)
1987-06-?? Ocean Loaders (C64)
Ocean Loader 3.
1987-08-?? The Mystery of the Nile (C64)
1987-09-?? Tai-Pan (C64)
1987-09-2? Bubble Bobble (C64)
1987-0?-?? Wizball (ZXS)
1987-10-?? Top Duck (C64)
1987-??-?? Tai-Pan (AST)
198?-??-?? Iron Hand (C64)

Picture Gallery

Links