Computer music is the application of computing technology in music composition, to help human composers create new music or to have computers independently create music, such as with algorithmic composition programs. It includes the theory and application of new and existing computer software technologies and basic aspects of music, such as sound synthesis, digital signal processing, sound design, sonic diffusion, acoustics, and psychoacoustics. The field of computer music can trace its roots back to the origins of electronic music, and the very first experiments and innovations with electronic instruments at the turn of the 20th century.
LucasArts Entertainment Company, LLC, doing business as Lucasfilm Games, is an American licensor. Until 2013, it was also a video game developer and publisher. LucasArts is best known for its graphic adventure games, as well as games based on the Star Wars and Indiana Jones franchises. Its headquarters are in San Francisco, California.
Maniac Mansion is a 1987 graphic adventure video game developed and published by Lucasfilm Games. It follows teenage protagonist Dave Miller as he attempts to rescue his girlfriend Sandy Pantz from a mad scientist, whose mind has been enslaved by a sentient meteor. The player uses a point-and-click interface to guide Dave and two of his six playable friends through the scientist's mansion while solving puzzles and avoiding dangers. Gameplay is non-linear, and the game must be completed in different ways based on the player's choice of characters. Initially released for the Commodore 64 and Apple II, Maniac Mansion was Lucasfilm Games' first self-published product.
Script Creation Utility for Maniac Mansion (SCUMM) is a video game engine developed at Lucasfilm Games, later renamed LucasArts, to ease development on their first graphic adventure game Maniac Mansion (1987). It was subsequently used as the engine for later LucasArts adventure games.
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: The Graphic Adventure is a graphic adventure game, released in 1989, published by Lucasfilm Games. It was the third game to use the SCUMM engine.
Loom is a 1990 fantasy-themed graphic adventure game by Lucasfilm Games. The project was led by Brian Moriarty, a former Infocom employee and author of classic text adventures Wishbringer (1985), Trinity (1986), and Beyond Zork (1987). It was the fourth game to use the SCUMM adventure game engine, and the first of those to avoid the verb–object interface introduced in Maniac Mansion.
The Secret of Monkey Island is a 1990 point-and-click graphic adventure game developed and published by Lucasfilm Games. It takes place in a fictional version of the Caribbean during the age of piracy. The player assumes the role of Guybrush Threepwood, a young man who dreams of becoming a pirate and explores fictional islands while solving puzzles.
The Internet Oracle is an effort at collective humor in a pseudo-Socratic question-and-answer format.
Michael Z. Land is an American video game composer and musician best known for his scores for various games produced by LucasArts.
The Atari XE Video Game System is an industrial redesign of the Atari 65XE home computer and the final model in the Atari 8-bit family. It was released by Atari Corporation in 1987 and marketed as a home video game console alongside the Nintendo Entertainment System, Sega's Master System, and Atari's own Atari 7800. The XEGS is compatible with existing Atari 8-bit family hardware and software. Without keyboard, the system operates as a stand-alone game console. With the keyboard, it boots identically to the Atari XE computers. Atari packaged the XEGS as a basic set consisting of only the console and joystick, and as a deluxe set consisting of the console, keyboard, CX40 joystick, and XG-1 light gun.
Rescue On Fractalus! is a March 1984 first-person shooter computer game created by Lucasfilm Games. It was originally released for the Atari 8-bit family and the Atari 5200 games console. It was also ported to other popular platforms of the day, such as the Apple II, ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, Tandy Color Computer 3 and Commodore 64. The game was one of the first two products from the fledgling Lucasfilm Computer Division Games Group led by Peter Langston. David Fox was the project leader and designer. Music was mainly composed by Charlie Kellner.
Ron Gilbert is an American video-game designer, programmer, and producer. His games are generally focused on interactive storytelling, and he is arguably best known for his work on several LucasArts adventure games, including Maniac Mansion and the first two Monkey Island games.
The Works is a shelved 3D computer animated film which was under development by the staff of the Computer Graphics Lab in association with the New York Institute of Technology in Old Westbury, New York. Being worked on sporadically from 1979 to 1986, the film's development and production had difficulties which finally prompted the film being abandoned before completion. The Works would have been the first entirely 3D CGI film had it been finished in the early 1980s as intended. This goal was later accomplished by Pixar's Toy Story, released in 1995, nearly a decade after The Works was attempted. The name was inspired by the original meaning of the word "robot", derived from "robota" ("work"), a word found in many Slavic languages. It was originally intended to be approximately 90 minutes long although less than 10 minutes were known to be produced. Short in length and few in number, the completed film sequences were highly impressive considering the state of the technology and what was then the unique look of 3D computer animation. A trailer of the forthcoming film was screened at SIGGRAPH in 1982. The project also resulted in other groundbreaking computer animations such as 3DV, Sunstone, Inside a Quark and some segments of the short film The Magic Egg from 1984.
Ballblazer is a 1984 futuristic sports game created by Lucasfilm Games. It was originally released for the Atari 8-bit family, then ported to the Atari 5200, Apple II, ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64, MSX. and later the Atari 7800 and the Nintendo Famicom. The game was called Ballblaster during development; pirated versions of the game went by this name as well. The principal creator and programmer of Ballblazer was David Levine.
David Fox is an American multimedia producer who designed and programmed numerous early LucasArts games. He and his wife, Annie Fox, now work on educational software, Web design, Emotional Intelligence content, online communities, emerging technologies, and writing books for children and teens.
Labyrinth: The Computer Game is a 1986 graphic adventure game developed by Lucasfilm Games and published by Activision. Based on the fantasy film Labyrinth, it tasks the player with navigating a maze while solving puzzles and evading dangers. The player's goal is to find and defeat the main antagonist, Jareth, within 13 real-time hours. Unlike other adventure games of the period, Labyrinth does not feature a command-line interface. Instead, the player uses two scrolling "word wheel" menus on the screen to construct basic sentences.
Russell Lieblich was a game designer, programmer and musician who first came to prominence for his music for Activision and Intellivision games, as well as doing the Commodore 64 (C64) music translation of one of LucasArts first titles, Ballblazer. He graduated with a Master's Degree in Music from UC San Diego.
Empire is a 4X wargame created in 1972 by Peter Langston, taking its name from a Reed College board game of the same name. It was initially created by Langston in BASIC on an HP2000 minicomputer at Evergreen State College. When the host computer was retired, the source code to the game was lost. Subsequently, two other authors each independently wrote a new version of the game, both named Empire. In the decades since, numerous other versions of Empire have been developed for a wide variety of platforms.
David Riordan is an interactive media executive, producer and designer, a documentary television producer and a professional songwriter. He co-wrote the number-one hit "Green-Eyed Lady" for the band Sugarloaf in 1970, and released his first solo album in 1974 called Medicine Wheel. In the early 1980s, while working as a consultant for Lucasfilm, producer of the Star Wars franchise, he began his career as an interactive media designer, producer and director that continued until the late 1990s. During that time he directed interactive entertainment groups for Cinemaware, Philips Media, Time Warner and Disney. He later became a producer for television shows that appeared on the A&E network, was the VP of Media at Integral Life and the director of the Ken Wilber Biography Project. Riordan is currently the director of Story Studio TV, a convergence transmedia company.
Gary Winnick is an American computer game designer, writer, artist, and animator who was the first artist hired by Lucasfilm Games. He co-designed Maniac Mansion, alongside Ron Gilbert, and created the comic book Bad Dreams.
