David Fox
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- For the other game designer, see David Fox (writer and game developer) For the English footballer, see David Fox (footballer)
David Fox is a multimedia producer, best known for his early work on LucasArts games, most notably Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders. He and his wife, Annie Fox, now work on educational software, Web design, Emotional Intelligence content, online community, emerging technologies, and writing books for children and teens.
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[edit] Early work
Fox is based in the San Francisco Bay Area. At age eleven, he made his first 8 mm cartoon using stacks of discarded Flintstones cels he found in the trash bins behind Hanna-Barbera. He studied engineering at UCLA and Humanistic Psychology at California State University at Sonoma, where he received his bachelor's degree. Fox and his wife Annie co-founded Marin Computer Center in 1977 - the world’s first public-access microcomputer center. He co-authored the books Computer Animation Primer, Armchair BASIC, and Pascal Primer.
[edit] LucasArts
His books led to him being hired as a founding member of the Games Division at Lucasfilm (now LucasArts Entertainment Company). Over the next ten years, he was the designer, project leader, and one of the programmers for the games Rescue on Fractalus!, Labyrinth, Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: The Graphic Adventure. He also worked on Maniac Mansion as the primary script programmer. Fox was part of the memorable team that included Ron Gilbert and Noah Falstein.
He spent his last two years at LucasArts as Manager of Entertainment Software on Mirage (a collaboration between LucasArts and Hughes Aircraft Corporation). This multi-player, networked location-based entertainment system was intended for theme parks, but like several early Lucasfilm projects of the time, was too advanced and hence too expensive for the market at that time.
[edit] Talk City
After leaving LucasArts, Fox was a Senior Game Designer at Rocket Science Games, then worked as a freelance consultant on several games. In 1996, he joined LiveWorld Inc./Talk City, an Internet community provider, as their Director of Kids and Entertainment Programming. During his four years at the company, he produced The InSite, a Web site for teen empowerment, and then became the Director of New Content.
In 2001, he returned to immersive gaming at Xulu Entertainment, producing their motion simulator project. Then he produced and designed a prototype of an educational game for Learning Friends under a grant from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.
[edit] Recent and current work
In the run-up to the 2004 Democratic primaries, Fox was active on Howard Dean's Media Team (responsible for Switch2Dean.com) and built a blog for Simon & Schuster on Dean's book, Winning Back America.
Since then, Fox has developed Web sites for authors David McCullough and Terry Gamble, Alaska Federation of Natives and Marin Democrats, all with graphic designer Daniel Will-Harris.
He is the Director of Production for NewsTrust, a proposed citizen news rating service aiming to bring together experienced journalists and volunteer reviewers.
His interests include science fiction, good films, photography, video making, and taking long walks in the hills of Marin County with Annie (and with their dog, Vermont).
[edit] See also
- LucasArts adventure games
- SCUMM
- ScummVM
- Rescue on Fractalus!
- Maniac Mansion
- Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders
- Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: The Graphic Adventure
[edit] External links
- Electric Eggplant, Official Site
- Cartoon Free America
- NewsTrust
- David Fox at La Isla del Mono (Spanish)
- Interview with David Fox about his work for Lucasfilm Games (from: James Hague: Halcyon Days: Interviews with Classic Computer and Video Game Programmers)
