Chris Crawford is a noted computer game designer and writer, responsible for a number of important games in the 1980s, for founding The Journal of Computer Game Design and for organizing the Computer Game Developers' Conference. A computer game is a game composed of a computer-controlled virtual universe that players interact with in order to achieve a defined goal or set of goals. ... A game designer is a person who designs games. ... The 1980s refers to the years of 1980 to 1989. ... The Game Developers Conference (GDC) is an annual gathering of video game developers. ...

After receiving a B.S. in physics from UC Davis in 1972 and an M.S. in the same from University of Missouri - Columbia in 1975, Crawford taught at a community college and the University of California, then turned his game design hobby into a job at Atari in 1979. The first few hydrogen atom electron orbitals shown as cross-sections with color-coded probability density. ... The University of California, Davis, commonly known as UC Davis, is a public, coeducational university located in Davis, California, which is about fifteen miles west of Sacramento in Californias Central Valley. ... 1972 (MCMLXXII) was a leap year starting on Saturday. ... The University of Missouri–Columbia, (abbreviated MU and nicknamed Mizzou) is an institution of higher learning located in Columbia, Missouri, USA. Columbia is the flagship campus in the University of Missouri System with approximately 27,000 students. ... 1975 (MCMLXXV) was a common year starting on Wednesday. ... In Canada and the United States, a community college, sometimes called a technical college, county college, junior college or a city college, is an educational institution providing higher education and lower-level tertiary education, granting certificates, diplomas, and Associates degrees to people like laertes. ... The University of California (UC) is a public university system in the state of California. ... Game design is the process of designing the content and rules of a game. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... This page refers to the year 1979. ...

He worked on a number of games at Atari, including the best-selling Eastern Front, and as manager of their Games Research Group, wrote The Art of Computer Game Design. Eastern Front (1941) was a computer game for the Atari 8-bit series in 1981. ... The Art of Computer Game Design (ISBN 0881341177) by Chris Crawford is attributed by Wolf & Perron in The Video Game Theory Reader as being the first book devoted to the theory of video games. ...

Laid off in the Atari collapse during the video game crash of 1983-1984, he went freelance and produced the innovative Balance of Power in 1985, which was both highly-regarded and a best-seller, reaching 250,000 units sold. Additional creative strategy games followed, often taking commercial risks in order to explore new creative ideas (such as fog of war in Patton Versus Rommel). E.T. for the Atari 2600. ... Balance of Power is a computer strategy game of geopolitics during the Cold War, written by Chris Crawford and published in 1985. ... 1985 (MCMLXXXV) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... The fog of war is the lack of knowledge that occurs during a war. ... Patton vs. ...

The Game Developers Conference, which now draws over 10,000 attendees each year, began in 1987 as a series of salons held in Crawford's living room with his game design friends and associates. While the GDC has become a prominent event in the gaming industry, Crawford was eventually ousted from the GDC board. A salon is a gathering of stimulating people of quality under the roof of an inspiring hostess or host, partly to amuse one another and partly to refine their taste and increase their knowledge through conversation and readings, often consciously following Horaces definition of the aims of poetry, to...

Since 1992, Crawford has been working on Storytron (originally known as Erasmatron), an authoring tool for interactive electronic storyworlds (see interactive storytelling). A "pre-alpha" version of the Storytronics development system, Swat, has been released, with the alpha form expected by autumn 2006. An authoring tool is a software application used to create multimedia content typically for delivery on the World Wide Web. ... Interactive storytelling is a developing kind of computer entertainment. ...

Books

• De Re Atari (1982)
• The Art of Computer Game Design (1982)
• Balance of Power (1986)
• The Art of Interactive Design (No Starch Press, 2002) ISBN 1-886411-84-0
• Chris Crawford on Game Design (New Riders Press, 2003) ISBN 0-13-146099-4
• Chris Crawford on Interactive Storytelling (New Riders Press, 2004) ISBN 0-321-27890-9

1982 (MCMLXXXII) was a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar. ... The Art of Computer Game Design (ISBN 0881341177) by Chris Crawford is attributed by Wolf & Perron in The Video Game Theory Reader as being the first book devoted to the theory of video games. ... 1982 (MCMLXXXII) was a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Balance of Power is a computer strategy game of geopolitics during the Cold War, written by Chris Crawford and published in 1985. ... 1986 (MCMLXXXVI) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... No Starch Press is a publishing company specializing in computer books for the technically savvy, or geek entertainment as they term it. ... For album titles with the same name, see 2002 (album). ... The Art of Computer Game Design (ISBN 0881341177) by Chris Crawford is attributed by Wolf & Perron in The Video Game Theory Reader as being the first book devoted to the theory of video games. ... 2003 (MMIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... 2004 (MMIV) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Games

• Tanktics
• Legionnaire
• Wizard (finally released 25 years later, with the Atari Flashback 2)
• Energy Czar
• Scram
• Eastern Front (1941) (1981)
• Gossip
• Excalibur (1983)
• Balance of Power (1985)
• Patton Versus Rommel (1987)
• Trust & Betrayal: The Legacy of Siboot (1987)
• Balance of Power: The 1990 Edition (1989)
• The Global Dilemma: Guns & Butter (1990)
• Balance of the Planet (1990)
• Patton Strikes Back (1991)

This article is about the Atari 2600 game. ... The Atari Flashback 2 The Atari Flashback 2 is a plug-and-play video game console created in 2005 by Atari. ... Scram is the name of two video games, both based around a scram, or emergency shutdown of a nuclear reactor. ... Eastern Front (1941) was a computer game for the Atari 8-bit series in 1981. ... 1981 (MCMLXXXI) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Gossip was a game created for the Atari 400 by Chris Crawford. ... Excalibur is a notable early resource-management/strategy computer game for the Atari 8-bit computers. ... 1983 (MCMLXXXIII) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Balance of Power is a computer strategy game of geopolitics during the Cold War, written by Chris Crawford and published in 1985. ... 1985 (MCMLXXXV) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Patton vs. ... 1987 (MCMLXXXVII) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Trust & Betrayal: The Legacy of Siboot, often abbreviated simply to Siboot, was a game designed and programmed by Chris Crawford and published by Mindscape in 1987. ... 1987 (MCMLXXXVII) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... 1989 (MCMLXXXIX) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... This article is about the year. ... This article is about the year. ... 1991 (MCMXCI) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

See also

• People games

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External links

• Erasmatazz - Chris Crawford's personal website
• Storytron - Chris Crawford's commercial website

• Chris Crawford profile at MobyGames

• A Conversation with Chris Crawford in The Escapist webmagazine

• Video Games are Dead: A Chat With Storytronics Guru Chris Crawford at Gamasutra

• De Re Atari by Chris Crawford, et al.