Antony Crowther | |
---|---|
Born | Sheffield, United Kingdom | 10 May 1965
Occupation | Software developer |
Known for | Commodore 64 games |
Antony Crowther is a former designer, programmer, and musician of Commodore 64 games. During the 1980s he worked for Alligata, Gremlin Graphics and later his own company, Wizard Development. [1]
The first computer game he created was a version of the board game Mastermind, which was written for the PET 4032. [2] Following the acquisition of a VIC-20 Crowther began to learn machine code and wrote several games which he showed to software house Superior Systems. [2] The company gave him a Commodore 64 on loan which he utilised to produce his first commercial title, Lunar Lander. He gained high status among C64 users in the mid 1980s with his highly prolific output, developing complete professional games in only two weeks. [3] Crowther teamed up with fellow C64 musician, Ben Daglish, forming W.E.M.U.S.I.C., which stood for "We Make Use of Sound In Computers". [4]
More recently, Crowther has worked on games for consoles such as the PlayStation and Xbox ranges.
Year | Name | Platform | Publisher |
---|---|---|---|
1983 | Aztec Tomb | C64 | Alligata |
Bat Attack | |||
Bug Blaster | |||
Blagger | |||
Damsel in Distress | |||
1984 | Gryphon | C64 | Quicksilva |
Killerwatt | Alligata | ||
Loco | |||
Potty Pigeon | Gremlin | ||
Wanted: Monty Mole | |||
Son of Blagger | Alligata | ||
1985 | Kettle | C64 | |
Suicide Express | Gremlin | ||
Trap | Alligata | ||
1986 | Black Thunder | C64 | Quicksilva |
Killer Ring | Ariolasoft | ||
William Wobbler | Wizard Development | ||
1987 | Challenge of the Gobots | C64 | Ariolasoft |
Centurions | |||
Zig Zag | Mirrorsoft | ||
1988 | Bombuzal | C64; Amiga; Atari ST; PC; Super Famicom/SNES | |
Fernandez Must Die | C64; Amiga; Atari ST | ||
1989 | Phobia | C64; Amiga; Atari ST | Image Works |
1990 | Captive | Amiga; Atari ST; PC | Mindscape |
1991 | Captain Planet and the Planeteers | Amiga; Atari ST | |
1992 | Knightmare | ||
1994 | Liberation: Captive 2 | Amiga; CD32 | |
1996 | Normality | PC | Gremlin |
1997 | Realms of the Haunting | PC | Gremlin |
1999 | N2O: Nitrous Oxide | PS | |
2000 | Wacky Races | Dreamcast; PS2 | Infogrames |
2004 | Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban | PC; PS2; Xbox; GameCube; GBA | Electronic Arts |
2005 | Battlefield 2: Modern Combat | PS2; Xbox; Xbox 360; PSP | |
2008 | Burnout Paradise | PS3; Xbox 360; PC | |
2008 | Zubo | DS | |
2009 | Trivial Pursuit | PS2; PS3; Xbox 360; Wii; PC | |
2010 | Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1 | PS3; Xbox 360; Wii; PC | |
2011 | Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 | PS3; Xbox 360; Wii; PC |
The Commodore 64, also known as the C64, is an 8-bit home computer introduced in January 1982 by Commodore International. It has been listed in the Guinness World Records as the highest-selling single computer model of all time, with independent estimates placing the number sold between 12.5 and 17 million units. Volume production started in early 1982, marketing in August for US$595. Preceded by the VIC-20 and Commodore PET, the C64 took its name from its 64 kilobytes(65,536 bytes) of RAM. With support for multicolor sprites and a custom chip for waveform generation, the C64 could create superior visuals and audio compared to systems without such custom hardware.
Commodore International was an American home computer and electronics manufacturer founded by Jack Tramiel. Commodore International (CI), along with its subsidiary Commodore Business Machines (CBM), was a significant participant in the development of the home-computer industry in the 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s. The company developed and marketed the world's best-selling computer, the Commodore 64 (1982), and released its Amiga computer line in July 1985. With quarterly sales ending 1983 of $49 million, Commodore was one of the world's largest personal computer manufacturers.
The VIC-20 is an 8-bit home computer that was sold by Commodore Business Machines. The VIC-20 was announced in 1980, roughly three years after Commodore's first personal computer, the PET. The VIC-20 was the first computer of any description to sell one million units. It was described as "one of the first anti-spectatorial, non-esoteric computers by design...no longer relegated to hobbyist/enthusiasts or those with money, the computer Commodore developed was the computer of the future."
Chiptune, also known as chip music or 8-bit music, is a style of synthesized electronic music made using the programmable sound generator (PSG) sound chips or synthesizers in vintage arcade machines, computers and video game consoles. The term is commonly used to refer to tracker format music which intentionally sounds similar to older PSG-created music, as well as music that combines PSG sounds with modern musical styles. It has been described as "an interpretation of many genres" since any existing song can be arranged in a chiptune style defined more by choice of instrument and timbre than specific style elements.
The demoscene is an international computer art subculture focused on producing demos: self-contained, sometimes extremely small, computer programs that produce audiovisual presentations. The purpose of a demo is to show off programming, visual art, and musical skills. Demos and other demoscene productions are shared at festivals known as demoparties, voted on by those who attend and released online.
Colossal Cave Adventure is a text-based adventure game, released in 1976 by developer Will Crowther for the PDP-10 mainframe computer. It was expanded upon in 1977 by Don Woods. In the game, the player explores a cave system rumored to be filled with treasure and gold. The game is composed of dozens of locations, and the player moves between these locations and interacts with objects in them by typing one- or two-word commands which are interpreted by the game's natural language input system. The program acts as a narrator, describing the player's location and the results of the player's attempted actions. It is the first well-known example of interactive fiction, as well as the first well-known adventure game, for which it was also the namesake.
Scott Adams is an American entrepreneur, computer programmer, and video game designer. He co-founded, with ex-wife Alexis, Adventure International in 1979. The company developed and published video games for home computers. The cornerstone products of Adventure International in its early years were the Adventure series of text adventures written by Adams.
Rob Hubbard is a British composer best known for his musical and programming work for microcomputers of the 1980s, such as the Commodore 64.
Epyx, Inc. was a video game developer and publisher active in the late 1970s and 1980s. The company was founded as Automated Simulations by Jim Connelley and Jon Freeman, originally using Epyx as a brand name for action-oriented games before renaming the company to match in 1983. Epyx published a long series of games through the 1980s. The company is currently owned by Bridgestone Multimedia Group Global.
Timothy John Follin is an English video game music composer, cinematographer, visual effects artist and game developer, who has written tracks for a variety of titles and home gaming systems, including the ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, Amiga, Atari ST, Nintendo Entertainment System, Mega Drive, Super NES, Game Boy, Dreamcast, and PlayStation.
Odin Computer Graphics were a Liverpool-based computer games developer who came to prominence in the mid-1980s with a variety of titles for the ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64 and Amstrad CPC home computers.
Jeroen Godfried Tel, also known as WAVE, is a Dutch composer. He is best known for numerous computer game tunes he wrote in the 1980s and early 1990s for the Commodore 64. His most popular compositions appear in the following Commodore 64 games: Combat Crazy, Cybernoid, Cybernoid II, Dan Dare 3, Eliminator, Hawkeye, Myth: History in the Making, Nighthunter, Robocop 3, Rubicon, and Supremacy.
Ben Daglish was an English composer and musician. Born in London, his parents moved to Sheffield when he was one year old. He was known for creating many soundtracks for home computer games during the 1980s, including such as The Last Ninja, Trap, Krakout, and Deflektor. Daglish teamed up with fellow C64 musician and prolific programmer Tony Crowther, forming W.E.M.U.S.I.C., which stood for "We Make Use of Sound in Computers". Daglish had attended the same school as Crowther. Daglish mostly worked freelance but was employed by Gremlin Graphics for a couple of years.
Loco is a 1984 computer game developed by Antony Crowther and released by Alligata for the Commodore 64. Loco is a clone of the 1982 Sega arcade game Super Locomotive. Ports for the ZX Spectrum and Atari 8-bit family were released in 1986. The ZX Spectrum port was developed by Richard Stevenson, David Wright and Nigel Speight.. The music for the game is a C64 remake of Jean Michel Jarre's Equinoxe 5 and 6 by Ben Daglish.
Telengard is a 1982 role-playing dungeon crawler video game developed by Daniel Lawrence and published by Avalon Hill. The player explores a dungeon, fights monsters with magic, and avoids traps in real-time without any set mission other than surviving. Lawrence first wrote the game as DND, a 1976 version of Dungeons & Dragons for the DECsystem-10 mainframe computer. He continued to develop DND at Purdue University as a hobby, rewrote the game for the Commodore PET 2001 after 1978, and ported it to Apple II+, TRS-80, and Atari 800 platforms before Avalon Hill found the game at a convention and licensed it for distribution. Its Commodore 64 release was the most popular. Reviewers noted Telengard's similarity to Dungeons and Dragons. RPG historian Shannon Appelcline noted the game as one of the first professionally produced computer role-playing games, and Gamasutra's Barton considered Telengard consequential in what he deemed "The Silver Age" of computer role-playing games preceding the golden age of the late 1980s. Some of the game's dungeon features, such as altars, fountains, teleportation cubes, and thrones, were adopted by later games such as Tunnels of Doom (1982).
A View to a Kill are two separate video games released in 1985 and based on the James Bond film A View to a Kill. The first, an action game titled A View to a Kill: The Computer Game, was developed and published by Domark. It was available for the ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64, MSX, and Oric. The second game, James Bond 007: A View to a Kill, is a text-based adventure for MS-DOS, Macintosh, and Apple II. It was developed by Angelsoft, and published by Mindscape.
Alligata Software Ltd. was a computer games developer and publisher based in Sheffield in the UK in the 1980s.
Paul Norman is an American game designer, musician, composer, and computer programmer. He has been active in the music scene since 1970 and has been involved with the development of computer entertainment and information since 1982, including the production of Forbidden Forest in 1983.
Kingsoft GmbH was a German video game company based in Aachen. The company was founded in 1982 by Fritz Schäfer out of his parents' house in Mulartshütte (Roetgen) to sell his chess simulation game Boss, which he developed the year before. Kingsoft expanded into third-party publishing in 1983, starting with Galaxy by Henrik Wening. Most of their games were released for computers developed by Commodore International, predominantly the Commodore 64, Commodore 16 and later Amiga, and were usually based on other company's titles for different platforms. Kingsoft moved to Aachen in 1987 and established a distribution service before ceasing publishing in favour of distribution in 1993. The company was acquired in March 1995 by Electronic Arts, who retired the Kingsoft name later that year.
Mark Knight, also known as TDK and Madfiddler, is a British musician, video game music composer and sound designer. He started out writing chiptune and module file music in the Amiga demoscene, and began his games industry career as a composer in 1992. He continued until 2000 when he moved to sound design, and since 2014 has had a split role as a sound designer and composer culminating by going self employed in 2017.