Bill Budge | |
|---|---|
 Budge in 2012 | |
| Born | August 11, 1954 [1] [2] |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation(s) | video game programmer, designer |
| Known for | Raster Blaster (1981) Pinball Construction Set (1983). |
Bill Budge (born August 11, 1954 [1] ) is a retired American video game programmer and designer. He is best known for the Apple II games Raster Blaster (1981) and Pinball Construction Set (1983).
Budge says he became interested in computers while obtaining a PhD at UC Berkeley. He purchased an Apple II and began writing games. He enjoyed it so much that he dropped out of school and became a game programmer. [1] Budge's first game was a Pong clone, called Penny Arcade, which he wrote using his own custom graphics routines. He traded the completed game to Apple Computer for a Centronics printer. [3] California Pacific published a collection of four of Budge's Apple II games in 1980 as Bill Budge's Space Album .
By 1981, his reputation was such that BYTE wrote in its review of Budge's Tranquility Base, a Lunar Lander clone, that "Consistently excellent graphics are a trademark of Bill Budge's games". [4] Budge marketed his games commercially with a floppy disk drive salesman who traveled from store to store; he and the salesman agreed to split profits of selling his games 50/50. Budge was shocked when he got his first check for USD$7,000.
Budge does not enjoy playing video games, and described having to play pinball for months while developing Pinball Construction Set as "sheer torture." [5] He more enjoyed writing fast graphics libraries for game programmers. Budge said "I wasn't that interested in playing or designing games. My real love was in writing fast graphics code. It occurred to me that creating tools for others to make games was a way for me to indulge my interest in programming without having to make games." [3] and "The way I got started was by not trying to do anything original at all. I wanted to learn how to write videogames. I ... just went to arcades and copied the games that I saw." [5]
He created the 3-D Game Tool, a program allowing rudimentary creation of wireframe images on the Apple II for use in games or other applications. It was published in 1981 by California Pacific.
Budge first became interested in writing a pinball game while working for Apple in 1981. There was a pinball craze among the engineers there and it occurred to him that a pinball game would be a fun programming challenge. At that point he wrote Raster Blaster for the Apple II. Things like physics and collision detection were difficult on the Apple II's 1 MHz 6502 processor.
Budge formed his own company, BudgeCo to distribute Raster Blaster. He realized he could do what the big distributors were doing: putting the games in packaging— Ziploc bags—and delivering them to software stores. Budge and his sister, who also handled the accounting, would assemble the game packages in one of the rooms of his house and deliver them to local software stores. [3]
He followed Raster Blaster with Pinball Construction Set, a more general tool which allows users to create arbitrary pinball tables, including how the components are wired together. The project required him to write a mini-paint program, a mini sound editor and save/load systems. Some of the components he already had, which he developed for Raster Blaster.
By 1983, however, the computer game publishing arena had become too complex for Budge, who did not really want to be an entrepreneur. When he was approached by Electronic Arts (EA) founder Trip Hawkins (whom he had met when they both worked at Apple) to publish his games, he discussed the idea with Steve Wozniak [ citation needed ] and signed on. With EA's distribution, Pinball Construction Set eventually sold 300,000 copies over all platforms. EA marketed Budge and other early EA developers with publicity photographs by Norman Seeff, an appearance by Budge on Computer Chronicles with Hawkins, and author tours to computer and department stores. [6]
Shortly after this, Budge disbanded BudgeCo, which he says was something of a relief for him, since he was really just a programmer and was not interested in being an entrepreneur. [3]
After Pinball Construction Set, Budge attempted to create a "construction set construction set," [5] but abandoned the idea after determining that it was too complex a concept. Royalties meant that he did not have to work, and EA eventually gave up asking Budge for another project. [6]
Budge wrote MousePaint, which was a program for the Apple II similar to the Macintosh program MacPaint. MousePaint was bundled with an Apple Mouse II and interface card for the Apple II. [7] Apple Computer released the mouse and software in May 1984. [8]
BYTE 's reviewer stated in December 1984 that he made far fewer errors when using an Apple Mouse with MousePaint than with a KoalaPad and its software. He found that MousePaint was easier to use and more efficient, and predicted that the mouse would receive more software support than the pad. [9]
Budge ported Pinball Construction Set to the Sega Genesis, which was published by Electronic Arts in 1993 as Virtual Pinball . Ten tables can be saved, but they cannot be shared with other players.
Shortly afterward, Budge worked for 3DO, creating a 3D engine for Blade Force . He remained with the company for nine years until its demise in 2003. Budge returned to EA but stayed for less than two years. He joined Sony Computer Entertainment in 2004 as Lead Tools Programmer. Budge left Sony after six years for Google in 2010. [10] Budge retired from Google in January 2022. [11] [12]
Budge and his wife live in the San Francisco Bay Area and have two children, Natalie and Andrew.
In 2008, Pinball Construction Set was honored at the 59th Annual Technology & Engineering Emmy Awards for "User Generated Content/Game Modification". Budge accepted the award. [13]
On February 10, 2011, Budge was the second recipient of the Pioneer Award from the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences. [14]
Pinball Construction Set is an inductee in GameSpy's Hall of Fame. [15]
The Apple II is a personal computer released by Apple Inc. in June 1977. It was one of the first successful mass-produced microcomputer products and is widely regarded as one of the most important personal computers of all time due to its role in popularizing home computing and influencing later software development.
MacPaint is a raster graphics editor developed by Apple Computer and released with the original Macintosh personal computer on January 24, 1984. It was sold separately for US$195 with its word processing counterpart, MacWrite. MacPaint was notable because it could generate graphics that could be used by other applications. It taught consumers what a graphics-based system could do by using the mouse, the clipboard, and QuickDraw picture language. Pictures could be cut from MacPaint and pasted into MacWrite documents.
Deluxe Paint, often referred to as DPaint, is a bitmap graphics editor created by Dan Silva for Electronic Arts and published for the then-new Amiga 1000 in November 1985. A series of updated versions followed, some of which were ported to other platforms. An MS-DOS release with support for the 256 color VGA standard became popular for creating pixel graphics in video games in the 1990s.
Pinball Construction Set is a video game by Bill Budge written for the Apple II. It was originally published in 1982 through Budge's own company, BudgeCo, then was released by Electronic Arts in 1983 along with ports to the Atari 8-bit computers and Commodore 64.
The KoalaPad is a graphics tablet, released in 1983 by US company Koala Technologies Corporation, for the Apple II, TRS-80 Color Computer, Atari 8-bit computers, Commodore 64, and IBM PC compatibles.
Fueled by the previous year's release of the colorful and appealing Pac-Man, the audience for arcade video games in 1981 became much wider. Pac-Man influenced maze games began appearing in arcades and on home systems. Pac-Man was the highest grossing video game for the second year in a row. Nintendo's Donkey Kong defined the platform game genre, while Konami's Scramble established scrolling shooters. The lesser known Jump Bug combined the two concepts into both the first scrolling platform game and the first platform shooter. Other arcade hits released in 1981 include Defender, Frogger, and the Galaxian sequel Galaga.
David's Midnight Magic is a pinball simulation video game written by David Snider for the Apple II and published by Broderbund in 1982. The game was published in Europe by Ariolasoft. A port to Atari 8-bit computers was released the same year, then the Commodore 64 in 1983. In 1987 Atari Corporation published a cartridge version in the styling of the then-new Atari XEGS.
Will Harvey's Music Construction Set (MCS) is a music composition notation program designed by Will Harvey for the Apple II and published by Electronic Arts in 1983. Harvey wrote the original Apple II version in assembly language when he was 15 and in high school. MCS was conceived as a tool to add music to his previously published game, an abstract shooter called Lancaster for the Apple II.
Softalk was an American magazine of the early 1980s that focused on the Apple II computer. Published from September 1980 through August 1984, it featured articles about hardware and software associated with the Apple II platform and the people and companies who made them. The name was originally used on a newsletter of Apple Software pioneer company, Softape, who in 1980 changed its name to Artsci Inc.
Bill Budge's Raster Blaster is a home computer pinball simulation written by Bill Budge for the Apple II and published in 1981 by Budge's company, BudgeCo. It was ported to the Atari 8-bit computers. Raster Blaster resembles the Williams Firepower table from 1980.
Many games, utilities, and educational programs were available for Atari 8-bit computers. Atari, Inc. was primarily the publisher following the launch of the Atari 400/800 in 1979, then increasingly by third parties. Atari also distributed "user written" software through the Atari Program Exchange from 1981 to 1984. After APX folded, many titles were picked up by Antic Software.
Garry Kitchen's GameMaker is an integrated development environment for the Commodore 64, Apple II, and IBM PC compatibless, created by Garry Kitchen and released by Activision in 1985. It is one of the earliest all-in-one game design products aimed at the general consumer, preceded by Broderbund's The Arcade Machine in 1982. Several sample files are included: a demo sequence featuring animated sprites and music, a recreation of Pitfall!, and a birthday greeting.
California Pacific Computer Co. was a computer software and game publisher active from 1979 to 1986, founded in Davis, California by Alvin Remmers. Its software was published exclusively for the Apple II computer and was an early commercial outlet for several important game designers including Richard Garriott, Bill Budge, and Michael Pondsmith.
Virtual Pinball is a follow-up to EA's 1983 title Pinball Construction Set from the same author, Bill Budge, released 10 years later for the Sega Genesis. One to four players can choose from either 29 premade tables or design one using in-game editor tools. Designing options include ten different backgrounds and six themes, and a player can choose where objects are placed, the style of music, and the ball speed. Virtual Pinball lacks the unlimited floppy disc storage used by the original, and the ability to create self-booting disks that can be played without the construction set software.
Gorgon is a clone of the arcade video game Defender, a horizontally scrolling shooter, for the Apple II. It was programmed by Nasir Gebelli and published by Sirius Software in June 1981.
Dazzle Draw is a raster graphics editor for the Apple IIc and Apple IIe. The program allows users to create bitmap images which can then be printed or used in other programs. Developed by David Snider and released in 1984 by Broderbund, the program is similar to MacPaint, released in early 1984. Snider previously wrote the Apple II pinball game David's Midnight Magic.
Bill Budge's Space Album is a collection of four Apple II action games written by Bill Budge and published by California Pacific Computer Company in 1980. The games are Death Star, Asteroids, Tail Gunner, and Solar Shootout. Death Star was based around a scenario similar to the Death Star "trench battle" that formed the climax of the 1977 film, Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope. Asteroids was a variant of the popular arcade video game of the same name.
Night Mission Pinball is a pinball simulation video game published by Sublogic in 1982. It was developed by Bruce Artwick for the Apple II, then ported to the Atari 8-bit computers, Commodore 64, and IBM PC.
Preppie! II is a video game written by Russ Wetmore for Atari 8-bit computers and published by Adventure International in 1983. Subtitled "The continuing saga of Wadsworth Overcash", it is a sequel to 1982's Frogger-inspired Preppie!. The game loosely continues the preppy theme, primarily through a story in the manual, but replaces the country club setting with an abstract, overhead view maze. Some obstacles from the first game appear in the second.
Yesterday was my last day at Google. Instead of working from home, now retired at home.
Media related to Bill Budge at Wikimedia Commons
