Stuart Smith (game designer)
Encyclopedia
Stuart Smith is an American
computer game designer and programmer
.
He is best known for his adventure game
s, and was a pioneer in the development of graphical adventures in the early 1980s. He was also a unique designer for his time because of his desire to faithfully build history
and mythology
into his games. This paralleled the interests of his contemporaries like Bruce Shelley
and Sid Meier
, and foreshadowed some of their later hits.
Smith's titles include:
Shelley and Meier worked most often in strategy game
s rather than adventures, a genre where their classical interests found better support in the games business. Where subtly educational content was welcomed in strategy games, it gradually fell from favor in adventures. In the late 1980s Smith elected to provide more stability for his family and took a position as a programmer outside the industry.
John Romero
searched for but has been unable to find Stuart Smith
Although he is known today primarily for Adventure Construction Set, Smith was and is highly respected by his peers for his attention to detail and professionalism as a designer.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
computer game designer and programmer
Game programmer
A game programmer is a software engineer, programmer, or computer scientist who primarily develops codebase for video games or related software, such as game development tools. Game programming has many specialized disciplines all of which fall under the umbrella term of "game programmer"...
.
He is best known for his adventure game
Adventure game
An adventure game is a video game in which the player assumes the role of protagonist in an interactive story driven by exploration and puzzle-solving instead of physical challenge. The genre's focus on story allows it to draw heavily from other narrative-based media such as literature and film,...
s, and was a pioneer in the development of graphical adventures in the early 1980s. He was also a unique designer for his time because of his desire to faithfully build history
History
History is the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about past events. History can also mean the period of time after writing was invented. Scholars who write about history are called historians...
and mythology
Mythology
The term mythology can refer either to the study of myths, or to a body or collection of myths. As examples, comparative mythology is the study of connections between myths from different cultures, whereas Greek mythology is the body of myths from ancient Greece...
into his games. This paralleled the interests of his contemporaries like Bruce Shelley
Bruce Shelley
Bruce Campbell Shelley is a computer game designer who helped design Sid Meier's Civilization and Railroad Tycoon with MicroProse and the 1997 hit real-time strategy game Age of Empires with Ensemble Studios. He is currently working with Zynga, best known for Farmville, and had helped develop...
and Sid Meier
Sid Meier
Sidney K. "Sid" Meier is a Canadian programmer and designer of several popular computer strategy games, most notably Civilization. He has won accolades for his contributions to the computer games industry...
, and foreshadowed some of their later hits.
Smith's titles include:
- Fracas (1980), published by Computersmiths
- Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves (1981), published by Quality SoftwareQuality SoftwareQuality Software is a defunct software design company that published games for Apple II and Atari 800 computers in the late 1970s and early 1980s...
- Return of HeraclesReturn of HeraclesThe Return of Heracles is an adventure game for the Atari 8-bit, Commodore 64 and Apple II computers, originally written by Stuart Smith and published by Quality Software in 1983...
(1982) (Sometimes listed as Return of Herakles), published by Quality Software - Adventure Construction SetAdventure Construction SetAdventure Construction Set is a program written by Stuart Smith that is used to construct tile-based graphical adventure games. ACS was originally published by Electronic Arts in 1984 on the Commodore 64, and was later ported to the Apple II, Amiga and MS-DOS platforms...
(1984), one of Electronic ArtsElectronic ArtsElectronic Arts, Inc. is a major American developer, marketer, publisher and distributor of video games. Founded and incorporated on May 28, 1982 by Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer games industry and was notable for promoting the designers and programmers...
' major early hits - Age of Adventure (1986), Electronic Arts
Shelley and Meier worked most often in strategy game
Strategy game
A strategy game or strategic game is a game in which the players' uncoerced, and often autonomous decision-making skills have a high significance in determining the outcome...
s rather than adventures, a genre where their classical interests found better support in the games business. Where subtly educational content was welcomed in strategy games, it gradually fell from favor in adventures. In the late 1980s Smith elected to provide more stability for his family and took a position as a programmer outside the industry.
John Romero
John Romero
Alfonso John Romero is a game designer, programmer, and developer in the video game industry. He is best known as a co-founder of id Software and was a designer for many of their games, including Wolfenstein 3D, Dangerous Dave, Doom and Quake...
searched for but has been unable to find Stuart Smith
Although he is known today primarily for Adventure Construction Set, Smith was and is highly respected by his peers for his attention to detail and professionalism as a designer.