Atari Intro

The games I designed and programmed in the mid 1980's were like short stories compared to the full blown "movie" productions of today. I'm happy to say that my games were intended for the public domain from the very start, like today's freeware-- anyone with an Atari computer could trade them, or type them in; and some have told me that typing in these games helped them get into programming (something people who got the games on floppy disks may not have regretted missing). Typing in others' programs got me into programming too-- I would have had a much more difficult time, for example, programming the language parser for Advent X-5 if it were not for my having typed in an adventure program from Byte magazine. I enjoyed all the aspects of creating these games: game play design, programming (with much trial and error debugging), graphics design, sound effects, music selection, play testing, creating world's full of obstacles and puzzles, writing the story-line instructions, and packaging them for publication. The sophistication of my later action game designs, when I developed more originality, was beyond Pac-man and Frogger type arcade games of the early 80's, but not quite as complexly large as late 80's games like Super Mario Bros.-- I wasn't really ahead or behind the times in game design, but by today's standards (3-D world immersion games like Half-Life 2, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, or The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, and new MMORPGFPS games that I hope will allow players to build ever more virtual worlds), my games are tiny dinosaurs.

I'm not sure exactly how many people have played my games-- Antic's circulation, at the time ranged from 100,000 - 150,000 internationally, and my featured games were amongst the most popular. Some people still remember my games twenty years later. I am thrilled to know that vintage electronic games have regained popularity, especially with endeavors such as the MAME project; and there are many websites that have archived old computer games. Electronic game design was a burgeoning art form when I was involved in it, and has recently become the object of many books, and some studies at universities, as an artistic medium. After programming games, I remained interested in the arts, pursuing more traditional mediums such as poetry, drawing, and photography. I think game designers should continue to draw upon these other artistic traditions to gain a perspective on the purpose of their art, beyond entertainment. Art is also about expression and learning: expressing and learning-- and creating--- who we are as beings of the universe. Beyond a series of wonderfully puzzling obstacles and goals, I would like to see even more games that develop characters that you feel you have meaningful relationship with, be it the character you play, or other characters in the game-- characters with interesting personalities. I also like games that revolutionize game play, like avant-garde art that challenges traditions, and twists them into something new. As "games," many electronic games are like sports, which can be a lot of fun; yet they have the potential, in creating alternate worlds, to reach the profound depths of fictional literature and other related arts.

Here is a compendium of my games, that you may download and play on an 8-bit Atari emulator like the Atari800Win Plus 4.0 emulator (all my games work with it). Included are some annotations, filling in some of the history of the games.