Tim Follin

Timothy John Follin (born 19 December 1970) 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.

Follin has also co-founded a TV advertising company called ABF Pictures and a general-purpose media company called Baggy Cat Ltd, which to date has produced two video games, Contradiction and At Dead of Night, the latter receiving massive attention and acclaim on Steam.

Among Follin's works are the soundtracks to Solstice, Silver Surfer, Spider-Man/X-Men: Arcade's Revenge, Plok, and Ecco the Dolphin: Defender of the Future.

As a child, Follin had no significant music training.

Leaving Liverpool's Sandown Music College after one year of studies, Follin's career began at the age of 15 working at Insight Studios.

Follin ended up in video games due to his older brother Mike Follin learning how to program for the ZX Spectrum and obtaining professional work at Insight.

After developing a pulse-width modulation effect Tim wrote the music driver and soundtrack for their first professional game, Subterranean Stryker, followed by an arrangement of Stravinsky's "The Firebird", used for the game Star Firebirds.

Follin then developed a three-channel sound routine which he used to create the music for his third soundtrack, Vectron.

He then went on to create 4- and 5-channel music for games such as Chronos and Agent X.

In his early career, Follin's music was praised in magazine game reviews.

Follin's sole game programming credit (not counting music drivers) came with his fourth title, Future Games, where he created one minigame of the several featured.

Hired by Richard Kay, Tim followed brother Mike in moving to Software Creations in 1987, his first full-time job, where he spent a significant portion of his career.

Follin's arranged soundtrack to Bubble Bobble was his first written for a soundchip, the AY-3-8910.

Follin wrote the music for Black Lamp in one night after a bout of writer's block.

Within the level 1 music of Ghouls'n Ghosts for the Amiga is a voice sample played backwards saying "secret authority", considered nothing more than a joke by Follin.

Alongside Ghouls'n Ghosts, two other Amiga soundtracks, Sly Spy and Puzznic, were presented in the Amiga music format "Follin Player II".

To arcade soundtrack arrangements like Bionic Commando and Ghouls'n Ghosts, Follin added richer sound palette and occasionally composed some new songs (the title music of Ghouls'n Ghosts).

Follin described the NES title Solstice as "a very inspiring game to do music for," demanding atmospheric music within the game's dark castle environment, as well as powerful music choreographed with the title sequence.

Follin did not use a keyboard or any instruments for the Solstice soundtrack, composing while "thinking along the lines of the computer and not [...] a keyboard."

Follin felt the programming-only approach allowed him to work with "a more open mind".

In a 1990 interview, Follin expressed "a bit of desolation" over the prospect of no longer composing for the Commodore 64, stating "I don't see myself staying with this machine," perhaps sensing the transition occurring in the European gaming marketplace as the third generation of video and computer game platforms reached its end.

Follin's final Commodore 64 release came with 1991's Gauntlet III.

While with Software Creations, Follin had previously arranged the Starsky & Hutch television series' theme as the title music to the 1991 NES release Treasure Master.

Beside contributing the soundtrack with brother Geoff, Follin recorded live sound effects for 1993 SNES title Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends.

Citing a declining work environment, Follin departed Software Creations in 1993 (with his final title there being Rock N' Roll Racing).

After leaving Software Creations, Follin joined Malibu Interactive for 18 months.

While working for Malibu, Follin provided the soundtrack for Time Trax on the Sega Mega Drive and (along with brother Geoff) Prime for the Sega CD, doing "virtually nothing and getting paid" for the following year before winding up out of work.

Another title composed alongside brother Geoff, Firearm, went unpublished.

Follin would spend the remainder of his video game career as a freelancer.

Following Malibu Interactive's collapse, Follin then worked with groups that made unsuccessful game pitches to Psygnosis and the BBC.

Follin provided part of the soundtrack for Batman & Robin, developed by Probe.

Follin joined the development team of Ecco the Dolphin: Defender of the Future as the title's lead composer around mid-1998, leaving Attila Heger no longer responsible for providing the entirety of the soundtrack.

(Heger was made primarily responsible for scoring the game's cutscenes.) Follin had been offered the composer position by Sega UK producer David Nulty, who was a fan of Follin's Commodore 64 work.

The soundtrack received very favourable reviews from Edge, DC-UK, and Official Dreamcast Magazine.

The 2003 multiplatform release Starsky & Hutch was given a funk-style score by Follin, who said at the time, "This is the project I had hoped I would get one day. I've always loved Starsky & Hutch and its original title music."

Around August 2005, Follin announced on his website "with much delight" that he had chosen to stop composing music for video games, citing its irregular work not providing a substantial income, light-heartedly adding that the situation caused him "distress and illness".

The tenuous nature of game development caused several instances of Follin being hired and subsequently having the project shelved.

Follin noted that Starsky & Hutch had been in development for around three years before eventually being released.

Towards the end of 2012 Follin decided to dust off an idea originally conceived as an interactive audio adventure game and reworked the concept as a video-based adventure game called Contradiction, which he designed and scripted, then filmed and programmed, also composing the game's soundtrack.

The game was subsequently released on iPad and later on Steam.