Danielle Bunten Berry (February 19, 1949 - July 3, 1998), also known as Dani Bunten (born Daniel Paul Bunten), was an American game designer and programmer, known for the 1983 game M.U.L.E. (one of the first successful multiplayer games), and 1984's The Seven Cities of Gold. Bunten was a transsexual woman, having undergone sex reassignment surgery in November 1992. February 19 is the 50th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1949 (MCMXLIX) was a common year starting on Saturday (the link is to a full 1949 calendar). ... July 3 is the 184th day of the year (185th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar, with 181 days remaining. ... 1998 (MCMXCVIII) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International Year of the Ocean [1]. // Coated in ice, power and telephone lines sag and often break, resulting in power outages. ... A game designer is a person who designs games. ... A programmer or software developer is someone who programs computers, that is, one who writes computer software. ... 1983 (MCMLXXXIII) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... M.U.L.E. is a seminal multiplayer video game written in 1983 by Dan Bunten of Ozark Softscape. ... 1984 (MCMLXXXIV) was a leap year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... The Seven Cities of Gold is an adventure game created by Dani (then Dan) Bunten (and the game development team Bunten founded, Ozark Softscape) and published by Electronic Arts in 1984 for the Apple IIe, the Atari 800 and Commodore 64 computers, as well as the IBM PC and compatibles. ... A transsexual (sometimes transexual) person establishes a permanent identity with the opposite gender to their assigned (usually at birth) sex. ... This article does not cite its references or sources. ... 1992 (MCMXCII) was a leap year starting on Wednesday. ...

Biography

Born and raised in St Louis, Missouri and moved to Little Rock, Arkansas as a junior in High School, Bunten acquired a degree in industrial engineering in 1974 and started programming text-based computer games as a hobby. In 1978, she sold a real-time auction game for the Apple II titled Wheeler Dealers to a Canadian software company, Speakeasy Software. This early multiplayer game required a custom controller, raising its price to US$35 in an era of $15 games sold in plastic bags. It sold only 50 copies.^[1] The Gateway Arch, shown here behind the Old Courthouse, is the most recognizable part of the St. ... Coordinates: Country United States State Arkansas County Pulaski Founded 1821 Incorporated 1831 Government  - Mayor Mark Stodola Area  - City  116. ... Industrial engineering is a branch of engineering that concerns the development, improvement, implementation and evaluation of integrated systems of people, money, knowledge, information, equipment, energy, material and process. ... 1974 (MCMLXXIV) was a common year starting on Tuesday. ... 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. ... 1978 (MCMLXXVIII) was a common year starting on Sunday. ... The Apple II was one of the most popular personal computers of the 1980s. ... Wheeler Dealers is a TV show on Discovery Turbo, fronted by Mike Brewer with mechanic Edd China The plot line is that Brewer and China are on a mission to save repairable classic cars. ... ISO 4217 Code USD User(s) the United States, the British Indian Ocean Territory,[1] the British Virgin Islands, Cambodia, East Timor, Ecuador, El Salvador, Maldives the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Palau, Panama, Turks and Caicos Islands, and the insular areas of the United States Inflation 2. ...

After three titles for SSI, Bunten, who by then had founded her own software company called Ozark Softscape, caught the attention of Electronic Arts founder Trip Hawkins. M.U.L.E. was Bunten's first game for EA, originally published for the Atari 8-bit family because the Atari 800 had four controller ports. Bunten later ported it to the Commodore 64. While its sales — 30,000 units — were not high, the game developed a cult following and was widely pirated. The title was inspired by Time Enough for Love, by Robert A. Heinlein. Strategic Simulations, Inc. ... EA redirects here. ... William M. Trip Hawkins III (born 1953) is a Silicon Valley American entrepreneur and co-founder of Electronic Arts, The 3DO Company and Digital Chocolate. ... M.U.L.E. is a seminal multiplayer video game written in 1983 by Dan Bunten of Ozark Softscape. ... An Atari 800XL, one of the most popular machines in the series. ... The Commodore 64 is the best-selling single personal computer model of all time. ... The copyright infringement of software refers to several practices when done without the permission of the copyright holder: Creating a copy and/or selling it. ... Time Enough for Love is a science fiction novel by Robert A. Heinlein published in 1973. ... Robert Anson Heinlein (July 7, 1907 – May 8, 1988) was one of the most popular, influential, and controversial authors of hard science fiction. ...

Bunten wanted to follow up M.U.L.E. with a game that would have been similar to the later game Civilization, but after her Ozark Softscape partners balked at the idea, she followed with The Seven Cities of Gold, which proved popular in spite of (or possibly because of) its simplicity. By the time the continent data were stored in memory, there was little memory left for fancy graphics or complex gameplay. The game only had five resources. It was a hit, selling more than 150,000 copies. Civilization is a computer game created by Sid Meier for Microprose in 1991. ... The Seven Cities of Gold is an adventure game created by Dani (then Dan) Bunten (and the game development team Bunten founded, Ozark Softscape) and published by Electronic Arts in 1984 for the Apple IIe, the Atari 800 and Commodore 64 computers, as well as the IBM PC and compatibles. ...

The follow-up game, Heart of Africa, appeared in 1985 and was followed by Robot Rascals, a combination computer/card game that had no single-player mode and sold only 9,000 copies, and 1988's Modem Wars, the first game played by two players over a dialup modem. Sales were poor because modems were not yet commonplace. Heart of Africa was a treasure-hunting game for the Commodore 64. ... 1985 (MCMLXXXV) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Robot Rascals is a scavenger hunt game that was developed by Ozark Softscape and published by Electronic Arts in 1986 for various computers, such as the Commodore 64. ... 1988 (MCMLXXXVIII) was a leap year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar. ... A modem (from modulate and demodulate) is a device that modulates an analog carrier signal to encode digital information, and also demodulates such a carrier signal to decode the transmitted information. ...

Bunten departed EA for Microprose, where she reportedly had a choice between doing a computer version of the Avalon Hill board game Civilization or a version of Axis and Allies. Bunten claimed Sid Meier talked her into doing Axis and Allies (which became 1990's Command HQ, a modem/network World War II game), while Meier did Civilization, which went on to become one of the best-selling computer games of all time. Bunten's second and last game for Microprose was 1992's Global Conquest, a 4-player network/modem war game. It was the first 4-player network game from a major publisher. MicroProse Software, Inc. ... Avalon Hill was a game company that specialized in wargames and strategic board games. ... A board game is a game played with counters or pieces that are placed on, removed from, or moved across a board (a premarked surface, usually specific to that game). ... Civilization is a board game designed by Francis Tresham, published in Britain in 1980 by Hartland Trefoil (later by Gibson Games), and in the US in 1981 by Avalon Hill. ... Axis and Allies redirects here. ... Sidney K. Meier (born 1954 in Detroit, Michigan) is a renowned American programmer and designer of some of the most commercially and critically successful computer strategy games of all time. ... MCMXC redirects here; for the Enigma album, see MCMXC a. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... Combatants Allied powers: China France Great Britain Soviet Union United States and others Axis powers: Germany Italy Japan and others Commanders Chiang Kai-shek Charles de Gaulle Winston Churchill Joseph Stalin Franklin Roosevelt Adolf Hitler Benito Mussolini Hideki Tōjō Casualties Military dead: 17,000,000 Civilian dead: 33,000... 1992 (MCMXCII) was a leap year starting on Wednesday. ...

After her third marriage failed, Bunten, who had until then been living as male, transitioned to living as a woman. She underwent sex reassignment surgery in November 1992 and later kept a lower profile in the games industry. A port of M.U.L.E. to the Sega Genesis was cancelled after Bunten refused to put guns and bombs in the game. She felt it would alter the game too much from its original concept. This article does not cite its references or sources. ... 1992 (MCMXCII) was a leap year starting on Wednesday. ... The Mega Drive/Genesis was a 16-bit video game console released by Sega in Japan (1988), Europe (1990) and most of the rest of the world as the Mega Drive. ...

In 1997, Bunten shifted focus to multiplayer games over the Internet with Warsport, a remake of Modem Wars that debuted on the MPlayer.com MPlayer game network. Bunten, a chain smoker since her teens, was diagnosed with lung cancer and died in 1998. MPlayer logo For the free media player, see mplayer. ... Chain smoking is the practice of lighting a new cigarette for personal consumption immediately after one that is finished, sometimes using the finished cigarette to light the next one. ... Lung cancer is the malignant transformation and expansion of lung tissue, and is the most lethal of all cancers worldwide, responsible for 1. ...

She was working on an Internet version of M.U.L.E. when she died.^[1]

SHE IS THE DAUGHTER OF SIMON COWELL AND PAULA ABDUL....the current hosts of pussycat doolls. She now works as a wiatress and singer at a night club (the same one mary jane of spider man works at).

Effect on the game industry

Although many of Bunten's titles were not commercially successful, they were widely recognized by the industry as being ahead of their time. On May 7, 1998, less than two months before her death, Berry was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Computer Game Developers Association. May 7 is the 127th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (128th in leap years). ... 1998 (MCMXCVIII) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International Year of the Ocean [1]. // Coated in ice, power and telephone lines sag and often break, resulting in power outages. ... An award is something given to a person or group of people to recognize excellence in a certain field. ... The International Game Developers Association (IGDA) is a non-profit organization designed to promote, and strengthen the video game industry, and have computer games recognised as an art form. ...

In 2000, Will Wright dedicated his blockbuster hit The Sims to her memory. For games beginning with Sim, see List of Sim games. ...

In 2007, the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences chose Bunten to be inducted into their Hall of Fame.^[2] The Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences (AIAS) is a non-profit organization that promotes entertainment software, such as video and computer games, with its Interactive Achievement Awards ceremony held annually since 1998. ... Since 1998, the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences (AIAS) has annually inducted into its Hall of Fame video game developers that have made revolutionary and innovative achievements in the computer and video game industry. ...

Quotes

• "No one ever said on their deathbed, 'Gee, I wish I had spent more time alone with my computer.'"

References

1. ^ ^{a b} Interview with Berry from Halcyon Days
2. ^ Dani Bunten Berry, pioneering video game designer makes the Hall of Fame (2007-02-08).

See also

• Rebecca Heineman
• List of programmers
• List of transgendered people

Rebecca Ann Heineman, formerly known as Bill Heineman, is a computer game programmer. ... This is a list of programmers notable for their contributions to software, either as original author or architect, or for later additions. ... The people on this list have been selected because their fame or notoriety was in some way due or connected to their transgender identity or behaviour. ...

External links

• Danielle Bunten Berry profile at MobyGames
• The tragic genius of M.U.L.E. (Salon magazine)
• A tribute to Berry by Greg Costikyan
• Gamasutra's tribute to Berry
• A list of Berry's games
• Dani Bunten Berry Memorial Site
• Dani Bunten Berry named to the Academy of Interactive Arts