Ken Demarest

Kenneth Llewellyn Demarest III is a computer game programmer, business person, expedition caver, and artist.

Career

Demarest worked on Wing Commander and helped advance the state of the art in video games by developing the first 3D, texture-mapped characters ever seen in a computer game with BioForge. As a Director of Technology at Origin Systems, Demarest recognized the potential for graphic massively multiplayer online games (MMOs) and developed the technical prototype for Ultima Online using Ultima VI as a code base.[1] His later work resulted in the first attempt at a persistent-world real-time strategy game, NetStorm: Islands At War,[2] which as of March 2016 is being re-made in 3D as Disciples of the Storm, funded through KickStarter.

In social gaming, Demarest was part of the early work blending 3D MMOs and social game play both stand-alone and on networks such as Facebook and MySpace.[3]

Demarest was a founder of Appsoma, a PaaS for scientific analysis.

Personal life

As an expedition caver, Demarest has caved in the US, Mexico and Thailand, including an upcoming expedition to Sistema Huautla, the deepest cave in the western hemisphere, under the auspices of P.E.S.H.. In 2017 Ken founded the Texas Cave Rescue Scholarship, which sends five cavers per year to National Cave Rescue Commission training. His other community service includes Safety Officer of the Texas Speleological Association and board member of the Texas Cave Management Association.

As an artist for Shadow Garden he wrote 'Sand',[4] the most popular and frequently sold work on the platform developed by Zack Simpson. Sand is in the permanent collections of numerous museums worldwide including the Discovery Science Center and Sony Wonder Technology Lab. Demarest's later work supported technology that benefits humanity including MorSand, a 2006 Tech Award Laureate,[5] and CellBazaar, a 2007 Laureate.[6]

References
  1. "Netstorm Postmortem", Experimental Game Play, July 2006, archived from the original on 2007-10-12
  2. "Interview with Ken Demarest", Coming Soon Magazine], July 1997
  3. "Arcadia Management", Arcadia Entertainment, July 2009, archived from the original on 2009-11-30
  4. "Explore the Museum", Sony Wonder Lab, July 2008
  5. "Technology Benefiting Humanity", The Tech Awards, September 2006
  6. "Technology Benefiting Humanity", The Tech Awards, September 2007


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