David Allen Interview

Blue Monday dropped us an email letting us know that they’ve posted an interview with David Allen, formerly of Artifact Entertainment, who is now currently working on a couple of games under his new company called Pharaoh. Here’s a taste:

How did you get started in the industry?

In 1979 my father brought home a CDC PLATO terminal one night. We dialed up with our 300 baud modem and began to play graphical games with other people. I got hooked playing games like Labyrinth, Moria, Avatar, and Journey (anyone who played these and knows what I’m talking about is probably tingling right now at the mention of these names). It was the best time of my life – I was playing these multiplayer games until around 88 or so when I lost my account (and my father didn’t work for CDC anymore). During this time I was also playing PC games like Wizardry, Bard’s Tale, Ultima, etc. That’s when I started writing my own games – the first one I wrote with my father was called DIEATRON, and it was written in GWBASIC. I then started writing many other RP games as time went by, then finally did MORDOR, which was my first ‘official’ release.