Software Creations

Software Creations, Ltd.

Founded	1986-0?-??
Headquarters	Manchester, Greater Manchester, England
Other Names	Acclaim Studios Manchester

Not to be confused with Software Creations (USA).

Software Creations, Ltd. (nicknamed Creations by employees) was a British game developer founded by former Ocean Software programmers Mike Webb and Richard Kay. The company was known for developing arcade, movie, TV and comic tie-ins and for producing some of their own titles such as Solstice. They also employed Tim and Geoff Follin.

The company was first seen looking for programmers in mid-September 1986. Following 2001-09-11, their clients (all American) became reluctant to fly, causing Creations to file for insolvency on 2002-04-24. In the morning of 2002-05-01, Acclaim founded Acclaim Studios Manchester with Creations' 70 employees.

Games

Games developed by Software Creations.

Music Development

Commodore 64

Every arranger had his own choice, but Tim Follin designed a sound driver, Stephen Ruddy programmed it, and both Follins arranged in it, all by typing into Mikes Assembler on Einstein computers.

Game Boy

The composers (mostly the Follin brothers) originally used a driver by Stephen Ruddy. Later on, during their Game Boy Color development, the composers used a new sound driver by Paul Tonge. Tonge's sound driver was used by Warthog and Zed Two, both of which had ex-Creations staff.

Nintendo 64

Sound Images' Tony Williams and Paul Tonge programmed a piece of software. Music was input through a piano roll editor on an N64 cartridge. The program also had the ability to import MIDI files.

These sound tools was licensed to various western developers.

NES

Stephen Ruddy programmed Software Creations' music drivers for the NES. All of the company's games were either written by Tim Follin or Geoff Follin, and sometimes both. The Follins wrote in assembly. The best known soundtrack to use this driver was likely Solstice.

SNES

The SNES sound driver was programmed by Ruddy and Software Creations co-founder Mike Webb. Unlike most other SNES composers who used MIDI interfaces for their SNES music, similar to their NES driver, Software Creations' SNES sound driver required composers to write their music in SPC700 assembly language machine code macros. According to Tim, the instrument samples came from several sources, including an Ensoniq ASR-10 and real guitars and bass guitars. Since the music used hexadecimal numbers for notation, a pair of numbers would be typed in; one for the note pitch, and another for the amount of frames. The composers had to make sure all channels had the exact same frame count for proper looping.

The instrument quality in Plok (SNES) is highly regarded, so much so that Shigeru Miyamoto had his team check the code to verify it was really coming from the SNES.

In 1994, the company developed a music editor and sequencer for the SNES called Dream. [1]

It appears the company outsourced their sound engine to other companies; Jeroen Tel used the driver for Winter Gold (SNES) and unreleased port of Pocahontas, and Colin Anderson used the driver for Uniracers (SNES).

Genesis/Mega Drive

Most of Software Creations' Genesis games' sound was done by Sound Images, mostly by Tony Williams. He would run MIDI files through a program that converted them to his sound driver.

Game Gear

The only game Software Creations developed for the Game Gear was Spider-Man and X-Men in Arcade's Revenge. This game uses Jeroen Tel's sound driver, which keeped by Allister Brimble.

Game Boy Advance

Their early games uses MusyX, a sound tool by Factor 5.

Software Creations utilized a custom driver by Neil Millstone for their GBA games. According to the data of The Ripping Friends, composers would write their music in MIDI and it would be converted to NSQ files, while sound effects were stored in the .RAW format.

Super Monkey Ball Jr., developed by Realism, uses the driver, as Millstone was one of the credited programmers.

Audio Personnel

These composers worked for Software Creations:

Allister Brimble - Composer.
Chris Jojo - Composer.
David Whittaker - Composer.
David Wise - Composer for World Games (NES).
Geoff Follin - Lead composer.
James Hannigan - Composer for Cutthroat Island.
Martin Goodall - Composer.
Martin Walker - Composer and sound driver programmer (freelance).
Matthew Cannon - Composer.
Mike Webb - SNES sound driver programmer.
Neil Millstone - GBA sound driver programmer.
Peter Clarke - Commodore 64 composer (freelance 1987).
Sound Images - Composition and arrangement.
- Paul Tonge - Later worked for Software Creations.
- Tony Williams
Stephen Ruddy - Sound driver programmer for various consoles.
Suddi Raval - Composer.
Tim Follin - Lead composer.

As Acclaim Studios Manchester:

Jonathan Dunn - composer of Semi-Precious Studios; composed All-Star Baseball 2004.
Mike Pummell - Sound designer.
Nelson Everhart - Composer of Gladiator: Sword of Vengeance.
Rob Sawyer - Composer of Interview with the Made Man.
Ron Fish - Composer of Gladiator: Sword of Vengeance.