Noah Falstein
Noah Falstein is a game designer and producer who has been in the video game industry since 1980.[1] He was one of the first 10 employees at Lucasfilm Games (which became LucasArts Entertainment), DreamWorks Interactive (which became EA Los Angeles), and The 3DO Company (which became defunct).[1] He runs The Inspiracy and writes the "Better by Design" column for Game Developer magazine. He was hired by Google in April 2013 as 'Chief Game Designer',[2] where he worked for 4 years before leaving in April 2017.[3]
A few of his credits include:
- Sinistar (arcade game) - project leader, co-designer (Williams Electronics, 1983)[4]
- Koronis Rift (Commodore 64) - project leader, designer, programmer (Lucasfilm Games, 1985)[5]
- PHM Pegasus (Commodore 64) - project leader, designer, programmer (Lucasfilm Games, 1986)[1]
- Strike Fleet (Commodore 64) - project leader, designer (Lucasfilm Games, 1988)[6]
- Battlehawks 1942 (MS-DOS) - producer, design contributor (Lucasfilm Games, 1988)
- Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: The Graphic Adventure (MS-DOS) - co-project leader, co-designer (LucasArts, 1989)[1]
- Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis (MS-DOS) - co-designer (LucasArts, 1992)[1]
- Chaos Island (Windows) - designer (DreamWorks Interactive, 1997)[1]
- Total Annihilation: Kingdoms (Windows) - writer (GT Interactive, 1997)[7]
- Hungry Red Planet (Windows) - designer (Health Media Lab, 2002)[1]
- Mata Hari (Windows) - designer, writer (DTP Entertainment, 2008)[1]
From 1996 to 2013 Falstein was president of The Inspiracy,[8] a consulting firm specializing in game design and production for clients on five continents, ranging from corporate training (Cisco, Microsoft) to medical education (Hopelab, Health Media Lab, Medical Cyberworlds) to entertainment (LucasArts, Disney, DreamCatcher, Micro Forte).
Falstein's work on "The 400 Project" has attracted recent attention. It is an attempt to collect rules of computer game design under a standard format. The concept was pioneered by Hal Barwood, who co-designed Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis with Falstein. Falstein is also active in the development of the emerging market of serious games.[9]
Falstein was Chair of the International Game Developers Association from 1997 to 1999, he is on the advisory boards of the Games for Health Conference, Serious Games Summit and Akili Interactive Labs.[10]
References
- http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/author/NoahFalstein/89911/
- Google Getting Serious About Gaming? It Just Hired Noah Falstein As 'Chief Game Designer', Forbes (May 2013).
- DEAN, TAKAHASHI (2017-04-06). "Chief game designer Noah Falstein leaves Google". VentureBeat. Retrieved 2017-04-08.
- Noah Falstein. "Reflections on the birth of Sinistar", Gamesauce (Fall 2009). pp 6-9
- http://www.zzap64.co.uk/cgi-bin/displayfeature.pl?featureid=33
- "Noah Falstein". LinkedIn. Microsoft. Retrieved 21 April 2020.
- Mullen, Micheal (27 April 2000). "Sinistar Creator Speaks Out". GameSpot. CBS Interactive. Retrieved 21 April 2020.
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/gamedesignexpert
- https://arts.unl.edu/carson-center/noah-falstein
- https://www.arcadeattack.co.uk/noah-falstein/
External links
- Media related to Noah Falstein at Wikimedia Commons
- The Inspiracy - Falstein's company
- - More on The 400 Project
- Interview with The Dig Museum
- Falstein's profile at MobyGames