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Professional Experience | Professional Associations | Education | Computer OS/Languages | Published
Books & Apps | Community Service | Other Activities | Additional Information
Professional Experience
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September 1992 to present |
Electric Eggplant
San Anselmo, CA
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App and eBook Creation
Executive Produced and Designed:
Produced and coded/published:
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| 2015–2022 | Terrible Toybox |
Various Roles on these three games:
- Return to Monkey Island, Lead Game Programmer on this award-winning adventure game from the creators of the original two Monkey Island games (Ron Gilbert and Dave Grossman). Released September 2022, available on all platforms.
- Delores, A Thimbleweed Park Mini-Adventure, Programmer, Designer, Writer on this free game. Released May 2020.
- Thimbleweed Park, Programmer, Designer, Writer, Sound Designer on the award-winning classic point-and-click graphic adventure game from the team that brought you Maniac Mansion (Ron Gilbert and Gary Winnick). Released March 2017, available on all platforms.
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2005–2011 |
NewsTrust.net
Mill Valley, CA
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Director of Production
- Co-designed and coded NewsTrust, a citizen news rating service that brought together experienced journalists and volunteer reviewers to rate news stories and their sources according to rigorous editorial standards. NewsTrust used Ruby on Rails as its development platform.
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| 2007–2011 |
Disney |
Consultant/Game Designer
- For theme park and online entertainment. Co-designed overlay game “The Leonardo Challenge” at Tokyo DisneySea.
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2005 to Present |
Seadrift Company Realtors
Stinson Beach, CA
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Consultant: Web Producer/Designer
- Co-designed, implemented, and manage updates and changes to their Web site.
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2005–2012 |
Ayrshire Foundation
Pasadena, CA
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Consultant: Web Producer/Designer
- Co-designed, implemented, and manage updates and changes to their Web site.
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2004–2009 |
Kathleen Russell Consulting
Larkspur, CA
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Consultant: Web Producer/Designer
- Produced and implemented the Alaska Federation
of Natives Web site.
- Produced and implemented the event site for the Alaska
Federation of Natives’ Leadership Forum.
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2003–2004 |
Simon & Schuster
New York, NY
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Consultant: Web and Blog Producer/Designer
- Created a Web site for Pulitzer Prize-winning S&S author David
McCullough featuring his complete backlist of books.
- Created a blog (web
log) for the book by former Democratic Candidate Howard Dean, “Winning Back America”.
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2003–2004 |
Dean Media Team
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Project Manager/Video Editor (volunteer)
- Managed Phase 2 of the Switch2Dean project
as part of the grassroots campaign to elect Howard
Dean. Edited the 6 new
videos, and helped integrate them into the web site. Worked with the project’s
director, graphics designer, and PR team. Two of the videos I edited
were selected by Dean For America (the official campaign) and shown on Wisconsin
TV during the week leading up to its February 17, 2004 primary.
- Co-produced a radio ad (in English and Spanish) that was aired across
the Super Tuesday primary states.
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2002–2003 |
Learning Friends
Woodside, CA
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Consultant: Producer/Designer
- Co-designed a prototype for an educational reading adventure game for a large software company.
- Produced and co-designed a prototype of an innovative, early learning math
game under a grant from the William and Flora
Hewlett Foundation.
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2002–2003 |
The Activities Club
West Chester, PA
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Consultant: Web Design/Development
- Updating the primary Web site with new content.
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2001–2002 |
Xulu Entertainment, Inc.
San Francisco, CA
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Producer
- Managed production on an immersive form of interactive entertainment for
both the home (online) and out of home (location-based entertainment).
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2000
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UClick, LLC
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Consultant
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2000
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Communities.com
Cupertino, CA
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Consultant
- Worked with various in-house teams on the launch of a new project.
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July–September 2000
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DotComix.com
San Francisco, CA
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Consultant
- Helped define and contribute design elements on a new Web project.
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1996–2000
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Talk City, Inc.
now LiveWorld
Inc.
Campbell, CA
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Director of New Content
As employee #6, I helped expand the company from startup through IPO and beyond. I scoured the Web and brought new technologies to Talk City, including:
- HearMe’s voice chat
- pogo.com games
- StorySprawl (multi-threaded story writing).
In addition, I contributed design expertise to most new Talk City products, including EZ Talk (Java chat client), TC Pirch and TC Ircle (PC and Mac chat clients), and eFriends (Clubs).
Produced Community content on the Internet.
Director of Kids and Entertainment Programming
- Produced several “bot” chat games
- Co-produced Talk City’s home pages offering
- Executive produced The
InSite, an award-winning teen site focusing on empowerment)
- Executive produced Tech Showcase (exhibiting new Web technologies
for people to try out)
- Executive produced the Talk City Palace.
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January 1996
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H2G2.com
(formerly The Digital Village)
London, England
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Consultant
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1995
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ShadowCatcher Entertainment
Seattle, WA
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Co-Designer
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1993–1995
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Rocket Science Games
San Francisco, CA
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Senior Game Designer
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1992–1993
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Big Future
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Consultant
- Researching appropriate exhibits and attractions for
their future Science and Technology “Edutainment”
Centers.
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October 1992– January 1993
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Iwerks
Entertainment,
Evans &
Sutherland
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Consultant
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January 1993
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Sony Corp. of America
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Consultant
- Created two concept documents for public-space interactive entertainment experiences.
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1992
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Putnam NewMedia
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Multimedia Producer
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1982–1992
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Lucasfilm Ltd./Lucasfilm Games/LucasArts Entertainment
Company
San Rafael, CA
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1990–1992
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Manager of Entertainment Software, Rebel Arts and Technology
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- Responsible for designing “experiences” for the next
generation of Location Based Entertainment.
- Designed 2 games for the Commander (2-person,
high-end motion platform system for arcades) from
Rediffusion, and 3 games for Mirage, a
multi-player, networked entertainment system intended for
theme parks. This was the primary project of the
division.
- Managed the development of the sound system, and
coordinated development and implementation of the
prototype with Hughes Training, our partner company.
- Prototype system was completed in April, 1992.
Announced in November, 1992.
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1989–1990
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Director of Operations
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Managed the transition from a 40 person to a 110 person company. Established product support and QA departments, hired and managed all the assistant game designers/programmers and helped establish training program.
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1982–1989
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Senior Designer/ Project Leader, Games Division
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Founding member of Lucasfilm Games/LucasArts. Contributed
significantly to making it into a highly regarded computer
games company.
Game credits:
- Pipe Dream — Producer, Macintosh version. 1989
- Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: The Graphic Adventure — Producer, Macintosh version. 1989
- Indiana
Jones and the Last Crusade: The Graphic Adventure — Designer/Co-Project
leader, SCUMM scriptor. Was Lucasfilm’s best selling graphics adventure
game at the time. 1989
- Zak
McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders -
Designer/Project leader, SCUMM scriptor. Award winning
game, translated to German, French, Italian, Spanish, and
Japanese. 1988. For a great fan site all about Zak, click here.
- Maniac
Mansion — primary SCUMM scriptor. Contributed
to the design of this innovative game
which is considered the precursor to all point and click graphic adventures. 1987
- Labyrinth — Designer/Project leader,
programmer. Game based on the film of the same name,
breakthroughs in user interface, scalable character
animation. 1986
- Rescue
on Fractalus! — Designer/Project leader,
programmer. First computer game to use fractal
technology. Check out the Jaggi Monster. 1984
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1982
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Atari Inc.
Sunnyvale, CA
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Consultant
- Gave seminar on microcomputer animation.
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1982
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Disney Productions
Burbank, CA
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Consultant
- Training on animation capabilities of the Atari computer.
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1979–1982
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Author
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- See list of books below
- Wrote numerous reviews of educational computer
software for Creative Computing and
Personal Computing magazines.
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1977–1982
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Marin Computer Center
a non-profit, educational corporation
Terra Linda/Corte Madera, CA
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Co-founder with Annie Fox
- Co-President of Board of Directors.
- Taught programming in BASIC to kids and adults.
- Hired and trained instructors.
- Obtained funding from the San Francisco Foundation’s Buck Fund for a
multi-player, multi-computer game, the Starship Simulation Project.
- Adapted computer games to various computers and
published them through Creative Computing.
- Developed Mix and Match Muppets under
contract with Children’s Television Workshop for their
Sesame Place theme park.
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Professional Associations
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2014 to Present
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Producers Guild of America (PGA)
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Member of the New Media Council, for producing games and mobile content. |
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Education
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1971–1973
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Sonoma
State University
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Graduated in 1973 with a Bachelors of Science degree in
Humanistic
Psychology.
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1968–1971
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University
of California at Los Angeles
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Studied Engineering, Psychology.
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Computer Languages
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HTML, JavaScript, Lua/Corona SDK, Ruby on Rails, WebX WCTL, SCUMM, C, BASIC, Pascal, 6502 Assembly |
Operating Systems
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Macintosh OS X, UNIX, DOS, Windows |
Computer Applications
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Unity3D, Adobe PhotoShop, Adpbe Premiere, Adobe Dreamweaver, Adobe InDesign, Garage Band, Keynote, Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint |
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Published
Books & Apps |
Rube Works: The Official Rube Goldberg Invention Game, Originally published by Unity Games, now published by Electric Eggplant |
Rube Works is a game based on Rube Goldberg’s Machine cartoons and is the first official Rube Goldberg game. Available for iOS on the iTunes App Store, for Android on Google Play or the Amazon Appstore, and for Mac on the Mac App Store and for Windows, Mac, and Linux on Steam. For 9–99 year olds |
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People
Are Like Lollipops by Annie Fox, 2013, published by Electric Eggplant |
A beautifully re-imagined edition of Annie’s first published book (Holiday House, 1971), now illustrated by Brian Narelle. Available on Kindle and in print. 3–7 year olds |
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Are We Lost? A Raymond and Sheila Story by Annie Fox, 2012, produced by Electric Eggplant |
The second in the Raymond and Sheila children’s book series (4–8 year olds), illustrated by Eli Noyes. Available on Kindle (English and in Spanish) and in print (English and Spanish). |
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Teaching Kids to Be Good People: Progressive Parenting for the 21st Century by Annie Fox, 2012, published by Electric Eggplant |
A practical guide to navigating 21st century parenting challenges to raising kids with a moral compass. Available on Kindle and in print. |
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App: Middle School Confidential 3: What’s Up with My Family? by Annie Fox,
2014, produced by Electric Eggplant in partnership with Free Spirit Publishing |
This 49-page digital graphic novel is based on Book 3 of the award-winning of the award-winning Middle School Confidential series, available on iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch. 8–14 year olds |
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App: Middle School Confidential 2: Real Friends vs. the Other Kind by Annie Fox,
2012, produced by Electric Eggplant in partnership with Free Spirit Publishing |
This 47-page digital graphic novel is based on Book 2 of the award-winning Middle School Confidential series, available on iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch, Kindle Fire, as well as the nabi tablet. 8–14 year olds |
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App: Middle School Confidential 1: Be Confident in Who You Are by Annie Fox, 2011, produced by Electric Eggplant in partnership with Free Spirit Publishing |
This 49-page digital graphic novel is based on Book 1 of the award-winning Middle School Confidential series, available on iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch, Kindle Fire, as well as the nabi tablet. 8–14 year olds |
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Are You My Friend? A Raymond and Sheila Story by Annie Fox, 2011, produced by Electric Eggplant |
First story in the Raymond and Sheila series for 4–8 year olds, this Read Aloud iBook was illustrated by Eli Noyes and is available in print (English and Spanish), on the iBookstore for iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch, as an Android app (Kindle Fire, nabi tablet, and other Android Devices), and an ebook on Kindle (English and in Spanish). |
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Computer Animation Primer
Byte/McGraw-Hill Books, 1982
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Co-wrote with Mitchell Waite. Covered current
breakthroughs in computer graphics and animation as well as
uncovered the secrets of the Atari 800 computer’s graphics
capabilities.
The complete text of this book can be found here. |
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Armchair BASIC
Osborne/McGraw-Hill Books, 1982
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Co-wrote with Annie Fox (she was the primary author on
this one). Has been translated into Danish, German, Italian,
Japanese, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish, and is still in
print after 10 years.
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Pascal Primer
Howard W. Sams & Co., Inc., 1981
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Co-wrote with Mitchell Waite. A humorous introduction to
UCSD Pascal.
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Community Service
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Sustainable Marin |
2011–2013 — Board of Directors. SustainableMarin.org |
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Novato Milestones Wind Ensemble |
2010–2015 — founding member of this fabulous 40 piece concert band. |
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Sustainable San Anselmo |
2009–Present — co-founder of this local green organization focused on sustainable practices. SustainableSanAnselmo.org |
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Las Gallinas Valley Sanitary District Non-Marching Band, AKA The Sewer Band |
2007–2010 — 75 amazing musicians, aged 25–90. The band recently celebrated its 60th anniversary. |
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Marin Democrats |
2004–2005 — helped redesign and implement a new web site. |
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Dean
for America |
July 2003–March 2004 — volunteered on various projects to help elect Howard Dean
to be our next president. I produced phase II of the www.Switch2Dean.com site
and edited 6 of the videos.
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Corte
Madera Town Band |
2000–2010 — A group of 55 people, aged 20–80, giving concerts throughout the year at retirement homes, shopping centers,
parades. I played trombone in the band and served on its leadership board. |
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Ross Valley Community for Schools (now named YES) |
YES is a group of parents and teachers whose fund-raising
efforts provide money for art, music, and drama programs in the Ross
Valley School District, Marin County, CA.
1997 — Playing trombone in the pit band for production of Pajama Game.
1996 — Playing trombone in the pit band for production of Brigadoon.
1993 — Served on the Board for one year and contributed video production work
for the drama program.
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Marin Academy High School |
1996 — Co-taught, with Annie Fox, a one-week mini-course on
computer game design. |
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Speaker and
Other
Activities
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GIC (Game Industry Conference)
Poznan, Poland
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2023 — Speaker, “Rube Works VR: Adapting a 10 year old game to VR”, answering the question, could a game designed for touch and a flat screen be adapted to work in VR?
2023 — Speaker, “A Long Time Ago at a Ranch Far, Far Away”, with Noah Falstein, we described the founding and the first ten years of Lucasfilm Games/LucasArts Entertainment from 1982-1992 |
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Devcom 2023
Cologne, Germany
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2023 — Panel, “Beneath The Return of Monkey Island: Q&A with LeCrew”, with Ron Gilbert, Dave Grossman, Rex Crowle, Zoe Nguyen Thanh.
2023— Fireside Chat with Annie Fox, “You're Going to Start a What?”, with Kate Edwards about their innovative Marin Computer Center, their computer book and game careers, how David landed a job as employee #3 at the newly formed Lucasfilm Games Group (LucasArts). |
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Schoolab SF
San Francisco, CA
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2019 — Speaker, “Reinventing Storytelling”, Schoolab SF presentation with speakers Nicole Lazzaro and David Fox
Full video • Summary video |
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Devcom 2019
Cologne, Germany
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2019 — Speaker, “Classic Post Mortem – Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: The Graphic Adventure” talk with Noah Falstein celebrating the 30th anniversary of this game.
2019 — Panel, “Organizing Dialogue in Games - it's just Text, right?” |
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Pixel Heaven Games Festival & More
Warsaw, Poland
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2019 — Speaker, “From Fractalus to Indiana Jones – My Career at Lucasfilm Games” |
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Cervignano Film Festival
Cervignano del Friuli, Italy
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2018 — Keynote Speaker, “Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders, 30th Anniversary” |
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Classic Gaming Expo
Las Vegas, NV, USA
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2012 — Speaker, “Lucasfilm Games/LucasArts, The Early Years: 1982–1990” |
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Assembly
Helsinki, Finland
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2004 — Keynote Speaker, “Lucasfilm Games/LucasArts, The Early Years: 1982–1990.” Assembly is a large annual gaming and demo conference in Finland. |
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The Gathering
Hamar, Norway
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2004 — Speaker, “Lucasfilm Games, The Early Years”. Similar to Assembly, The Gathering is a large annual gaming
conference in Norway. More
info here. And
click
here for a video of my talk. |
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SIGGRAPH
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1993 — Member of Tomorrow’s Realities Jury
1991 — Member of Virtual Reality Jury
1985 — Course speaker: Advanced Computer Animation,
“Small Systems Strategies”
1984 — Panel: Microcomputer Graphics. Presented the game,
Rescue on Fractalus!
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Meckler Virtual Reality Conference 93
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1993 — Speaker, “It’s
Not the Technology” |
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Computer Game Developers Conference
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1996, 1997 — Speaker, “Collaborating in Game Design”
1993 — Speaker, “Survey and Review of Computer Games User
Interfaces”
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Writing For Interactive Multimedia Conference
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1996 — Speaker, “How to Write & Pitch an Irresistible
CD-ROM Proposal”
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Additional Information
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Enjoys film, theater, playing trombone, biking, hiking, Science Fiction,
photography, video production.
Married with two grown children and two grandchildren. |
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