Pete Cooke

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Pete Cooke (born 1956) is a famous British computer games programmer, best known for his work published in the 1980s for the 8-bit home computers, especially the ZX Spectrum.

His software is often instantly-recognisable thanks to his use of his own point and click GUI in many of his games. This is manipulated by keyboard or joystick since it was rare for Spectrum owners to use a mouse.

Cooke's games were notable for being extremely innovative and ahead of their time. Tau Ceti (released 1985), for example, featured not only a form of solid 3D graphics but was also set on a planet with night and day cycles and shadows. Micronaut One (released 1987) was imaginatively set inside futuristic biocomputers with the player controlling a microscopic craft and attempting to clear the tunnels of the biocomputers of an insect-like life form called "skrim". This game also used fast-moving 3D graphics as well as featuring an enemy that went through a realistic (if speeded-up) life-cycle, beginning each level as eggs and progressing to larvae and eventually adult skrim which would then lay more eggs. Even Cooke's more straightforward games, like the 1988 shoot 'em up Earthlight, featured their own complexities and technical gimmicks.

As well as these games, Cooke programmed the ZX Spectrum and CPC versions of Stunt Car Racer and also released a game for the 16-bit Amiga and Atari ST in 1990 called Tower of Babel.

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