If you hadn’t noticed, I’m not just a fan of movies and film making, I’m also a huge fan of gaming. But of all the games I have played, none stand out as much as the Tex Murphy series.

Access Software, always been epic

Tex Murphy was the imaginative creation of Aaron Conners and Chris Jones from Access Software. A down on his luck, old style gumshoe detective living in post apocalyptic San Francisco in the 2040s. As a hard-boiled PI that would do almost anything to make rent, he was the unwilling star of 5 of the most groundbreaking PC game titles ever created. Groundbreaking because of the technology, the writing, and because you could quite easily call them the earliest pioneers of cinematic gaming. What the boys from Access software achieved was nothing short of amazing. They were one of the first to have full motion video in a game, single-handedly developed a method of enabling a basic built-in PC speaker to produce vocal sounds, and their Virtual World graphics engine, which debuted in their 3rd game Under a Killing Moon, was so ahead of it’s time that it would take the competitors years to catch up. In the midst of all this technology was the story, which more than did it’s part to match the technical prowess thanks to some stellar writing from novelist Aaron Conners.

There were 5 Tex Murphy games in total: Mean Streets (1989), Martian Memorandum (1991), Under a Killing Moon (1994),The Pandora Directive (1996), and Tex Murphy: Overseer (1998). The first two games were point-and-click adventures, but both featured basic full motion video and Access Software’s patented Real Sound engine, both elements previously being unheard of in their time. It was not until Under a Killing Moon in 1994 where the technology really took a huge leap forward, and they created the Virtual World Engine. Essentially, while most other games were still grasping the concept of 3D graphics in gaming (with Doom from id Software being the big name here) Access software created rich, explorable environments that enabled complete freedom of movement, and the ability to rifle through drawers and interact the your surroundings limitlessly. What also made Under a Killing Moon stand out from the crowd was it’s Hollywood style full motion video aspect and big-name cast members. They called the combination of the two an “Interactive Movie”… a title that would be a buzz word for many adventure games of the mid 1990; the golden era of gaming. I say this because it was a time where PCs were really beginning to show users exactly what was possible with the technology (a sentiment shared by Chris Jones himself in a “making of” video for The Pandora directive). I never really liked the term “Interactive Movie” though, because it always made the games seem like a secondary bi-product of a real cinematic movie experience. In actual fact it was the opposite. What the games really became were highly detailed, technologically brilliant, engaging adventure games with a truly engrossing real cinematic atmosphere.

Hallo Handsome

After the huge success Under a Killing Moon was, Access Software would follow it with two more award winning titles: The Pandora Directive in 1996 (often regarded as the finest game in the series), and Overseer in 1998, the first ever adventure game to ship on the very new (at least it was back then) DVD-Rom technology. Each of these games broke ground in their own respect, and maintained the cinematic gaming experience and atmosphere made famous by their predecessor. However, shortly after the release of Overseer, a series of events would seal the fate of the Tex Murphy series and spell the end of a gaming era.

Access software would be bought by Microsoft’s gaming division, and over the next few years the prospect of continuing the Tex Murphy saga diminished into the same nothingness that saw the ultimate demise of the adventure gaming genre. The rise of consoles, first person shooters, RPGs and other instant-fix games were now at the forefront of the industry, leaving behind what should be considered as some of the founding fathers and genres of the industry, and the abandonment of the cinematic gaming experience.

So where does that leave the cinematic experience in today’s games?

I’ve been gaming since the early 90s. I played through the demise of the adventure genre, but would like to think I have never lost touch with the every-evolving industry and it’s trends. Speaking of today’s games and it’s most recent generation of gamers however, I have seen a distinct push to make the gaming experience far more cinematic for players… which has left a lot of modern game publishers scratching their heads. You can see the influence this push has had in some of the most recent game trailers, where you’d swear you were watching a trailer for the next Hollywood action flick, rather than a game. Could this be because the modern industry is making a return to it’s roots? Probably not. This can most likely be attributed to the fact that the game industry has become far more lucrative than the film industry. But has the industry nailed it? Not by a long shot, in my not so humble opinion.

What developers and designers achieved in the games of yesterday (including, but not limited to, the Tex Murphy series) was almost the perfect recipe for the marriage of gaming and cinema. In fact, they nailed it! So why are modern game publishers who are trying to pull off the same thing failing so miserably in a time where today’s technology should provide far more opportunity to succeed? I see it as a combination of two things: lack of effort, and an almost blood thirsty desire for financial gain.

Real live action is a dangerous game

Lets exemplify this: You watch a trailer for a modern game. It’s cinematic, is beautiful, and the production values rival some of the best Hollywood films out there. In fact, you may even notice it was filmed with live action talent. So this is cinematic gaming right? Wrong. It’s borrowing on the cinematic feel strictly for the purpose of marketing… deceptive marketing. At the end of the day, these trailers might deliver a potentially academy award winning performance and lead you to believe that you are going to experience the same cinematic feel when you play the game, but the minute you actually buy it and boot it up, your cinematic experience is pretty much over. Replaced by a tried and true, yet mundane formula of typical, mindless and often unintelligent gameplay.

Let me stop here and take the opportunity to say that I don’t believe EVERY game falls victim to this fate, as there are a handful to really engrossing and atmospheric titles out there which I have enjoyed immensely. But for the most part, this experience is never going to be the forefront of the modern publisher’s mind.

So why do these modern publishers seem to be doing their absolute best to try and avoid doing exactly what the gaming community is really looking for in a game? Simple: there is more money in “borrowing” the cinematic feel to suck gamers in, get them excited, encourage them to purchase the “special editions”, spend their hard-earned on useless merchandise, and then hope to hell their loyalty to the franchise (coupled with the money they have spent) is enough to keep then satisfied with an otherwise average game that is in no way reflective of the “cinematic” experience they were promised.

Lets now imagine the game publisher hero. The one that’s going to rescue us from the monotony and marketing cash-cow that gaming has become, and not only promise the true cinematic experience throughout the ENTIRE game, but deliver it above and beyond our wildest imaginations. Does such a publisher exist? Yes! Where are they? They were left behind in the 90s! My point here is: no modern publisher would even know where to start in order to pull off the true cinematic gaming experience, either that or the ones that once did have long forgotten how. But if we look back to what companies like Access Software achieved in the mid to late 1990s, we can see it was not an impossible utopia but a genuine reality. So what’s the solution to genuinely satisfying the demands of the modern gamer, and the push towards true cinematic gaming? Bring back the guys who were not only the only ones with the experience, guts and know-how to pull it off, but who actually pulled if off with flying colours!

Guess who's back?

Which brings us to Project Fedora…

Seems like the gamers are not the only ones fed up of the absence of good games like the Tex Murphy series. The old Access Software team (now publishing under the name Big Finish Games) want to see Tex Murphy return, and with it the return of the cinematic gaming experience. For years, this was considered an impossibility, with money being one of the key factors. But thanks to group funding sites such as KickStarter, people from all industries in the same financial predicament are now reaching their goals, and getting things done.

When a project is pitched to the KickStarter community, a funding goal is determined and the general public can view the idea (or pitch) and decide whether or not they want to contribute. Certain degrees of contribution carry certain rewards, and the more money you pledge, the better the reward (such as signed copies, additional merchandise, and sometimes even direct involvement in the project). If the funding goal is reached, the project can go ahead! Project Fedora is Big Finish Games’ KickStarter project due for commencement on May 15 2012, and their last dig attempt to resurrect the Tex Murphy series and produce a new game.

I hope by this stage of the article you’ve understood the importance of such a fantastic project. In light of the experience from the folks of Big Finish Games (formerly Access Software), their long standing devotion to the industry, and today’s push towards cinematic gaming (what these guys were famous for in the 90s), I hope you can understand how much of an opportune time it is to see this series resurrected. You may even be a long-standing fan of the Tex Murphy series and want to see our hero continue the saga, especially after the cliffhanger we all endured in 1998, and have kept reliving over and over for the past 14 years! Being part of the latter but also both to a degree, I am certainly doing my part.

Many fans of the series have banded together to help Big Finish Games in any way possible, with video testimonials being one of the hot items. I myself created a Tex Murphy testimonial for the purpose of ensuring the gaming community knows just how influential the series has been, and the potential is has to reach new heights. There are a good handful of testimonial videos from fans all over the world sharing their experiences and views on why a new Tex Murphy game is a really, really good idea.

So how can I help?

Simple… Get involved!

For more information on the Kickstarter project, visit: http://www.bigfinishgames.com/games/project-fedora

To watch some fan-made Tex Murphy Video Testimonials, visit this YouTube playlist: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL89DD6E54FFFBE651

Keep an eye on the KickStarter page for Project Fedora, which will be launching May 15, 2012: http://www.kickstarter.com

And below is my offering so far. A very special Tex Murphy video testimonial with a very nice surprise re-mastering of the Under a Killing Moon intro at the end, as a way of exemplifying just what might be achieved if a new Tex Murphy game were to be made with today’s technology. Enjoy, and long live Tex Murphy!

Yesterday was an interesting day. Same as any other day really, except if you went out on your lunch break you might’ve noticed a rooftop concert happening in the middle of Circular Quay. Marty Rhone and the Beatle Boys decided to re-create the famous Beatles rooftop concert from London in 1969, this time performing in front of a busy Sydney CBD overlooking the Harbour Bridge, Opera House and many other Sydney Harbour landmarks.

The concert was held to promote the upcoming Australian National Tour of “Cliff Joins the Beatles”, a musical fantasy show set in an alternate reality where Cliff Richard joins The Beatles in 1969, instead of the band breaking up.

I was given the honor of filming the landmark event on Wednesday, and with two other camera crew we had a ball reliving a great moment in music history. I’m just very glad that, unlike in 1969, we had much lighter and maneuverable cameras to work with (compared to the big film cans they used for the original concert).

Because of the currency of the event, a tight turnaround was required to get some of the footage up online no latter than the morning after (this morning). So, armed with a concert’s worth of footage I burned the midnight oil to produce a one-song taste of the concert; the Beatle Boys performing ‘Get Back’.

You can watch the video on YouTube via the embedded player below. Special thanks to Justin Fisher and Will Harrison-Smith and 2nd and 3rd camera.

For more information about the tour, visit www.cliffjoinsthebeatles.com

Web design and development: Sometimes it takes the opportunity to conquer a large, intimidating and extremely challenging project before you realise: it can be scary stuff.

I recently completed a new website for Bandwood Pty Ltd; an Australian software design, development and consultancy company. It is, to date, the most extensively structured and coded website I have ever had to construct. In this article I will detail the process, the tears and the triumphs that became the Bandwood website.

We begin with the original website (best viewed in Internet Explorer 5 or greater, by the way!):

Remember to view it in 800 x 600!

It was actually quite a triumph in its day. It was fast, efficient, simple, clean and purposeful. A proud standing pillar of the glory days of web design: HTML frames, animated gifs, site counters, and no more than 256 colours. Ok, maybe we could use more colours, but remember we’re on dial-up so don’t be silly! But by today’s standards it had begun showing its age. HTML 5, the new kid on the block, had begun making waves in the web-hood, and all over the world websites were desperately trying become best buddies with the popular new kid. This saw many legacy sites fall behind, left to play with their Perl marbles on their own. Yes, did I mention this site had Perl scripts?

Granted, the out-dated design of the website did not affect sales, which even to this day remained booming. Bandwood still has the most successful selling Gantt Chart Builder solution on the market (for users without Microsoft Project), which proved it still worked. So why change the design of the site? It’s purely comes down to one thing…

The art of appearing “current”

Stand two websites side by side, one with an out-dated design, and one with a modern design. Now tell the customer that they are going to get relatively the same product and level of satisfaction from either company. Now give them the opportunity to choose which company they want to spend their money on. It becomes quite obvious when you exemplify it this way that the more modern (or “current”) looking site is going to succeed in securing the business of the customer in the vast majority of occasions.

In a study published in the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, it was found that the attractiveness of interviewees can significantly bias outcome in hiring practices. Basically, the more attractive the potential employee, the more success they are destined to have in that business. So why can’t the same apply to websites? The more attractive the website, the more success it will have in gaining more business!

So, with all of that taken into consideration we had reached a clear and concise brief: Build a new and attractive interface that would show the company as “current” in a visual sense, but still maintain the functionality that has given the business much success to date.

With that in mind, we could not just stop at web design: we needed a whole new banding approach, starting with the logo.

Bidding adieu to the old Bandwood logo

I think they make Atari Games

 To be fair, I don’t think Bandwood ever committed to an “official” logo. Being a software developer where sales were performed by use of digital distribution, there was really not a huge need to front-up to customers or project any substantial branding image in the same way a retail company would. However, within the past decade digital sales have grown exponentially becoming the major force in product sales and distribution. Over-the-counter retail has begun to suffer in sales due the success online businesses. This means that the web has become the new shopfront, and if you didn’t have an attractive facade you will be left behind.

So let’s talk minimalism

Logos are all about simplicity, proportions and balance. You want something that signifies what you do, but it does not have to be literally so. Perhaps it can be more symbolic than that. Introducing the new Bandwood logo:

Notice with this logo we have kept the “globe” symbol, which adhered to the “international” nature of the business. But, being a software company we have picked a more “digital” looking interpretation of the globe, quite minimalistic and symbolic in nature: two axis of curves with a third axis of dots. It’s global, unifying, and very “software-ish”. We have also picked a colour scheme of dark teal blue, and grey, replicating that in the typeface as well. I would go into detail about why we chose those colours, and maybe make up some cock-and-bull story as to how this particular shade symbolises “synergy” and “success”, but let’s be frank here: These two colours just look cool together. That’s it. Sometimes it’s thoughts that are, quite simply, successfully basic which yield basically successful results.

From this logo design we have now determined the new colour scheme the company is going to adhere to, which will be copied across to the website design. Aside from the brief (which we must adhere to) we must now determine what platform the site will be built on, and which elements the site must contain in order to maintain its functionality, and perhaps improve upon it.

As usual I chose the WordPress Content Management System (or CMS for the acronymphs out there) to build the site. Initially created as a blogging platform, WordPress has since turned into an extremely powerful CMS for all types of website development. You can build any type of site using WordPress, and the vast array of plug-ins available to you expands the capabilities beyond the vanilla (default) installation. I’ve worked almost exclusively in WordPress ever since my first WP based website, which happens to be the one you are reading right now!

Going back to some of the features we want to keep, the old website consisted of the following elements:

• Standard page structure
• Product pages with descriptions
• Demo downloads
• Online store / e-commerce mechanism
• Integrated support mechanism with secure log-in
• File access and permission management
• Information database management for software updates
• Contact and support forms

At first I considered simply transferring some of these more complicated mechanisms to the new site, until I found out that most of them still used the legacy ‘Perl’ scripting language, which was not only incompatible with the CMS I was using, but not translatable by the server which the site was being built upon. They were simply too far out-of-date, and it looked as if all of the above would need to be re-created from scratch.

Ditching Perl and opting for a PHP development model, based on HTML 5 and using Java and JQuery elements for some fancy bells and whistles, the Bandwood website shell was born. Because it was built using the WordPress CMS platform it was relatively simple to plug-in the elements to create some of the features in the list above. But the headache was not so much integrating the features; rather manipulating them for our needs. The Bandwood website needed to go beyond what was achievable by simply plugging extensions into the site. Each one needed their own custom configuration to ensure they did what the client wanted.

For the Shopping Cart and eCommerce system I used the Tribulant Shopping Cart by Tribulant Software. This was by far the most impressive and powerful plug-in of its type, and did close to everything we wanted. However, it was missing some features we needed, and certain parts of the system did not perform as expected. It was simply a matter of raising these issues and feature requests with the support team of the plug-in, and within a few days they were able to provide updates that included the features we requested. Take note developers: this is how you do business!

Some of the more advanced features required for the shopping cart included: Tiered Pricing models for group discounting and volume costs, international tax models, and integration into Bandwood’s existing 2CheckOut secure checkout system.

Needless to say, after a good few weeks of chipping away we had successfully re-created Bandwoods online shopping experience with all the Web 2.0 glory!

For the file access and permission management we used the Role Scoper plugin by Kevin Behrens. We required this plugin to ensure that each user who had an existing support subscription was granted access to only the support files and software updates they were entitled. Role Scoper enabled us to maintain a set of rules and privileges for certain files on a per-user basis. This means if I have purchased support for the GBS Excel system (one of the software packages Bandwood offers), I would be able to access the support files for that software only, and nothing else.

This was an extremely tricky process because of all the variables we were presented with. Not only did we have to determine who had access to which files, but also had to enforce time restrictions that would automatically expire their access to files if they did not renew their subscription before its expiry date. This took about 2 weeks to fully implement and perfect, and after this period we had a safe and secure way to serving the support files to Bandwood’s loyal subscribers.

A feature that was programmed into the website form the ground-up (because there did not seem to be a plug-in available to do this) was the ability for Bandwood’s developer to update their software files and version information centrally, and that information could propagate throughout the site. Because each user of the site (who has a support subscription) has their own landing page for accessing their files, you can imagine there are a lot of pages which reference the files (and version information). So instead of having to update the file links and version numbers of each individual user page when one is updated, I created a series of function calls which reference a central product database within the Worpdress system. This meant that if a piece of software was updated from 2.0 to 2.1 (for example), that information only needed to be updated in one place, and both the links and references to that file would automatically update throughout the entire site. This was a feature specifically requested by the client as software updates were apparently a frequent occurrence, and the simplification of this process was a must.

Those two were probably the most complicated features that had to be integrated into the site. Other features such as the user profile management, login-out widgets and contact forms were either handled internally via WordPress or via other small 3^rd party plugins like the Enhanced Meta Widget, and Contact form 7, by NeuroDawg and Takayuki Miyoshi respectively.

Overall, the website took about 2 months to create from start to finish. We had gone from a legacy website, chock full of its own features, to a band new HTML 5 and web 2.0 website which not only kept what worked best about the old site in terms of features, but significantly improved on that functionality, whilst giving it a graphical overhaul and bringing it into the modern design space.

Here is the final front page design:

Not just a trim, back and sides

 You may visit the website and see it for yourself at: http://www.bandwood.com

I said at the beginning of this article that this website challenged me in many ways. Conquering the challenges that I was presented made me realise something: from now on, nothing else scares me. Except maybe animated GIFs still. *shudder*

In 1969, there was no internet, no YouTube, no Facebook… how on earth did people find out about things!?

Let me introduce you to the latest show which I have been given the opportunity to design the complete marketing collateral. It’s called ‘Cliff Joins The Beatles’, and it’s a musical fantasy starring Marty Rhone & the Beatle Boys. The show plays on the idea of what would happen if Cliff Richard joined the Beatles after his split with the Shadows in 1969. Quite an interesting concept, and an equally as interesting (or challenging) advertising campaign would be needed to help bring the fantasy to life.

In order to make it as convincing as possible, I had to thoroughly investigate how an event of this nature would be presented via the media if it were to happen during the subject era. There was no internet, no YouTube, no Facebook… how on earth did people find out about things!? Well… television was going through a golden era, but newspapers were still the primary form of media used to inform people of the what’s what and the who’s who! That gave me a good starting point, so I decided make it look as if all the marketing consisted of materials prevalent in the late 60s.

The first to be designed were the posters and print materials, which were specifically styled to look like an old 60s newspaper headline front page. Not only did this enable us to create a lot of visual impact (with the bold lettering and convincing newspaper design), it also played along with the whole alternate reality, or in this case: the music fantasy which the concert is going for.

Flyer

Poster

Second was the website. This was probably one of the hardest to pull off because I somehow needed to combine modern tech (the internet) with old tech (print material) to provide users a consistent yet functional experience, reflective of the era in terms of style at least. I achieved this by combining the design of the newspaper posters and a modern news website. Basically: it’s what the CNN or SMH website would be today, if they employed a 1960s graphic designer to do all their visuals!

Website front page

Lastly, there was the TV commercial…

There’s something odd about filming a TV commercial using new technology, only to “age” the whole thing by about 40 years.

We’ve all seen file footage of the Beatles: hysterical girls, smiling faces, and concerts filled with so much screaming that you can’t actually hear any music. That’s what we were going for! We had to film the commercial using our very modern, full colour cameras and it was probably the first time I have ever used the term “overkill” with regards to the technology at our disposal. Then we proceeded to “age” the footage and make it consistent with the old black and white Beatles file footage.

This process wasn’t as simple as you would think, and you were probably thinking “just make it black and white, increase the contrast and voila!”. This wouldn’t work because there are still a lot of technology used in modern cameras to enhance the footage that did not exist back then, so we tried to synthetically remove everything our nice, new, modern cameras were doing to make our footage look so darn good!

In order to make it truly convincing it required a combination of techniques such as nose generation, gate shifting, splotching, flickering, scratching, blurring, warping, and that was only the video! The audio endured the same acoustic destruction such as filtering, EQ, acoustic modulation and a range of tricks to make it all sound 40 years old. The end result was footage so convincing it matched perfectly with the stock/file footage of the screaming girls we cut into the ad, which were actually shot from that era.

The end result was pretty awesome! See below…

So there you have it, all 3 elements combined (print, web and video) to make up a pretty convincing period campaign that serves to enhance the music fantasy that would have been: Cliff Joins The Beatles!

Now all I need it some young teenagers to show the footage to and try and convince them it actually happened!

for more information about the show, visit: www.cliffjoinsthebeatles.com

The new TV commercial for Parkinson’s NSW titled ‘The Role Reversal’ is now online. I had originally wrote an article about the production of the ad, and you can now see the finished product using the embedded video player below:

Paula with her two daughters Greta and Mary

A new TV commercial is about to be aired to help raise awareness for Parkinson’s Disease. The ad is going to give younger people living with Parkinson’s the opportunity to tell their story, whether they are sufferers of the disease or are close family members to those who are. The idea is to educate the public and let people know that it is not just a disease that effects the elderly, but can effect people as young as their 20s.

Peter Brown at Blue Desk advertising agency was brought on board by Parkinson’s to come up with an idea/theme for the campaign, and because of my long-time relationship with Parkinson’s as a director and producer of many of their previous campaigns I was brought on board to direct, film and edit the television commercial, and the accompanying radio campaign.

The TV commercial stars Paula Argy and her daughter Mary, and is a touching insight into the lives of families who deal with Parkinson’s disease on a daily basis. Paula herself is a sufferer of Parkinson’s and first experienced the symptoms of the disease on her wedding day at the age of just 23 years old. Today, she lives with the disease and thanks to recent breakthroughs in medication, she is able to live a relatively normal life with her two daughters (Mary and Greta).

Moving onto the technical aspects of the TV commercial; it is now the 2nd production I have shot using the Canon 5D MK2 digital SLR camera. Once again, Justin Fisher was the camera operator just like in the previous production of the Peter Fitzsimonds Unity Walk TVC. The types of shots and story being told in this campaign called for a very intimate composition of imagery, and the shallow depth of field and colour depth with the 5D worked perfectly on the day to achieve the perfect representation of Peter’s original storyboards he drew up in pre-production.

For the time being, the ad is currently being finalised for broadcast and will be airing on television within the coming weeks. But in the meantime, please enjoy a few still shots I have captured from the final version of the TV commercial and stay posted for the final video which I will host here as soon as it has officially launched.

For more information about Parkinson’s disease, please visit: www.parkinsonsnsw.org.au.

Hi folks! I am happy to finally announce the winner of the Scripts to Flicks competition!

Congratulations to Alison Erlanger for her short film script ‘What Comes First’!

I received quite a large number of awesome screenplays, with a range of different genres, styles and formats, and was very impressed with the overall standard of work. But in the end there could only be one winner an I very much look forward to collaborating with Alison during the production of the (soon to be realised) on-screen production!

I would also like to take this opportunity to thank everybody who submitted scripts. I have already gotten in touch with everybody who sent me screenplays via email and am offering feedback for those who would like it.

The next step is to go into pre-production of ‘What Comes First’, and I also plan on keeping a production blog of the project’s progress here so that everybody can see the process as it unfolds.

Well, that’s it for now! Thank you once again for everybody who sent screenplays and I wish everybody the best of luck in the future!

Recently the TV commercials for the 2011 Parkinson’s Unity Walk featuring Peter Fitzsimons went live to air. A few different versions of the ads were produced for national distribution and air-time, each with their own state/region specific details. You might spot them on some of your favourite TV channels including 7, 9, 10 and Foxtel (or their region equivalents). Have you seen them on TV?

The ads were shot using the Canon 5D MkII digital SLR. It was my first experience with the camera and so far it has been a rewarding one. Justin Fisher, my film and video partner in crime brought one along with him to the shoot with the intention of simply showing it to me, and we ended up using it as our primary camera, with Justin behind the wheel. Editing in Premiere with the native footage was smooth and hassle-free, and the entire workflow of the TV commercial was extremely smooth. I’m still not 100% convinced I should abandon my P2 workflow yet (in favour of the 5D), but I guess more experimentation will help me make a more informed choice about whether or not I should make it a permanent part of my film/video arsenal.

I have also been approached by Parkinson’s to film and produce their new national advertising campaign’s TV commercials. As you can imagine I am very excited! As always, I have found working with Parkinson’s a rewarding experience and very grateful for the ongoing relationship I have with them. In the meantime, if you would like to support Parkinson’s yourself, why not participate in this years Unity Walk. Visit this website for details on how you can take part!

As part 2 of my resurrection of Tex Murphy goodies from the golden era of PC gaming (the 90s) I have another surprise. Since the Adventure Game Genre’s extinction, a lot of valuable and priceless “digital artefacts” began disappearing into the abyss. I’m talking about materials related to the games of yesterday, the gems of our childhood and the creators of many wonderful memories. Despite the world moving on, we see today how having the foresight (or the obsessive compulsiveness, you decide) to collect and preserve these digital artefacts has certainly paid off. No longer will a trip down memory lane be a fragmented daydream. Goodbye to desperately trying to explain the golden area of PC gaming to those just young enough to have missed the boat. “Do you remember that game we used to play all night? Tex somebody? Oh wow, weren’t they great! Oh you haven’t seen them? Well let me show you what I’m talking about”.

Below you will find the trailers for all 3 of the CD-ROM based Tex Murphy PC adventure games (Under a Killing Moon, The Pandora Directive and Overseer). I’ve done my best to clean them up so that they look good by today’s standards, but bare in mind: these trailers were originally created to be shown shown on very old computers and in a time where internet was only accessible via dial-up connections! Either way, they are here to stay, immortalised for all eternity in the glistening shininess of the Web 2.0! Enjoy!
 

It’s no secret that I am a huge fan of the Tex Murphy series of Interactive Movie Games released by Access Software in the mid to late 90s. In fact, I have been so actively involved in the Tex Murphy fan community that I have had the opportunity to speak directly with, and even work with some of the Games’ creators and crew (including Matt Heider, music composer for the series, who became the composer of the original musical score for my own short film ‘The Masque of the Red Death’).

A long time ago when I was becoming more actively involved with music composition and sound design, as a personal project I remastered most the Games’ music which was originally presented in MIDI format. This process involved extracting the arrangements from the digital MIDI files, remastering the instrumentation and then converting the tracks into MP3 format for everyone to enjoy. I had uploaded all of these arrangements online for other Tex Murphy fans to download and enjoy. Even Matt Heider was kind enough to supply the MP3s of some of his original orchestral arrangements to complete the soundtracks for all 3 CD-ROM based Tex Murphy games (Under a Killing Moon, The Pandora Directive and Overseer). However, despite these tracks still being online and accessible all these years later, I have since developed my website, leaving the original pages behind and allowing them to date badly.

So here we are at this page, a new place where you can download all the Tex Murphy game soundtracks, and as a special gift to everyone I have included a few new orchestral arrangements of some of the most famous Tex Murphy pieces which I created only a few months ago. Enjoy, and long live Tex Murphy!

Tex Murphy Track Listings

Audio Grabs – From Game
	Access Software Title
	Introduction
	Day 1-7 Introduction Music
Remastered by Mat Tyler (from MIDI)
	Tex’s Office
	Tex’s Office 2
	Chandler Avenue
	Chandler Avenue 2
	Chelsee’s New Stand
	Rook’s Pawnshop
	Rook’s Pawnshop 2
	Rook’s Pawnshop 3
	Clint the Bum
	The Brew & Stew
	Slice ‘O’ Heaven Pizza
	Beek Nariz (Coit Tower)
	Mac Malden
	Sno White Warehouse
	The Electronics Shop
	Pug
	Ardo at the Lobby
	Hotel Love Suite
	Hotel Hot Tub
	The Knickerbocker
	The Knickerbocker 2
	Confronted by Eddie Ching
	Countess Renier
	Abandoned Mansion
	Melahn Tode
	The Colonel Has Been Stabbed
	Ally Moore
	GRS
	The Chameleon in a Cube
	The Bastion of Sanctity
	The Bastion of Sanctity 2
	The Broken Skull Lounge
	Moon Child
	Moon Child 2
	Bonus Track 1: Smooth Tex
	Bonus Track 2: Alleyways

Remastered by Mat Tyler (from MIDI)
	The Pandora Directive
	The Cabin
	Sandra Collins’ House
	AUTOTECH
	Black Arrow Killer Chase
	Garden House
	Roswell
	The Mayan Temple
	The Sound Test
Matt Heider – Orchestrated
	Suite From The Pandora Directive
	Tex Meets Fitz
	Emily In Trouble
	Showdown With A Killer
	Meeting Dr Malloy
	Sad News For Regan
	Archie Dies
	Down The Slide (alternative)
	The Ship
	Postcard from Chelsee
	Chelsee’s Holodate
	Tex Lives (special suite)

Matt Heider – Orchestrated
	A Chip In Your Head
	Approaching Knotts Cabin
	Clocktower Showdown
	Death at the Clocktower
	Gideon’s Story
	Greg Call’s Message
	Hello Handsome
	Hiding from Slade
	Journey To The Ruins
	Larry At The Lab
	Larry Hammond Explains
	Monkey Business 1
	Monkey Business 2
	PI Theme
	Reece Passes Out
	Sylvia’s Gifts
	Tex Meets Sonny
	Tex Meets Sylvia
	The Argument

 Bonus Tracks

New Orchestrated Versions by Mat Tyler
	Tex’s Office
	Tex’s Office 2
	Chandler Avenue
	The Pandora Directive
	A Day’s Introduction (Rock Version)