Gaming LEGENDS at CGE

[digitalpress]

One of the features that make Classic Gaming Expo the greatest gaming event of the year is the attendance of electronic gaming's legends: the men and women who designed, developed, composed, or dreamed up the very cornerstones that today's video game industry builds from.

 

This is the first of several such announcements, confirmed "alumni" who will be on hand this year for two days' worth of seminars as well as meet-and-greet sessions and autograph opportunities with the attendees:

 

Steve Cartwright (Barnstorming, Megamania, Plaque Attack)

Warren Davis (Q*Bert, Joust 2, Us vs. Them)

Arnie Katz (Electronic Games, Sega Visions magazine)

Joe King (Loco-Motion, Motocross, Space Shuttle)

Bill Kunkel (Electronic Games, Sega Visions magazine)

Rick Levine (Microsurgeon, Truckin', PBA Bowling)

Alan Miller (Starmaster, Robot Tank, Ice Hockey)

Karen Nugent (BurgerTime, Mission X, Scooby Doo's Maze Chase)

Keith Robinson (TRON Solar Sailer, Intellvision Lives)

Steven Roney (Space Spartans, B-17 Bomber, Space Shuttle)

Tom Sloper (Spike, Bedlam, Ghostbusters)

Dave Warhol (Mind Strike, Thunder Castle, tons of C64 music)

Howard Scott Warshaw (Yar's Revenge, Raiders of the Lost Ark, E.T.)

Steve Woita (Taz, Quadrun, Sonic Spinball)

Joyce Worley (Electronic Games, Sega Visions magazine)

 

You can find out more about these remarkable personalities at the Celebrities page HERE.

[Tempest]

A nice list, but it seems rather Intellivision heavy (not that that's a bad thinig mind you). Where are all the 5200 programmers?

 

Steve Woita's back again? Doesn't that boy have a home? I may have to show up after all...

 

Tempest

[digitalpress]

Remember, it's only a portion of the list.

 

The reason why it seems Intellivision-heavy is because I didn't want it to seem Atari-heavy and thus balanced the group for this announcement. I'm announcing another speaker/alumni/legend every day for at least the next week, you probably won't see another Intellivision person listed during that time!

[sdstuff64]

Very cool,and the chumps from Extended play should be there.

 

 

Joe is anyone from T&T gonna be there?

[digitalpress]

Joe is anyone from T&T gonna be there?

 

Jason Wilson for sure, possibly Chris Bieniek and Ara Shirinian. And of course, yours truly. Tips & Tricks are one of our sponsors.

 

There are always lots of media people buzzing about. G4 hosted a slew of their "Icons" series from last year's show, and they'll be covering the show this year as well.

[Miqorz]

Will TechTV's Exten...I mean X-Play be there this year?

 

[sdstuff64]

They should be,then I can kick Adam or whatever his name is in the balls.

 

 

And thats good new Joe!I want to get my 100th T&T signed.

[digitalpress]

This week I will be announcing at least one new LEGEND who will appear at Classic Gaming Expo on August 9th and 10th, ending in a summarized update at the Classic Gaming Expo site.

 

You can view details on all of the confirmed legends who will be speaking, meeting, greeting, and signing autographs at this year's Classic Gaming Expo , but in this forum I'm going to provide some details about them. Take note of games and items that you might want to bring along for signatures!

 

Tim Skelly

 

Mr. Tim Skelly is legendary for the quality -- and quantity of his vector arcade game creations while at Cinematronics. Vectorscan graphics was a popular method used in displaying objects on the screen in videogames in the 1970's and early 1980's, and Skelly's early successes in this area led to several other companies following suit with vector graphics coin-op games of their own.

 

Between May, 1978 and May, 1981 Tim Skelly designed and programmed the classic vector graphic arcade games Star Hawk, Sundance, Warrior, Rip-Off and Armor Attack. During that time he also designed the fondly remembered (and still popular) Star Castle (programmed by Scott Boden) and the best forgotten War of the Worlds. Possibly the first artist/programmer to work in the field, all of these games, as well as all of his future projects, featured Mr. Skelly's own art.

 

From Cinematronics, Tim made a brief stop at Gremlin/Sega before going freelance. His first contract was to create pinball giant D. Gottlieb and Co.'s first original video game, Reactor. Two more games followed, both vanishing with the rest of the industry in the video game crash of 1983.

 

In 1986 Mr. Skelly climbed back on the horse. The Amiga computer had just been launched and as an artist, Tim finally saw an opportunity to develop quality bitmap graphics. He joined Richard and Elaine Ditton and Reactor sound designer David Thiel to develop Epyx's Winter Games for the Amiga, and shortly thereafter, Championship Wrestling. This core team grew to become Incredible Technologies. As IT's Art Director for six years, Mr. Skelly supervised a team of artists and personally created the artwork for Cinemaware's The Three Stooges Game, and FASA's original BattleTech Center. For the latter he was also called upon to design the "battlemechs" that form the core of today's MechWarrior universe. His last project for IT was to design and program a four-player version of his Cinematronics classic, Rip-Off.

 

In 1992, Tim Skelly was recruited by Sega to be Art Director for their special game development division, Sega Technical Institute. There he oversaw the work of both Japanese and American artists. The principle project completed there during his stay was Sonic the Hedgehog 2, for which he designed and created the "special round" graphics.

 

When Sonic 2 was finished, Mr. Skelly went to work as a Researcher in "software giant" Microsoft's Research Group. At Microsoft he consulted on Microsoft Bob (don't blame him if they didn't listen) and was part of the team that created the first fully interactive, 3D, real time, speech and speech recognition capable autonomous software agent, Peedy the Parrot. He also received a patent for his contributions to Microsoft's cartoon chat application, Comic Chat. Still, during his four year stay at Microsoft Mr. Skelly believes his principle contribution was to harangue Microsoft's developers about how crappy their interfaces were. While he does not claim credit, Tim is pleased to note that Microsoft's interfaces are slightly less crappy now than they were when he began work there.

 

Originally interested in pursuing a career in film and video production, Mr. Skelly today spends his time creating short films, the last of which was accepted for ACM SIGGRAPH's prestigious annual film theater presentation.

 

[sdstuff64]

I'll have to bring Sonic 2 to get signed.

[digitalpress]

Each day this week I will be announcing at least one new LEGEND who will appear at Classic Gaming Expo on August 9th and 10th, ending in a summarized update at the Classic Gaming Expo site.

 

You can view details on all of the confirmed legends who will be speaking, meeting, greeting, and signing autographs at this year's Classic Gaming Expo , but in this forum I'm going to provide some details about them. Take note of games and items that you might want to bring along for signatures!

 

Robert Smith

 

Mr. Bob Smith is a 20-year veteran of the electronic entertainment industry, and his repetoire of game titles is varied and star-studded. Smith's first foray into the world of games was with Seca, a 6K road racing game for the TRS-80 Computer that was distributed by Creative Computing in 1979. Following that success, he joined Atari, where his creation, Video Pinball, was a best-seller on the Atari VCS game system.

 

In 1982, Smith joined Imagic, history's second video game software publisher. There, he was responsible for several blockbuster games. Star Voyager, Riddle of the Sphinx, Dragonfire and Moonsweeper all were favorably received both by the gaming press and consumers alike. Not only were all of them immensely playable, Smith's games pushed the limits of what the VCS could do. In 1984, he was contracted by Parker Brothers to develop the Atari VCS version of Atari's coin-op hit Star Wars.

 

Smith then took his trade to Accolade. He was involved with WarpSpeed (Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis) and Charles Barkley Shut Up And Jam (I and II). He then left to join 3DO in 1998, where he was one of several programmers who worked on the hit game Army Men 3D for the company.

 

[DEBRO]

I wish I could go this year I'd love to talk to Bob Smith again. Any of you able to go...find the time to talk to Bob. He is a great guy

[digitalpress]

CONFIRMED... and still many more to report! Stay tuned.

 

Rob Zdybel

 

One of the most diverse game designers over the past 25 years, Rob Zdybel has crafted his magic on several different systems consistently over the years.

 

Perhaps his best-known work are the titles he designed or co-designed during his years at Atari. Mr. Zdybel can lay claim to several generations of Atari systems, developing the 8-bit era's Pigs in Space, RealSports Football, Stellar Track and Star Trek: SOS for the Atari 2600, Missile Command for the Atari 5200, and Bug Hunt for the Atari XE.

 

He also designed the system BIOS for the Atari 5200.

 

Atari was reborn in the mid-90's and Mr. Zdybel was there for that too, producing the exciting Hover Strike for the Jaguar and the engrossing multi-player Lynx experience that is WarBirds.

 

In recent years, you'll find Rob Zdybel in the credits as main programmer for the N64 games BattleTanx and BattleTanx: Global Assault, and World Destruction League: Thunder Tanks for PlayStation, all of which he designed during his years with 3DO.

[DEBRO]

I wish I could go this year. Joe you're driving the nife in deeper and deeper. I met Rob at CGE2K2 at the same time I met Bob Smith. Really great guys. Oh well, maybe they'll be at CGE2K4.

[digitalpress]

I wish I could go this year. Joe you're driving the nife in deeper and deeper. I met Rob at CGE2K2 at the same time I met Bob Smith. Really great guys. Oh well, maybe they'll be at CGE2K4.

 

Oh gosh! I'm sorry but it's only gonna get worse!

 

We are going to announce a plan to send someone to CGE, all expenses paid, as early as tomorrow night, however. Unless scheduling conflicts are holding you up, perhaps there's still a chance!

[digitalpress]

CONFIRMED.

 

Andy Fuchs

 

Andy left Hyde St. Recording Studios in 1981 to work as a sound designer and software engineer at Atari, where he developed sounds and music for many 2600 and 5200 games. For example, Atari 2600 fans may remember the sounds from Millipede, Obelix, Pengo, or Stargate - all of these were crafted by Fuchs. He also developed several sound editors for the Atari 800, and collaborated on a range of sound, music, and speech software.

 

After leaving Atari in 1983, Andy worked at The Software Machine, an educational software startup. He created music and sound editing software for the Apple II, Macintosh, and IBM PC; and designed a sound card for coin-op games.

 

In 1986 Andy moved to Europe and three years later to Australia, where he ran his own business and completed a Master of Information Systems degree. In 1997 he moved back to the Bay Area to work as the lead technical writer at Kabira Technologies, a company producing e-business infrastructure software.

 

Andy still works as a sound engineer when time and opportunity permit, and teaches sound engineering at Cazadero Performing Arts Camp in the Northern California redwoods.

[digitalpress]

CONFIRMED.

 

Jay Smith

 

During classic video gaming's early years, Jay Smith, then president of Western Technologies and Smith Engineering, had a vision.

 

In 1979, he designed Milton Bradley's Microvision, which was the world's first handheld system to use cartridges. The compact design was incredibly innovative, featuring game cartridges that contained their own micro processors and overlays. Though the world wasn't quite ready for the Microvision, the concept of independent, portable game systems and exchangeable screen overlays would experience a rebirth of sorts in Mr. Smith's next innovation.

 

In 1981, he presented the concept of the "Mini Arcade" - a self-contained game system featuring vector graphics and its own 5" monitor. The idea was initially pitched to Kenner but rejected. A few tweaks to the design - most notably a bigger, 9" monitor - attracted another company, General Consumer Electronics (GCE). In the summer of 1982, GCE's Vectrex was launched.

 

Both of these systems still have a great following, and they're both extraordinarily unique even by today's standards. Meet the man who made it all happen at Classic Gaming Expo.

 

[digitalpress]

CONFIRMED.

 

Dan Kramer

 

With an early involvement in troubleshooting all types of analog and digital circuitry, then five years in high reliability defense electronics, Dan Kramer delved into the newly burgeoning world of home video gaming with Atari. From 1980 to 1984, he was in the middle of the consumer engineering group responsible for developing both the home computer and home video game products. The coin-op games division was also virtually at arm's reach.

 

Within a year of his start with Atari, Kramer championed the creation of the Trak-ball Controller for the home gamer: the models for both the 800 computer/2600 Video Computer System and the 5200 SuperSystem were brought to market as a result of his diligence. He also received a U.S. patent for designing a digital to analog interface for the 5200 trak-ball. After the collapse of Atari Inc. in 1984 and its subsequent purchase and name change to Atari Corp. he escaped to follow other pursuits for the ensuing ten years.

 

Mr. Kramer has been operating since 1994 as an independent service entity covering classic video games, pinball machines, juke boxes and arcade games. He has recently joined Nuby, a leading maker of controllers and accessories for major video game systems.

 

[digitalpress]

CONFIRMED.

 

Ed Rotberg

 

If you can measure a video game designer's prowess by his ability to cross genres, platforms, and manufacturers, then surely a designer who crosses entire ERAs measures highest of all.

 

Ed Rotberg designed coin-ops in three decades, and was with Atari both when it was in its infancy in the 1970's and again during its resurgence in the 1990's. His first arcade design was Atari Baseball in 1979 but in those early years he is best known for designing the classic Battlezone.

 

Rotberg moved from Atari to Sente and spent a good deal of the 1980's designing that company's cornerstone titles, such as Snake Pit, Hat Trick, and Goalie Ghost.

 

In 1987 he returned to Atari and was instrumental in exploiting some truly unique hardware developments with his brilliant S.T.U.N. Runner coin-op design. He was also the lead designer on Atari's Blasteroids, and co-designed the helicopter sim/arcade game Steel Talons with Ed Logg. In between those popular games, he also developed the vastly underrated Shuuz (which happens to be a favorite around here).

[jjessop]

If I manage to make it down this year I'll try and bring a "surprise guest" only to be known as Atari employee #9.

 

More details as soon as he accepts my job offer

 

Jerry

[digitalpress]

There will be a few surprise guests at CGE this year, but I'll let you in on one of them.

 

If you know this song, then you know the game, then you know the man.

 

http://digitalpress.5u.com/mysteryguest.wav

 

As they confirm with us, I will be announcing each LEGEND who will appear at Classic Gaming Expo on August 9th and 10th. You'll be able to see the summary of these "alumni" guests at the Classic Gaming Expo site.

 

You can view details on all of the confirmed legends who will be speaking, meeting, greeting, and signing autographs at this year's Classic Gaming Expo , but in this forum I'm going to provide some details about them. Take note of games and items that you might want to bring along for signatures!

 

Paul Norman

 

Paul Norman's feel for classic video game music probably stems from his experience as a guitarist and composer for several bands during the 1970's and 80's. He toured with such acts as Steppenwolf, Chicago, Taj Mahal, and many others!

 

What the gaming community know him best for is his work at Cosmi from 1982 through 1989. His hits included Forbidden Forest, Aztec Challenge, Caverns of Khaftka, Super Huey Helicopter, Beyond the Forbidden Forest, Huey II, Def Con 5, Navy Seal, and The President Is Missing. Anyone who owned a computer in the 80's knows at least ONE of these games very well.

 

Mr. Norman has remained involved in the industry since. His diverse projects include development in the early years of CD-ROM game market, releasing the mystery-adventure Murder Makes Strange Deadfellows. He was also a producer/designer on the Sega Genesis game Home Alone II: Lost In New York, heading up that design group. In 1998 he produced and edited the video and audio content for Discovery Channel's CD-ROM PC and 3DO title Carrier: Fortress At Sea.

 

Today, you can find Mr. Norman building games for the Web (www.digittarius.com/Azteca/) and recording music again. Meet him at Classic Gaming Expo and catch up with this versatile personality.

[digitalpress]

CONFIRMED.

 

Don Daglow

 

Don Daglow has been designing, programming and producing games for 23 years. His career covers every era of industry history, from the cartridges of the first game systems to the mega-budget blockbusters of today.

 

Don started designing games as a hobby while a student at Pomona College and Claremont Graduate University. During the 1970's he programmed the first-ever computer baseball game (1971, now recorded in the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown), one of the two principle Star Trek games played on American college systems (1972) and the first mainframe computer role-playing game (Dungeon, 1976).

 

In 1980 Don was hired as one of the five original programmers on Mattel's in-house Intellivision game design team. After creating an educational game for the ill-fated Intellivision Keyboard Component, he designed Utopia, the first sim game, which is often referred to as "Civilization 0.5." Introduced at the 1982 CES show, the game was the surprise hit of the show and went on to be an Intellivision best-seller that Christmas.

 

As the Mattel team grew Don was named director of Intellivision software development, and focused on recruiting the team and managing Mattel's Intellivision titles. In 1983 he co-designed (with Eddie Dombrower) Intellivision World Series Baseball, the first game to use TV camera angles to display the action.

 

As the video game business was crashing in late 1983, Don went to a young startup company called Electronic Arts, where he was employee #43. Over the next three years Don was the producer for 14 of EA's early titles, including Adventure Construction Set, Racing Destruction Set, Mail Order Monsters, World Tour Golf and Lords of Conquest. He co-designed Earl Weaver Baseball (again with Eddie Dombrower) for EA, which is now in the Computer Game Hall of Fame.

 

After a stint in an executive role leading Broderbund's entertainment and education division, Don founded Stormfront Studios, an independent game development company, in 1988. There he co-designed the first fully automated play-by-email game (Quantum Space for AOL, 1989), the first massively multi-player graphical role playing game (Neverwinter Nights for AOL, 1991-97) and the Tony La Russa Baseball series, as well as other titles.

 

Now in his fifteenth year as CEO of Stormfront Studios, Don continues to oversee all game development at the company. Stormfront's most recent titles are the hit The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (PS2 & Xbox for EA, based on the Peter Jackson Film from New Line Cinema), and Blood Wake (Xbox for Microsoft Games Studio).

[Curt Vendel]

CONFIRMED.

 

Don Daglow

 

Don Daglow has been designing, programming and producing games for 23 years. His career covers every era of industry history, from the cartridges of the first game systems to the mega-budget blockbusters of today.

 

Don started designing games as a hobby while a student at Pomona College and Claremont Graduate University. During the 1970's he programmed the first-ever computer baseball game (1971, now recorded in the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown), one of the two principle Star Trek games played on American college systems (1972) and the first mainframe computer role-playing game (Dungeon, 1976).

 

.

 

Thats a good speaker Joe, I did a lot of reading up on Don's early work as I was a huge fan of D&D and Star Trek mainframe based games. While not specifically Don's game, I got seriously hooked on Conquest which was a Star Trek based game on my college Vax 11/750 after hours in the computer lab, we used to bring that Vax to its knee's when like 10 or more people got involved in a game. Telengard is also another favorite and while I finally own the Atari version, I personally perferred the Compuserve Telengard version.

 

Since Don's works span so many different genre's and generations, he will have an superb story to tell.

 

 

Curt

[digitalpress]

CONFIRMED.

 

Mark Lesser

 

Mark's career in electronic gaming has spanned 25 years, from the early days of 4-bit handhelds through the evolution of the video game console.

 

In 1975 Mattel Electronics approached Rockwell International with the idea of using handheld calculator technology to create the first handheld electronic game. Mark Lesser, as an electrical engineer at Rockwell, was given sole responsibility to redo the circuit design and program a calculator chip to make the ground-breaking handheld game Mattel AutoRace. This was the first computer program Mark ever wrote, but hardly the last. Mark proceeded to program the very popular Mattel Football I and Mattel Baseball, as well as a host of other handhelds, including Mattel Missile Attack, Brain Baffler, and Horoscope Computer.

 

Later, at Parker Brothers, Mark started programming and designing video games, including Frogger II and Lord of the Rings for the Atari VCS.

 

Still later, Mark single-handedly programmed a series of very popular sports games on the Sega Genesis for Electronic Arts. These games include Madden '93 Football, and the NHL Hockey series from 1994 through 1997. Mark's name can be found in the credits of dozens of other video and PC games.

 

Mark and his wife Mary Ellin are currently raising two sons on the coast of Maine, both of whom have inherited the gaming bug. Mark is delighted to see Mattel Football I and Mattel Baseball recently reissued after more than 25 years and finds it interesting to watch his sons playing the games he programmed so long ago.

[MegaManFan]

CONFIRMED: This thread gets a lot of updates. j/k Joe.

[digitalpress]

CONFIRMED: This thread gets a lot of updates.  j/k Joe.

 

I'm just trying to keep everyone informed while using the minimum amount of real estate. I've already been warned not to advertise CGE too much here.

 

So without further ado, here's another CONFIRMED.

 

JOHN HARRIS

 

Mr. Harris is a legendary designer best known for Jawbreaker, Frogger and Mouskattack for the Atari 8-bit computers while with Sierra On-Line. He later ported Jawbreaker for the Atari 2600 for Tigervision, and designed educational software for the Atari 8-bit during his tenure at Blythe Valley Software.

 

Today, John continues to push the limits of design and performance. He has joined other industry veterans as a partner in Pulsar Interactive Corp. He wrote the A.I. and major systems design on Quest for Glory V for Yosemite Entertainment. He also took a mundane task, a management training tool for IBM executives, and injected the fun and feel of a gaming atmosphere. Manage This! was the resulting program, and was recognized as the best and most engrossing training experience ever. His latest work takes John back to his roots in creating ground-breaking performance on the limited hardware of the Game Boy Color.