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Information About

Don Daglow




In 2003 he was the recipient of the CGE Achievement Award for "groundbreaking accomplishments that shaped the Video Game Industry."


UNIVERSITY MAINFRAME GAMES IN THE 1970S

In 1971 Daglow was studying playwriting at Pomona College in Claremont, California . A Computer Terminal connected to the Claremont Colleges PDP-10 Mainframe computer was set up in his dorm, and he saw this as a new form of writing. Like Kelton Flinn , another prolific game designer of the 1970s , his nine years of computer access as a student, grad student and grad school instructor throughout the 1970s gave him time to build a large body of major titles. Unlike Daglow and Flinn, most college students in the early 1970s lost all access to computers when they graduated, since Home Computers had not yet been invented.

Some of Daglow's titles were distributed to Universities by the DECUS program-sharing organization, earning popularity in the free-play era of 1970s college gaming.

His best known games and experiments of this era include:
  • '' Baseball '' ( 1971 ) — First-ever computer Baseball game, now recorded in the baseball Hall Of Fame in Cooperstown, New York . Daglow continued to expand ''Baseball'' throughout the 1970s, and ported the game to the Apple II in 1981 , adding graphics in 1982 . The simulation model in the Apple version in turn was ported to the Intellivision in 1982 as the basis for '' Intellivision World Series Baseball ''.

  • '' Star Trek '' ( 1972 ) — The second of two popular Star Trek computer games widely played in American colleges during this era.

  • ''Ecala'' ( 1973 ) — Improved version of the '' ELIZA '' computer conversation program. This project paved the way for his later work by suggesting new kinds of game interfaces.

  • '' Dungeon '' ( 1975 ) — The first computer Role Playing Game , based on the then-new '' Dungeons And Dragons '' gaming system. The game was steadily expanded over the following five years.

  • ''Spanish Translator'' ( 1977 ) — As he experimented with Parser s he created a context-sensitive Spanish translation program.

  • ''Killer Shrews'' ( 1978 ) — A simulation game based on the Cult Sci-fi film '' The Killer Shrews ''. The player has not many decisions to make, only when to try to escape the island during the simulation of the depleting of the food that is there.

  • '' Educational Dungeon '' 1979 — An attempt to make rote Computer-aided Instruction (CAI) programs more interesting by taking ''Dungeon'' and making correct answers propel the story.



INTELLIVISION AND ELECTRONIC ARTS IN THE 1980S

In 1980 Daglow was hired as one of the original five in-house Intellivision programmers at Mattel during the first Console Wars . Intellivision titles where he did programming and extensive ongoing design include:

As the team grew Daglow was promoted to be Director of Intellivision Game Development, where he created the original designs for a number of Mattel titles in 1982-83 that were enhanced and expanded by other programmers, including:

During the Video Game Crash Of 1983 Daglow was recruited to join Electronic Arts by founder Trip Hawkins , where he joined the EA producer team of Joe Ybarra and Stewart Bonn . His EA titles include:

In addition to Dombrower, at EA Daglow often worked with former members of the Intellivision team, including programmer Rick Koenig , artist Connie Goldman and musician Dave Warhol .

Daglow spent 1987-88 at Brøderbund as head of the company's Entertainment and Education Division. Although he supervised the creation of games like Jordan Mechner 's '' Prince Of Persia '', '' Star Wars '', the '' Ancient Art Of War '' series, and '' Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego ?'', his role was executive rather than creative. He took a lead role in signing the original distribution deal for '' SimCity '' with Maxis , and acquired the '' Star Wars '' license for Broderbund from LucasFilm .


STORMFRONT STUDIOS IN THE 1990S AND 2000S

Looking to return to hands-on game development, Daglow founded Game Developer Stormfront Studios in 1988 in San Rafael, California . The company continues to be an independent developer today.

Between 1988 and 1995 Daglow designed or co-designed the following titles:

By 1995 Stormfront had placed on the Inc. 500 list of fast-growing companies three times and Daglow stepped back from his design role to focus on the CEO position. See the article on Stormfront Studios for further information.

In 2003 and again in 2007 Daglow was elected to the Board of Directors of the Academy Of Interactive Arts & Sciences . He also serves on the San Francisco Advisory Board of the IGDA , the Advisory Board to the President of the Academy Of Art University and the Advisory Board to the Games Convention Developers Conference. He has been a keynote speaker, lecturer and panelist at game development conferences in Australia, Canada, Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States.


FICTION

During the late 1970s Daglow worked as a teacher and graduate school instructor while pursuing his writing career. He was a winner of the National Endowment For The Humanities ''New Voices'' playwriting competition in 1975. His 1979 Novelette ''The Blessing of La Llorona'' appeared in the April, 1982 issue of Fantasy And Science Fiction magazine.


REFERENCES

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  • 5 Picture of ''Daglow Decles'' and ''Minkoff Measures'' Mattel softball teams, 1982

  • Daglow, Don, ''The Changing Role of Computer Game Designers'', '' Computer Gaming World '', August, 1988, p. 18.

  • Daglow, Don, ''Through Hope-Colored Glasses: A Publisher's Perspective on Game Development'', The Journal Of Computer Game Design , 1(4) (1987), 3—5.

  • Daglow, Don, ''The Dark Ages of Game Design'', ''Computer Gaming World'', May, 1986, p. 12.



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