from the June 1984 issue of Computer Games magazine
Computer Games Interview: The Secret Superstars
Meet the Creators of Choplifter, Wizardry, Castle Wolfenstein, Zaxxon, Canyon Climber, and the Arcade Machine
By Kathy Bissell
How do they do it, these masterful creators of high-caliber games like Wizardry and Choplifter? From what strange planet or time warp do they draw such appealing and durable game scenarios? How did they get a foot in the high-tech door in the first place? And what kind of games do they play when not busy writing their own?
To find out, we tracked down six of the top guns - Silas Warner (Castle Wolfenstein), Dan Sortin (Choplifter), Bob Flanagan (Thief, Speedway and Spectre), Chris Jochumson (The Arcade Machine), Robert Woodhead (co-creator of Wizardry) and Steve Bjork (Canyon Climber and the Apple version of Zaxxon). In addition to advice on how to break into the game-writing game, they even revealed a few tips on how to beat their own classic games.
CG: What was the first video game you created, and when?
Jochumson: "I was in the Air Force and was home on leave. I was headed for Korea. And I got an Apple computer— I was the first person on my block to have one. I took it and played with it. That was in 1977. In my spare time I worked on a game, Space Quarks."
Warner: "Castle Wolfenstein was created between February and September of 1980. 1 started with a character generator for Apple and got it fast enough to do animation. I got the idea of someone running around. Then I watched a rerun of The Guns of Navarrone. From there I got the idea of a World War II setting. The voice of the guy talking in German came from there. We had the Control Data PLATO system, which, although designed for education, was the greatest game system ever invented. I bought an Apple in 1977 because I realized there would be a need for programmers. We founded Muse in Ed Zaron's living room." (Zaron is president of Muse Software. Muse subsequently published Old Maze and Tank War.)
Woodhead: "I started Sir-Tech Software to do business programs for one of my mom's partners. I got hooked up with Andy [Greenberg], who was and still is a grad student at Cornell. I had a game working called Paladin. Andy had one of the first Apples and had written two versions of Wizardry. Andy had figured out how to do complicated things on a micro with limited resources and get past 'hack and slash'— Hack, hack, kill, kill, loot, loot."
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