Patrick "Pat" Phelan is a

video game Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This fee ...

audio composer,

manager Management (or managing) is the administration of an organization, whether it is a business, a nonprofit organization, or a government body. It is the art and science of managing resources of the business. Management includes the activities ...

, and producer.

Background

At the age of 11, Phelan's parents bought him a

VIC-20 The VIC-20 (known as the VC-20 in Germany and the VIC-1001 in Japan) 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 ...

. He learnt how to program and began to write games. At age 13, he got his first synthesizer, a

Korg MS20 , founded as Keio Electronic Laboratories, is a Japanese multinational corporation that manufactures electronic musical instruments, audio processors and guitar pedals, recording equipment, and electronic tuners. Under the Vox brand name, the ...

and learning how to program the MS20's patch bay gave him his grounding in understanding the fundamentals of

sound synthesis A synthesizer (also spelled synthesiser) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis and f ...

. A few years later, the VIC was replaced with a Commodore 64. Soon there was a confluence between his gaming obsession, and his love for sound and music. Influenced by

Rob Hubbard Rob Hubbard (born 1955 in Kingston upon Hull, England) is a British composer best known for his musical and programming work for microcomputers of the 1980s, such as the Commodore 64. Early life Hubbard first started playing music at age seve ...

and Ben Daglish, Phelan began to write music specifically for games. When he progressed to the Atari ST, Phelan began collecting keyboards and using the ST's built-in

MIDI MIDI (; Musical Instrument Digital Interface) is a technical standard that describes a communications protocol, digital interface, and electrical connectors that connect a wide variety of electronic musical instruments, computers, and ...

connectors, started to

sequence In mathematics, a sequence is an enumerated collection of objects in which repetitions are allowed and order matters. Like a set, it contains members (also called ''elements'', or ''terms''). The number of elements (possibly infinite) is calle ...

complex arrangements, classical scores as well as audio for high-powered games. In the early 1990s, Phelan joined

Gremlin Graphics Gremlin Graphics Software Limited, later Gremlin Interactive Limited and ultimately Infogrames Studios Limited was a British software house based in Sheffield, working mostly in the home computer market. Like many software houses established in ...

, and was involved in the development of

Zool ''Zool: Ninja of the Nth Dimension'' is a platform game written for the Amiga by Gremlin Graphics and published in 1992. It was marketed as a rival to Sega's '' Sonic the Hedgehog''. ''Zool'' was ported to other platforms and followed by '' ...

. Later on, he took on other responsibilities and managed the audio department before eventually moving into more senior creative roles. Phelan left to set up Full Circle where he provided audio solutions for games, music for TV, consultancy and games design services. His clients included Infogrames, Climax, Headfirst and The BBC.

Games developed

Some of the games Phelan helped develop include: * Doctor Who: The Adventure Games * Outrun Online Arcade *

Disney's A Christmas Carol The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney (), is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. Disney was originally founded on October ...

* New International Track & Field *

Driver 76 ''Driver '76'' is a video game for the PlayStation Portable, which was released on 8 May 2007 in the US, and on 11 May 2007 in the EU. The game is a prequel to '' Driver: Parallel Lines'', and is set two years prior. It is the first and only gam ...

* Spooks *

Micro Machines Micro Machines are a line of toys originally made by Galoob (now part of Hasbro) in the mid-1980s and throughout the 1990s. Micro Machines are tiny scale component style "playsets" and vehicles that are slightly larger than N scale. The toys ...

* Slam Tennis * Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare * Shadow Fighter * UEFA Challenge * Motorhead * N2O: Nitrous Oxide * Soulbringer *

PGA European Tour The European Tour (currently known as the DP World Tour for sponsorship reasons), legally the PGA European Tour is the leading men's professional golf tour in Europe. The organisation also operates the European Senior Tour (for players aged fif ...

* Hardwar *

Top Gear 2 ''Top Gear 2'' (released as ''Top Racer 2'' in Japan) is the sequel to the 1992 racing game, racer ''Top Gear (video game), Top Gear''. The game was first released in August 1993 for the SNES, later in May 24, 1994 for the Sega Genesis and in 1994 ...

Actua Soccer ''Actua Soccer'' (''VR Soccer'' in North America) is a sports video game developed and published by Gremlin Interactive for MS-DOS, PlayStation, and Sega Saturn. The game features a variety of teams and leagues to choose from, including nationa ...

series *

Judge Dredd Judge Joseph Dredd is a fictional character created by writer John Wagner and artist Carlos Ezquerra. He first appeared in the second issue of '' 2000 AD'' (1977), which is a British weekly anthology comic. He is the magazine's longest-running ...

Actua Golf 2 ''Actua Golf 2'' (''Fox Sports Golf '99'' in North America) is a sports video game developed and published by Gremlin Interactive for PlayStation and Microsoft Windows. Development of the game was underway as of August 1997, and it was released in ...

* Realms of the Haunting * Fightbox * Normality * Sand Warriors * Loaded *

Actua Ice Hockey ''Actua Sports'' is a sports video game series published by Gremlin Interactive which competed with Electronic Arts EA Sports label during the second half of the 1990s, until Gremlin was acquired by Infogrames. The term "Actua" is a (seemingly ma ...

series * Hogs of War * Slipstream 5000 *

Fatal Racing ''Fatal Racing'', known as ''Whiplash'' in North America, is a 3D stunt car racing video game developed and published by Gremlin Interactive in Europe in 1995 for MS-DOS, and published in 1996 by Interplay Productions in North America. In ''Fata ...

Utopia A utopia ( ) typically describes an imaginary community or society that possesses highly desirable or nearly perfect qualities for its members. It was coined by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book '' Utopia'', describing a fictional island societ ...

K240 ''K240'' is a real-time strategy video game published by Gremlin Graphics and released for the Amiga home computer in 1994. It is a sequel to the 1991 game '' Utopia: The Creation of a Nation''. Plot Based in a sector of deep space called K240 ...

* Fragile Allegiance * Retribution * Litil Divil * Lotus series *

* Premier Manager series

Current status

Phelan joined

Sumo Digital is a form of competitive full-contact wrestling where a ''rikishi'' (wrestler) attempts to force his opponent out of a circular ring (''dohyō'') or into touching the ground with any body part other than the soles of his feet (usually by thr ...

in 2005 he now works as an Audio Director. Phelan, a member of TIGA (The Independent Game developers Association) and Gamerepublic (an Independent Trade Alliance), lives in England.

External links

Patrick Phelan Developer BIO
at

Moby Games MobyGames is a commercial website that catalogs information on video games and the people and companies behind them via crowdsourcing. This includes nearly 300,000 games for hundreds of platforms. The site is supported by banner ads and a small ...

Full Circle AudioArtist profile
at

OverClocked ReMix OverClocked ReMix, also known as OC ReMix and OCR, is a non-commercial organization dedicated to preserving and paying tribute to video game music through arranging and re-interpreting the songs, both with new technology and software and by vari ...

Reverbnation Page
* Living people Video game composers Year of birth missing (living people) {{UK-composer-stub