Alan Emrich is best known as a writer about and designer of video games, who coined the term "4X", contributed to the design of Master of Orion and Master of Orion 3 , and wrote strategy guides for video games. Before the rise of video games, Emrich wrote about and designed board games and organized conventions about them. He currently runs a small game publishing company and lectures in game design and project management. In 2001 Emrich received the Blomgren / Hamilton Memorial Award for Lifetime Achievement from ConsimWorld.COM.
Emrich coined the term "4X" ("eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, eXterminate") in his 1993 review of Master of Orion in Computer Gaming World, [1] describing strategy games that involve exploration, expansion, and exploitation of territory, and extermination of opponents. [2] The design of Master of Orion includes several suggestions he and Tom Hughes made. [3]
Until April 2002 Emrich was a lead designer of Master of Orion 3 , which attempted to add a 5th X, eXperience, to the genre. [1] Then he left the developer, Quicksilver Software, for reasons neither party wished to explain. [4]
Emrich wrote or co-wrote the following strategy guides: [5]
He has severely criticized recent strategy guides for:
The faults, he says, are mainly caused by the game publishers' and guide publishers' haste to get their products on to the market. [6]
In 1977 Emrich and John Meyers co-founded the ORCCON game convention in Los Angeles, and later Emrich helped in the start-up of the GATEWAY and GAMEX conventions, also in Los Angeles. Emrich was the first Vice-President of the Game Manufacturers Association. In the 1980s he founded a game company Diverse Talents Inc., which imported and exported games, ran the Los Angeles game conventions, and published several magazines including Fire & Movement. In this period he also designed some board and card games. [5]
He was a five-time undefeated champion on the game show Whew! in July and August 1979, winning $5840 but never winning the $25,000 bonus round.
During the 1990s Emrich worked for Computer Gaming World magazine as its first Strategy Game Editor and later its first Online Editor. In this period he also wrote or co-wrote the strategy guides listed above. [5] Until April 2002 he was a lead designer of Master of Orion 3 . [4]
In 2001 Emrich received the Blomgren / Hamilton Memorial Award for Lifetime Achievement from ConsimWorld.COM. [5]
He is formerly a professor at the Art Institute of California: Orange County, where he taught Game Design, Prototyping, and Project Management to the next generation of game makers — he regards this as an official instance of his lifelong passion for teaching. [7] He also co-founded and owns Victory Point Games, a board and card game publishing company that was launched to produce small, budget-priced games based around submissions from students and professional game designers alike [8] — in fact he founded the company in order to give his students experience of the business side of game publishing. [9]
Sid Meier's Civilization is a 1991 turn-based strategy 4X video game developed and published by MicroProse. The game was originally developed for MS-DOS running on a PC, and has undergone numerous revisions for various platforms. The player is tasked with leading an entire human civilization over the course of several millennia by controlling various areas such as urban development, exploration, government, trade, research, and military. The player can control individual units and advance the exploration, conquest and settlement of the game's world. The player can also make such decisions as setting forms of government, tax rates and research priorities. The player's civilization is in competition with other computer-controlled civilizations, with which the player can enter diplomatic relationships that can either end in alliances or lead to war.
Origins Game Fair is an annual gaming convention that was first held in 1975. Since 1996, it has been held in Columbus, Ohio at the Greater Columbus Convention Center.
Master of Orion is a turn-based, 4X science fiction strategy game in which the player leads one of ten races to dominate the galaxy through a combination of diplomacy and conquest while developing technology, exploring and colonizing star systems.
Peter Douglas Molyneux is an English video game designer and programmer. He created the god games Populous, Dungeon Keeper, and Black & White, as well as Theme Park, the Fable series, Curiosity – What's Inside the Cube?, and Godus. He currently works at 22cans.
Master of Magic is a single-player, fantasy turn-based 4X strategy game in which the player plays as a wizard attempting to dominate two linked worlds. From a small settlement, the player manages resources, builds cities and armies, and researches spells, growing an empire and fighting the other wizards.
4X is a subgenre of strategy-based computer and board games, and include both turn-based and real-time strategy titles. The gameplay involves building an empire. Emphasis is placed upon economic and technological development, as well as a range of non-military routes to supremacy.
Big Huge Games, Inc. is an American video game developer located in Timonium, Maryland since 2000, known first for real-time strategy games such as Rise of Nations, later for the console RPG Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, and more recently for mobile games such as DomiNations and Arcane Showdown. Throughout most of its history the company has been associated with its best-known founder, Brian Reynolds, whose prior career already included work as lead designer of Civilization II and Alpha Centauri, and co-founder of Firaxis Games. The studio's ownership has changed hands several times over the years, and it became briefly defunct in May 2012, but it was revived by Reynolds along with several original alumni and new partners. The company is presently owned by Nexon, and actively runs its mobile titles DomiNations and Arcane Showdown, while continuing to develop new games.
Strategy guides are instruction books that contain hints or complete solutions to specific video games. The line between strategy guides and walkthroughs is somewhat blurred, with the former often containing or being written around the latter. Strategy guides are often published in print, both in book form and also as articles within video game magazines. In cases of exceptionally popular game titles, guides may be sold through more mainstream publication channels, such as bookstores or even newsstands. Some publishers also sell E-Book versions on their websites.
Mark Evan Cerny is an American video game designer, programmer, producer and entertainment executive.
The Charles S. Roberts Awards is an annual award for excellence in the historical wargaming hobby. It was named in honor of Charles S. Roberts the "Father of Wargaming" who founded Avalon Hill. The award is informally called a "Charlie" and officially called a "Charles S. Roberts Award". The Wargamer magazine called it "very prestigious". The Award is managed by the Charles S. Roberts Award Committee which has no commercial sponsorship, made up of designers, writers and hobbyists. It is a "people's award" with winners chosen through votes submitted by fans.
Louis Castle is an American video games designer. He is known for co-founding Westwood Studios, designing the PC game Blade Runner, and collaborating with Steven Spielberg on the Boom Blox and Boom Blox Bash Party video games for the Nintendo Wii console based on Spielberg's design ideas.
Master of Orion II: Battle at Antares is a 4X turn-based strategy game set in space, designed by Steve Barcia and Ken Burd, and developed by Simtex, who developed its predecessor Master of Orion and Master of Magic. The PC version was published by MicroProse in 1996, and the Apple Macintosh version a year later by MacSoft, in partnership with MicroProse. The game has retained a large fan base, and is still played online.
Redmond Aksel Simonsen was an American graphic artist and game designer best known for his work at the board wargame company Simulations Publications, Inc. (SPI) in the 1970s and early 1980s. Simonsen was considered an innovator in game information graphics, and is credited with creating the term "game designer".
S. Coleman Charlton was one of the founders of Iron Crown Enterprises (ICE).
Elizabeth T. Danforth is an illustrator, editor, writer, and scenario designer for role-playing games and video games. She received her BA in Anthropology from Arizona State University, and her MLS from the University of Arizona. She has worked in the game industry continuously since the mid 1970s.
Donald Joseph Turnbull was a journalist, editor, games designer, and an accomplished piano and pinball player. He was particularly instrumental in introducing Dungeons & Dragons into the UK, both as the managing director of TSR UK Ltd and as the editor of the Fiend Folio.
Cam Banks is a game designer known for his work on the Cortex System line of roleplaying games as lead designer for Marvel Heroic Roleplaying, and the Big Damn Heroes Handbook supplement to the Serenity Role Playing Game, among other titles. He is the Cortex Creative Director for Fandom Tabletop, the publishers of Cortex Prime.
The Great Battles of Alexander is a 1997 turn-based computer wargame developed by Erudite Software and published by Interactive Magic. Adapted from the GMT Games physical wargame of the same name, it depicts 10 of Alexander the Great's key conflicts, and simulates the interplay between Ancient Macedonian battle tactics and its rival military doctrines. Gameplay occurs at the tactical level: players direct predetermined armies on discrete battlefields, in a manner that one commentator compared to chess.
Operation Crusader is a 1994 computer wargame developed by Atomic Games and published by Avalon Hill.
Western Front: The Liberation of Europe 1944–1945 is a 1991 computer wargame developed and published by Strategic Simulations, Inc. It was designed by Gary Grigsby.