Martin Walker
British programmer-musician of the Thalamus era: the coder, graphician and sound-effects author of hunters-moon (1987), whose table-driven SFX engine sidin #14 reverse-engineered, and a SID composer in his own right whose routine he was still writing when matt-gray scored that game (sources: s-sidin14-hunters-moon, s-c64com-matt-gray-interview).
Facts#
- Hunter's Moon (Thalamus, 1987): code, graphics and sound effects by Walker, music by Gray — the effects run in Walker's own engine (13 tables × 32 columns, 16 effects, a ring-modulated "plonk", a 50-frame lock for explosions), the music in Gray's driver (matt-gray-player); the engine clears the SID and uses all three voices, which Tognon reads as the reason there is no in-game music (source: s-sidin14-hunters-moon).
- Gray: "I did all the music for this contrary to what some believe. Martin Walker the programmer was a musician but didn't have a SID routine at the time" (source: s-retrogamesmaster-matt-gray-interview); the two discussed music routines while Walker was writing his own (source: s-c64com-matt-gray-interview).
- JCH's 2018 verdict on his music: "those long arpeggio chords" (chord-arpeggio; source: s-chordian-sid-musicians). Stephan Schmid names him among the game composers he listens to, with jeroen-tel, martin-galway, Follin and Gray (source: s-sidin03-schmid-interview).
Related#
hunters-moon · matt-gray · matt-gray-player · sid-player-routine · ring-modulation-and-sync · sidin
Sources#
s-sidin14-hunters-moon · s-retrogamesmaster-matt-gray-interview · s-c64com-matt-gray-interview · s-chordian-sid-musicians · s-sidin03-schmid-interview