Codemasters

David and Richard Darling's budget label, for which matt-gray freelanced from Fruit Machine Simulator (1987) on — and "the ones who convinced me to write my own player. Back then, there was little chance of doing games music without that skill" (sources: s-c64com-matt-gray-interview, s-vgmpf-matt-gray).

Facts#

• Gray's Codemasters tunes: Fruit Machine Simulator, KGB Superspy ("trying to maximise any rhythm elements without using a whole channel"), Motocross (from an unreleased Turbo Outrun), Treasure Island Dizzy (12ths with a heavy swing, arpeggio chords; later on NES), BMX Simulator II, 4 Soccer Simulators; NES: Micro Machines (uncredited), Big Nose the Caveman, The Ultimate Stuntman, Fantastic Adventures of Dizzy, in a driver by Gavin Raeburn (sources: s-c64com-matt-gray-interview, s-vgmpf-matt-gray).
• The Darlings offered to write to a court when a speeding case threatened Gray's licence in 1990 (source: s-c64com-matt-gray-interview).

• Met the Darlings at a computer show as a teenager; "It was during a meeting with David & Richard Darling at Codemasters one day that I realised I had to learn 6502 and not rely on a third party player"; later they "wanted me to go full time in house, but I didn't want to move to Banbury" (source: s-vandalism63-matt-gray-interview). Fruit Machine Simulator: "£150. Took an evening to do"; the NES work: "the sound chip was not in the SIDs league. It also had limiting factors across it's channels, they were not all the same"; Micro Machines for £300, uncredited (source: s-retrogamesmaster-matt-gray-interview). Gray adapted his own C64 player for the NES Treasure Island Dizzy (source: s-arcadeattack-matt-gray-interview).

• In 2015 he still named the label — "Codemasters (David and Richard Darling)" — among the companies he remembered best, beside system-3 and Thalamus's Paul Cooper; the substance of that interview is technical and sits on matt-gray and matt-gray-player (source: s-sidin15-matt-gray-interview).

Related#

matt-gray · matt-gray-player

Sources#

s-c64com-matt-gray-interview · s-vgmpf-matt-gray · s-vandalism63-matt-gray-interview · s-retrogamesmaster-matt-gray-interview · s-arcadeattack-matt-gray-interview · s-sidin15-matt-gray-interview