Simon Woodroffe

Developer BIO

Simon Woodroffe is the son of Mike and Patricia Woodroffe, who founded Adventure Soft UK (succeeded by Horror Soft and Headfirst Productions). When he was young he hooked on the delights of Miner 2049er on the Atari and helped his father in his computer shop (Callisto Computers) in Birmingham. When he was 6 he wrote his first game - Tunnels of Terror - for the TRS 80 but it was never published. The first game he worked on was Heroes of Lance (Level Designer/Tester) and afterwards he was involved in the production of various other Horror Soft tiles.

He was studying AI at the university when he was offered the scripting job for Simon the Sorcerer as a way to earn part time money. The creation of Simon the Sorcerer - not named after himself - occurred during a long car journey down the M5 when they were thinking about a character in a fantasy environment that could compete with the GuyBrushes and Rincewinds. When Simon the Sorcerer 2 (1995) rolled around he was offered full time money and so he quit to get into the industry. After the publication of Simon 2 he was haunted by the idea that he had to write another Simon game, but he was fascinated by the idea to write a real "space opera," and so the idea of The Feeble Files was born. Its title was inspired by the movie "Meet the Feebles" and the "X-files," and the game was published in 1997.

After his work as Lead Designer at Adventure Soft he became Creative Director at Headfirst Productions Ltd (1998), where he worked on Simon the Sorcerer 3D (2002) and Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth (2005). He was also (officially) credited as Additional Designer for Simon the Sorcerer 4: Chaos ist das halbe Leben (“Simon the Sorcerer: Chaos Happens”).

Simon Woodroffe joined Midway Games in April 2006, where he worked as Creative Director on Wheelman. He stayed at Midway Games till July 2009, when he became Studio Creative Director at Longtail Studios. In November 2009 he joined Sega as R&D Creative Director.

Websites

• Interview with Simon Woodroffe -- on AdventureClassicGaming.com

Games Credited

• Crush (2012), SEGA Europe Ltd.
• Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed (2012), SEGA of America, Inc.
• Renegade Ops (2011), SEGA of America, Inc.
• Sonic Generations (2011), SEGA of America, Inc.
• Sonic & SEGA All-Stars Racing (2010), SEGA Europe Ltd.
• Wheelman (2009), Midway Home Entertainment, Inc., Ubisoft, Inc.
• Simon the Sorcerer 4: Chaos Happens (2007), RTL Enterprises GmbH
• Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth (2005), 2K Games, Inc., Bethesda Softworks LLC
• Simon the Sorcerer 3D (2002), Adventure Soft Publishing Ltd.
• Elvira's Horror Pack (1998), Adventure Soft Publishing Ltd.
• The Feeble Files (1997), Adventure Soft Publishing Ltd.
• Simon the Sorcerer II: The Lion, the Wizard and the Wardrobe (1995), Adventuresoft Ltd.
• Simon the Sorcerer (1993), Infocom, Inc.
• WaxWorks (1992), Accolade, Inc.
• Elvira II: The Jaws of Cerberus (1991), Accolade, Inc.
• Elvira (1990), Accolade, Inc.