Chris Crawford on Game Design

First Draft Design

In May of 1982, I started thinking about the possibility of making a new version of Legionnaire, but I moved forward very slowly because it was a home project. As an Atari employee, I dedicated most of my time and creative energy to my project for Atari Research, the Excalibur design. However, in odd moments on evenings and weekends, I would occasionally turn my thoughts to the Legionnaire problem. My earliest design document dates from June of 1982. Here is a neat version of that document; I have added line numbers to make subsequent discussion clearer:

New Legionnaire Specs Map: Rectgrid, scrolling. Terrain: Clear (brown), forest (green), slope (orange). Romans: Red military symbols alternating at 2Hz with background terrain. ...