Chris Crawford
Moby ID: 744
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Education:
MS, Physics, University of Missouri, Columbia, 1975 BS, Physics, University of California, Davis, 1972
After teaching physics at a community college, I went to the University of California, where I taught energy policy issues to high school students for University Extension. Then my longtime hobby of game design became my job when I joined Atari in 1979. I designed a game for the Atari Video Computer System before moving to the Atari Home Computer System, where I created two educational simulation games: Energy Czar and Scram (a nuclear power plant simulation.)
I was promoted to supervise a group that trained programmers about the Atari computers. While running this group, I created in my spare time Eastern Front (1941), a game that became a best-seller. Another game, Legionnaire, came shortly thereafter. I was then promoted to manage a new group, the Games Research Group. There I wrote The Art of Computer Game Design and created Excalibur, a game about the Arthurian legends.
In March of 1984 I was laid off during the general collapse of Atari. I became a freelance computer game designer, taught myself the innards of the Macintosh computer, and created Balance of Power. This is my most successful game, having sold about 250,000 units.
In 1986 I wrote Patton Versus Rommel, a wargame. I also wrote a book about the Balance of Power game. In 1987 came Trust & Betrayal. In 1987/88 I wrote the second edition of Balance of Power. Two of my games were published in 1990, Guns & Butter (about macroeconomics) and Balance of the Planet, a game about environmental problems. Another wargame, Patton Strikes Back, was published in 1991. My current project, now nine years in the making, is a technology for interactive storytelling and a development environment that permits nontechnical artists to control the technology.
Along the way I created, edited, and wrote most of The Journal of Computer Game Design. I founded and ran the Computer Game Developers' Conference during its first seven years. I have lectured on game design in eight countries and many universities.
In 1999, I participated in the NASA Leonid MAC airborne mission to observe the Leonid meteor storm:
Credited on 16 games
Displaying most recent · View all
High Command: Europe 1939-'45 (1992, DOS) | Special Thanks To |
Patton Strikes Back: The Battle of the Bulge (1991, DOS) | Lead Design |
The Global Dilemma: Guns or Butter (1990, DOS) | Design |
SimEarth: The Living Planet (1990, DOS) | Special Thanks To |
Balance of the Planet (1990, Macintosh) | By |
Balance of Power: The 1990 Edition (1989, Apple IIgs) | Designed by |
Balance of Power (1988, MSX) | By |
Trust and Betrayal: The Legacy of Siboot (1987, Macintosh) | By |
Patton vs Rommel (1987, DOS) | Software design |
Excalibur (1983, Atari 8-bit) | Game by |
Gossip (1983, Atari 8-bit) | Game by |
Eastern Front (1941) (1981, Atari 8-bit) | By |
Tanktics (1981, Atari 8-bit) | Game Design |
Scram (1981, Atari 8-bit) | By |
Energy Czar (1980, Atari 8-bit) | By |
Legionnaire (1979, Commodore PET/CBM) | Written by |
[ full credits ]
Frequent Collaborators
People- 7 games with Dave Menconi
- 6 games with Greg Williams
- 6 games with Eric Goldberg
- 6 games with Dale Yocum
- 5 games with Kathy Crawford
- 4 games with Peter Mitchell-Dayton
- 4 games with Susan W. Lee-Merrow
- 3 games with Jim Weisz
- 3 games with Caitlin Mitchell-Dayton
- 3 games with Steve Axelrod
[ 128 more people ]
Companies
- 4 games with Mindscape SA
- 4 games with Atari Holdings, Inc.
- 3 games with Atari Program Exchange
- 2 games with Avalon Hill Game Company, The
- 2 games with Brøderbund Software, Inc.
- 1 game with Maxis Software Inc.
- 1 game with Electronic Arts, Inc.
- 1 game with Bandai Namco Entertainment UK Ltd.
- 1 game with Acclaim Studios Salt Lake City
- 1 game with Three-Sixty Pacific, Inc.
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