Glyn Anderson
Encyclopedia
Glyn Anderson has designed, programmed, and managed the production of entertainment products for video game consoles starting with the Intellivision
, as well as for PCs from the early MS-DOS days to the present. A musician as well as a programmer, he also created the cross-platform sound and music driver called OminiMusic that was used on many of Activision
titles between 1989 and 1992, including Ghostbusters II and Lexi-Cross.
Anderson started making games in 1980 as one of the programmers at APh Technological Consulting
, the company that created the Intellivision for Mattel
and games including Land Battle and Adventures of Tron
. He then worked at Activision with David Crane
and Steve Cartwright
, creating Atari 800 and Commodore 64
versions of some of their games such as Megamania
, Ghostbusters and Hacker II: The Doomsday Papers.
Some of the more unconventional games he has worked on include Leather Goddesses of Phobos 2: Gas Pump Girls Meet the Pulsating Inconvenience from Planet X!
with Steve Meretzky
and Mutant League Hockey
, a sports game that parodies NHL teams with athletes that are monsters, robots and skeletons. Both of these games attracted cult followings.
A couple of noteworthy games Anderson worked on were Aliens and Golden Nugget. Aliens for the Commodore 64 came out soon after the second Alien movie in 1986, being built by a team in a then unheard of time of just 80 days. The Activision studio members really wanted to make a game after seeing the movie, but were told that Activision UK had already been assigned the project. By moving quickly, the US team beat the overseas team to market. Golden Nugget, released in 1995, was very innovative in its use of full motion video and video compositing. Real people were videotaped as players against a green screen, allowing game players to interact with onscreen players and computer generated elements like chips and cards. The game also included a one-hour movie starring Adam West, best known as TV’s Batman. The original development team (which evolved over the two-year process) was all women, very unusual at the time.
In addition to his work as a programmer, Anderson has held executive positions at major game publishing companies including Activision,and Infogrames
. He was Director of Technology at Accolade
, which later became Infogrames. He has also previously founded and operated a video game development company in California called Abalone Entertainment Software Development, and began and ran Matahari Studios in Indonesia.
Anderson’s current company, Game Production Services, creates Location-based Immersive Virtual Experience (LIVE) training simulations, such as the Infantry Immersive Trainer
and Joint Fires & Effects Trainer System (JFETS), primarily for the U.S. military.
Intellivision
The Intellivision is a video game console released by Mattel in 1979. Development of the console began in 1978, less than a year after the introduction of its main competitor, the Atari 2600. The word intellivision is a portmanteau of "intelligent television"...
, as well as for PCs from the early MS-DOS days to the present. A musician as well as a programmer, he also created the cross-platform sound and music driver called OminiMusic that was used on many of Activision
Activision
Activision is an American publisher, majority owned by French conglomerate Vivendi SA. Its current CEO is Robert Kotick. It was founded on October 1, 1979 and was the world's first independent developer and distributor of video games for gaming consoles...
titles between 1989 and 1992, including Ghostbusters II and Lexi-Cross.
Anderson started making games in 1980 as one of the programmers at APh Technological Consulting
APh Technological Consulting
APh Technological Consulting is a software company, located in Pasadena, California, USA. In 1976 they helped Mattel to develop the Intellivision video game console and also wrote most of the early games for it...
, the company that created the Intellivision for Mattel
Mattel
Mattel, Inc. is the world's largest toy company based on revenue. The products it produces include Fisher Price, Barbie dolls, Hot Wheels and Matchbox toys, Masters of the Universe, American Girl dolls, board games, and, in the early 1980s, video game consoles. The company's name is derived from...
and games including Land Battle and Adventures of Tron
Adventures of Tron
Adventures of Tron is an action game produced by Mattel, and was released for the Atari 2600 in 1982. It is based on the Walt Disney motion picture Tron and received fairly positive reviews from critics....
. He then worked at Activision with David Crane
David Crane
David Crane may refer to:* David Crane , former Chief Prosecutor for the U.N. War Crimes Tribunal for Sierra Leone* David Crane , video game designer, programmer and co-founder of Activision...
and Steve Cartwright
Steve Cartwright
Steve Cartwright is an American computer and video game designer. He is best known as one of the original Activision game designers credited with such hits as Barnstorming, Megamania, Seaquest and Hacker...
, creating Atari 800 and Commodore 64
Commodore 64
The Commodore 64 is an 8-bit home computer introduced by Commodore International in January 1982.Volume production started in the spring of 1982, with machines being released on to the market in August at a price of US$595...
versions of some of their games such as Megamania
Megamania
Megamania is an Atari 2600 game designed by Steve Cartwright and published by Activision in 1982. It took about six months to develop the concept, and another three months to fine tune the game. It was later released for the Atari 5200 and Atari 8-bit family in 1983, ported by Glyn Anderson...
, Ghostbusters and Hacker II: The Doomsday Papers.
Some of the more unconventional games he has worked on include Leather Goddesses of Phobos 2: Gas Pump Girls Meet the Pulsating Inconvenience from Planet X!
Leather Goddesses of Phobos 2: Gas Pump Girls Meet the Pulsating Inconvenience from Planet X!
Leather Goddesses of Phobos 2: Gas Pump Girls Meet the Pulsating Inconvenience from Planet X! is a graphic adventure game written by Steve Meretzky and published by Activision in 1992 under the Infocom label...
with Steve Meretzky
Steve Meretzky
Steven Eric Meretzky is an American computer game developer, with dozens of titles to his credit. He has been involved in almost every aspect of game development, from design to production to quality assurance and box design...
and Mutant League Hockey
Mutant League Hockey
Mutant League Hockey is a hockey game that was released in 1994 for the Sega Genesis. This video game is a spin-off of Mutant League Football and features several of the same team names and players as well as new ones.-Summary:...
, a sports game that parodies NHL teams with athletes that are monsters, robots and skeletons. Both of these games attracted cult followings.
A couple of noteworthy games Anderson worked on were Aliens and Golden Nugget. Aliens for the Commodore 64 came out soon after the second Alien movie in 1986, being built by a team in a then unheard of time of just 80 days. The Activision studio members really wanted to make a game after seeing the movie, but were told that Activision UK had already been assigned the project. By moving quickly, the US team beat the overseas team to market. Golden Nugget, released in 1995, was very innovative in its use of full motion video and video compositing. Real people were videotaped as players against a green screen, allowing game players to interact with onscreen players and computer generated elements like chips and cards. The game also included a one-hour movie starring Adam West, best known as TV’s Batman. The original development team (which evolved over the two-year process) was all women, very unusual at the time.
In addition to his work as a programmer, Anderson has held executive positions at major game publishing companies including Activision,and Infogrames
Infogrames
Infogrames Entertainment SA was an international French holding company headquartered in Paris, France. It was the owner of Atari, Inc., headquartered in New York City, U.S. and Atari Europe. It was founded in 1983 by Bruno Bonnell and Christophe Sapet using the proceeds from an introductory...
. He was Director of Technology at Accolade
Accolade
In the Middle Ages, the accolade was the central act in the rite-of-passage ceremonies conferring knighthood.-Ceremony:...
, which later became Infogrames. He has also previously founded and operated a video game development company in California called Abalone Entertainment Software Development, and began and ran Matahari Studios in Indonesia.
Anderson’s current company, Game Production Services, creates Location-based Immersive Virtual Experience (LIVE) training simulations, such as the Infantry Immersive Trainer
Infantry Immersion Trainer
The Infantry Immersion Trainer is a mixed reality training facility prototype for small unit Infantry located in a former tomato packing plant in Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, California. It has been in operation since November 2007. The original IIIT is now known as IIT Phase I. A purpose...
and Joint Fires & Effects Trainer System (JFETS), primarily for the U.S. military.
Selected titles
| Year | Title | Company |
|---|---|---|
| 2003 | Need for Speed Need for Speed: Underground Need for Speed: Underground is the seventh racing game in the Need for Speed video game series developed by EA Black Box and published by Electronic Arts in 2003... |
Electronic Arts |
| 2003 | Terminator 3 Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (video game) Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines is a video game based on the film of the same name. It is a first-person shooter with elements of hand to hand combat in third-person perspective. A version was released for the Game Boy Advance on November 18, 2003 it was an isometric shooter. A puzzle game was... |
Infogrames |
| 2002 | Stuntman | Infogrames |
| 2002 | Magi-Nation Magi Nation (GBC) Magi Nation is a video game released in 2001 for the Game Boy Color. The game, published by Interactive Imagination, is based on the collectible card game of the same name.... |
Interactive Imagination |
| 1999 | Redline | Accolade |
| 1999 | Slave Zero Slave Zero Slave Zero is a 1999 Infogrames video game for the Sega Dreamcast and Windows ME .-Story:Taking place 500 years in the future, the game tells the story of Lu Chen, a sinister world overlord more commonly known as the SovKhan, who rules the Earth from a massive complex called Megacity S1-9... |
Accolade |
| 1999 | Test Drive: Off-Road 3 | Infogrames |
| 1998 | Mission Impossible | Infogrames |
| 1998 | Deadlock II: Shrine Wars Deadlock II: Shrine Wars Deadlock II: Shrine Wars is a sci-fi turn-based strategy computer game developed by Cyberlore Studios and published by Accolade, released on February 28, 1998 as a sequel to Deadlock: Planetary Conquest... |
Accolade |
| 1997 | Mona & Moki 1: Drive Me Wild! | Lightspan |
| 1997 | Mona & Moki 2: Drive Me Wilder! | Lightspan |
| 1997 | Secret of Googol 5: Googolfest - Party Isle / Toy Isle | Lightspan |
| 1997 | Timeless Math 4: Lunar Base | Lightspan |
| 1995 | X-Perts X-Perts X-Perts is a side-scrolling fighting action video game produced by Sega of America and released only in North America for the Mega Drive/Genesis in... |
Sega |
| 1995 | Nugget | Virgin Interactive |
| 1994 | Mutant League Hockey Mutant League Hockey Mutant League Hockey is a hockey game that was released in 1994 for the Sega Genesis. This video game is a spin-off of Mutant League Football and features several of the same team names and players as well as new ones.-Summary:... |
Electronic Arts |
| 1994 | Pirates of the Caribbean | Disney Interactive |
| 1992 | Leather Goddesses of Phobos 2: Gas Pump Girls Meet the Pulsating Inconvenience from Planet X! Leather Goddesses of Phobos 2: Gas Pump Girls Meet the Pulsating Inconvenience from Planet X! Leather Goddesses of Phobos 2: Gas Pump Girls Meet the Pulsating Inconvenience from Planet X! is a graphic adventure game written by Steve Meretzky and published by Activision in 1992 under the Infocom label... |
Activision |
| 1992 | The Manhole: New and Enhanced The Manhole The Manhole is a computer adventure game intended for children in which the player opens a manhole and reveals a gigantic beanstalk that can be climbed either up or down, leading to fantastic worlds in either case.-Summary:... |
Activision |
| 1991 | Lexi-Cross Lexi-Cross Lexi-Cross is a 1991 DOS computer game by Interplay Productions. Its premise is a futuristic TV game show, featuring elements similar to Wheel of Fortune, Scrabble, and Battleship. Players can choose to play as human or alien, and computer opponents are robots.- Gameplay :Each player has a grid of... |
Interplay Productions |
| 1991 | Trump Castle II | Capstone Software |
| 1990 | Circuit's Edge Circuit's Edge Circuit's Edge is a computer game developed by Westwood Studios and released by Infocom in 1989. It was based on George Alec Effinger's 1987 novel When Gravity Fails... |
Infocom |
| 1990 | F-14 Tomcat | Activision |
| 1990 | Shanghai II: Dragon's Eye | Activision |
| 1989 | BattleTech: The Crescent Hawks' Revenge BattleTech: The Crescent Hawk's Revenge BattleTech: The Crescent Hawk's Revenge is a real-time strategy game based in the FASA BattleTech universe. Developed by Westwood Studios for Mediagenic, and produced by Scott Berfield, it is a major milestone in the gaming industry in that the game serves as the prototype for what later became... |
Infocom, Inc. |
| 1989 | Ghostbusters II | Activision |
| 1989 | The Manhole: New and Enhanced The Manhole The Manhole is a computer adventure game intended for children in which the player opens a manhole and reveals a gigantic beanstalk that can be climbed either up or down, leading to fantastic worlds in either case.-Summary:... |
Activision |
| 1989 | Rampage | Activision |
| 1989 | Stealth ATF Stealth ATF Stealth ATF is a stealth fighter video game released by Activision in 1989 for the Nintendo Entertainment System. The object of the game is to take out aircraft that are trying to destroy the player's stealth fighter... |
Activision |
| 1986 | Aliens: The Computer Game | Activision |
| 1986 | Hacker II: The Doomsday Papers | Activision |
| 1985 | Future Ball (complete but unpublished) | Activision |
| 1984 | Ghostbusters | Activision |
| 1984 | Web Dimension | Activision |
| 1983 | Megamania Megamania Megamania is an Atari 2600 game designed by Steve Cartwright and published by Activision in 1982. It took about six months to develop the concept, and another three months to fine tune the game. It was later released for the Atari 5200 and Atari 8-bit family in 1983, ported by Glyn Anderson... |
Activision |
| 1982 | Land Battle | APh |
| 1982 | Adventures of Tron Adventures of Tron Adventures of Tron is an action game produced by Mattel, and was released for the Atari 2600 in 1982. It is based on the Walt Disney motion picture Tron and received fairly positive reviews from critics.... |
APh |