Chris Crawford on Game Design

Chapter 17. Scram

Before I became a professional game designer, I was a “Mr. Science.” I went to high schools all over the state of California, putting on shows about energy policy issues for entire student bodies. After each show, I'd go into classrooms and talk to students about energy policy. To improve my classroom presentations, I wrote two little simulations on my computer: One simulated energy policy decisions and later became Energy Czar, and the other simulated nuclear power plant operations. When I started working at Atari on the Home Computer System (HCS), the marketing people were eager for educational software, so I wrote Energy Czar. Since they were eager for more, I set to work adapting my nuclear power plant simulator to the ...