Will Wright on ‘Spore’

http://www.spore.com/ 

Electronic Arts’ Will Wright, creator of games like “SimCity” and “The Sims,” takes the stage at the Game Developers Conference in San Jose, Calif., on Thursday.

During his keynote, he wound his way through a high-concept talk on the science, fantasy and inspirational books and movies that led to the upcoming game “Spore.”

Wright talked about how game designers should choose where characters fall on many characteristics scales, including “cute” and “science.”

During his keyote address at the Game Developers Conference on Thursday, Wright said he had been influenced by years of science fiction comic books. Thus, he imagined what a “Spore” comic would look like.

A representation of a family of beasts from Electronic Arts’ forthcoming “Spore.” The game lets players start with a microscopic spore, growing it into a larger organism, which then spawns a colony of small creatures.

Wright showed slides during his keynote in San Jose Thursday March 23, including this one demonstrating what creatures from “Spore” might look like.

New colors for Nintendo DS

Nintendo will release two new versions of its DS portable game player on November 23. One of the versions, a gold-colored model, will be packaged with the adventure game The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass.

A metallic pink version of the DS will include the puppy-training title Nintendogs.

Will Wright

Will Wright is an American computer game designer and co-founder of the game development company Maxis, now part of Electronic Arts.

He is best known as the original designer of popular computer games such as SimCity and The Sims. Currently, he is working on the life simulation game Spore.

In 1986, he met Jeff Braun, an investor interested in entering the computer game industry, at what Wright calls “the world’s most important pizza party.” Together they formed Maxis the next year in Orinda, California. SimCity (1989) was a hit and has been credited as one of the most influential computer games ever made. Wright himself has been widely featured in several computer magazines — particularly PC Gamer, which has listed Wright in its annual ‘Game Gods’ feature, alongside such notables as Roberta Williams and Peter Molyneux.

Following on the success of SimCity, Wright designed SimEarth (1990) and SimAnt (1991). He co-designed SimCity 2000 (1993) with Fred Haslam and in the meantime Maxis produced other “Sim” games. Wright’s next game was SimCopter (1996). Although none of these games were as successful as SimCity, they further cemented Wright’s reputation as a designer of “software toys” — games that cannot be won or lost. In 1992, Wright and his family moved to Orinda, California near the San Pablo Reservoir, off Miner Road.

Maxis went public in 1995 with revenue of USD$38 million. The stock reached $50 a share and then dropped as Maxis posted a loss. Electronic Arts bought Maxis in June 1997. Wright had been thinking about making a virtual doll house ever since the early 90s, similar to SimCity but focused on individual people. Originally conceived of as an architectural design game called Home Tactics, Wright’s idea changed when someone suggested the player should be rated on the quality of life experience by the homeowners. It was a difficult idea to sell to EA, because already 40% of Maxis’s employees had been laid off.

EA published The Sims in February 2000 and it became Wright’s biggest success yet. It eventually surpassed Myst as the best-selling computer game of all time and spawned numerous expansion packs and other games. He designed a massively multiplayer version of the game called The Sims Online, which was not as popular as the original.

Wright was given a “Lifetime Achievement Award” at the Game Developers Choice Awards in 2001 . In 2002, he became the fifth person to be inducted into the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences’ Hall of Fame. Until 2006, he was the only person to have been honored this way by both of these industry organizations. In 2007 the British Academy of Film and Television Arts awarded him a fellowship, the first given to a game designer.

He has been called one of the most important people in gaming, technology, and entertainment by publications such as Entertainment Weekly, Time, PC Gamer, Discover and GameSpy. For bringing simulations to the mass market, Wright was awarded the PC Magazine Lifetime Achievement Award in January 2005 .

In a presentation at the Game Developers Conference on March 11, 2005, he announced his latest game Spore. He used the current work on this game to demonstrate methods that can be used to reduce the amount of content that needs to be created by the game developers. Wright hopes to inspire others to take risks in game creation.

Games designed by Wright

• Raid on Bungeling Bay
• SimCity series: SimCity, SimCity 2000, SimCity 3000 (Will Wright was not on the SimCity 4 or SimCity Societies design teams)
• SimEarth
• SimLife
• SimCopter
• SimAnt
• The Sims (Wright is credited for, but did not design most of The Sims 2)
• Spore

Final Fantasy

This is the section is for Final Fantasy Sprites

Anime

This is the section is for Anime Sprites.

John D. Carmack

(born August 20, 1970) is a widely recognized figure in the video game industry. A prolific American programmer, Carmack co-founded id Software, a computer game development company, in 1991. Carmack was the lead programmer of the highly successful id computer games Commander Keen, Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, Quake, and subsequent sequels to Doom and Quake. His revolutionary programming techniques, combined with the unique game designs of John Romero, led to a mass-popularization of the first-person shooter genre (FPS) in the 1990s.

Though Carmack is best known for his innovations in 3D graphics, he is also a rocketry enthusiast and the founder and lead engineer of Armadillo Aerospace. He has aspirations of suborbital space tourism in the short term, eventually leading to orbital space flights.

Softdisk, a computer company in Shreveport, Louisiana, hired Carmack to work on Softdisk G-S (an Apple IIGS publication), uniting him with John Romero and other future key members of id Software such as Adrian Carmack (not related). Later, this team would be placed by Softdisk in charge of a new, but short-lived, bi-monthly game subscription product called Gamer’s Edge for the IBM PC (MS-DOS) platform. In 1990, while still at Softdisk, Carmack, Romero, and others created the first of the Commander Keen games, a series which was published by Apogee Software, under the shareware distribution model, from 1991 onwards. Afterwards, Carmack left Softdisk to co-found id Software, where he remains.

He has pioneered or popularised the use of many techniques in computer graphics, including “adaptive tile refresh” for Commander Keen, raycasting for Hovertank 3-D, Catacomb 3-D, and Wolfenstein 3-D, binary space partitioning which Doom became the first game to use, surface caching which he invented for Quake, Carmack’s Reverse (formally known as z-fail stencil shadow mapping) which he devised for Doom 3, and MegaTexture, used in Enemy Territory: Quake Wars. While he was not the first to discover Carmack’s Reverse, he developed it independently.

Carmack’s engines have also been licensed for use in other influential first-person shooters such as Half-Life and Medal of Honor.

When Carmack was on vacation with his wife, he ended up playing some games on her cellphone, and he realized that the games weren’t any good. He then decided he was going to make a good mobile game. When he got back from his vacation he revealed that he had started working on Doom RPG.

Recognition

• In 1999, Carmack appeared as number 10 in TIME’s list of the 50 most influential people in technology.[2]
• On March 22, 2001, Carmack became the fourth person to be inducted into the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences’ Hall of Fame, an honor bestowed upon those who have made revolutionary and innovative achievements in the video and computer game industry.
• In 2003, Carmack was one of the subjects of the book Masters of Doom, a chronicle of id Software and its founders.
• In 2005, the film Doom featured a character named Dr. Carmack, in recognition of Carmack who co-created the original game.
• In March 2006, Carmack was added to the Walk of Game, an event that recognizes the developers and games with the most impact on the industry.^[4]
• In January of 2007 in Las Vegas, Nevada, John Carmack and id software were awarded with two Emmy Awards. The Science, Engineering & Technology for Broadcast Television, which includes broadcast, cable and satellite distribution, and secondly, Science, Engineering and Technology for Broadband and Personal Television, encompassing interactive television, gaming technology, and for the first time, the Internet, cell phones, private networks, and personal media players. id Software is the very first independent game developer to be awarded an Emmy since the Academy began honoring technology innovation in 1948.^[5]
• In September 2007, Carmack appeared on Discovery Channel Canada Daily Planet, featuring his rocket designs along with the Armadillo Aerospace team.

Shigeru Miyamoto

Shigeru Miyamoto is a Japanese video game designer. He is the creator of the Mario, Donkey Kong, The Legend of Zelda, Star Fox, Nintendogs, Wave Race, and Pikmin video game series for Nintendo game systems. He has also produced many titles which Nintendo has published on behalf of other developers, including the successful F-Zero franchise.

Miyamoto is the world’s most celebrated game designer, and is often called the ‘father of modern video gaming’. His titles are characterized by refined control-mechanics and imaginative worlds in which the players are encouraged to discover things for themselves, as well as basic story lines, which had been almost unheard of before he introduced one of the first, featuring Mario.

Employed by Nintendo (then producing and marketing a playing card game called Hanafuda) as an artist, in 1980 he was given the task of designing one of their first coin-op arcade games. The resulting title was Radar Scope^[1], which was not as big of a success in the United States as Nintendo hoped for. He later redesigned the game into Donkey Kong which was a huge success and the game’s lead character, Jump Man—now called Mario—has become Nintendo’s mascot. Miyamoto quickly became Nintendo’s star producer designing many franchises for the company, most of which are still active and very well-regarded.

He is currently the Director and General Manager of Nintendo Entertainment Analysis and Development (EAD), the corporate sector of Nintendo of Japan. In 1998, Miyamoto became the first person to be inducted into the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences’ Hall of Fame.

Game Name	Year Released	Console Name
Donkey Kong	1981	Arcade
Donkey Kong Jr.	1982	Arcade
Mario Bros.	1983	Arcade
Devil World	1984	NES/Famicom
Donkey Kong 3	1984/1986	NES/Famicom
Ice Climber	1985	NES/Famicom/FDS
Super Mario Bros.	1985	NES/Famicom/FDS
The Legend of Zelda	1986/1987	FDS/NES
Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels	1986	FDS
Zelda II: The Adventure of Link	1987/1988	FDS/NES
Mother	1989	NESFamicom
Super Mario Bros. 3	1988/1990	NES/Famicom
F-Zero	1990/1991	Super NES/Super Famicom
Super Mario World	1990/1991	Super NES/Super Famicom
The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past	1991/1992	Super NES/Super Famicom
Super Mario Kart	1992	Super NES/Super Famicom
Mario Paint	1992	Super NES/Super Famicom
Wave Race	1992	Game Boy
The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening	1993	Game Boy
Star Fox	1993	Super NES/Super Famicom
Super Mario All-Stars	1993	Super NES/ Super Famicom
Yoshi’s Safari	1993	Super NES/Super Famicom
Kirby’s Adventure	1993	NES/Famicom
Donkey Kong	1994	Game Boy
Stunt Race FX	1994	Super NES/Super Famicom
Killer Instinct	1994	Super NES/Super Famicom
Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island	1995	Super NES/Super Famicom
Mole Mania	1996	Game Boy
Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars	1996/1997	Super NES/Super Famicom
Super Mario 64	1996/1997	Nintendo 64
Wave Race 64	1996/1997	Nintendo 64
Mario Kart 64	1996/1997	Nintendo 64
Star Fox 64	1997	Nintendo 64
Yoshi’s Story	1997/1998	Nintendo 64
1080° Snowboarding	1998	Nintendo 64
F-Zero X	1998	Nintendo 64
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time	1998	Nintendo 64
F-Zero Expansion Kit	1999	Nintendo 64DD
Mario Artist	1999	Nintendo 64DD
Mario Party	1999	Nintendo 64
Super Smash Bros.	1999	Nintendo 64
The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask	2000	Nintendo 64
Paper Mario	2001	Nintendo 64
Super Mario Advance	2001	Game Boy Advance
Wario Land 4	2001	Game Boy Advance
Luigi’s Mansion	2001	Nintendo GameCube
Wave Race: Blue Storm	2001	GameCube
Mario Kart: Super Circuit	2001	Game Boy Advance
Pikmin	2001	GameCube
Super Smash Bros. Melee	2001	GameCube
Super Mario World: Super Mario Advance 2	2002	Game Boy Advance
Doshin the Giant	2002	GameCube
Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem	2002	GameCube
Super Mario Sunshine	2002	GameCube
Yoshi’s Island: Super Mario Advance 3	2002	Game Boy Advance
Metroid Prime	2002	GameCube
Star Fox Adventures	2002	GameCube
The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker	2002/2003	GameCube
F-Zero GX	2003	GameCube
Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour	2003	GameCube
F-Zero GP Legend	2003/2004	Game Boy Advance
Donkey Konga	2003	GameCube
Pac-Man Vs.	2003	GameCube
The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures	2003	GameCube
Donkey Kong Country	2003	Game Boy Advance
Mario Kart: Double Dash	2003	GameCube
Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga	2003	Game Boy Advance
Metroid Prime 2: Echoes	2004	GameCube
Pikmin 2	2004	GameCube
Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door	2004	GameCube
Donkey Kong Jungle Beat	2004	GameCube
Mario vs. Donkey Kong	2004	Game Boy Advance
Super Mario 64 DS	2004	Nintendo DS
Star Fox: Assault	2005	GameCube
Geist	2005	GameCube
Nintendogs	2005	Nintendo DS
Mario Kart DS	2005	Nintendo DS
Mario vs. Donkey Kong 2: March of the Minis	2006	Nintendo DS
New Super Mario Bros.	2006	Nintendo DS
Wii Sports	2006	Wii
The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess	2006	GameCube/Wii
Super Paper Mario	2007	Wii
Super Mario Galaxy	2007	Wii
Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games	2007	Wii