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Free Fall Associates
Free Fall Associates was a video game developer of the 1980s and early 1990s founded in 1981 by game designer Jon Freeman, game programmer Anne Westfall, and game designer Paul Reiche III. Westfall and Freeman are married. To start the new company, Freeman and Westfall left Epyx, the company Freeman co-founded in 1978. ''Free Fall Associates'' is best known for '' Archon: The Light and the Dark'' (1983), which was one of the first games from new publisher Electronic Arts. Origin Freeman, along with friend Jim Connelley, started Epyx as Automated Simulations as a vehicle to publish a game they had created together called ''Starfleet Orion'' for the Commodore PET home computer. They eventually published dozens of titles for numerous platforms, some very successful. By 1981, however, Freeman had become frustrated with what he called "office politics" and decided to leave the company. His wife, Westfall, joined him, though she cites a desire to learn assembly language programming o ...
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Video Game Developer
A video game developer is a broad term for a software developer specializing in video game development – the process and related disciplines of creating video games. A game developer can range from one person who undertakes all tasks to a large business with employee responsibilities split between individual disciplines, such as Video game programmer, programmers, Video game design#Game designer, designers, Game art design#Video game artist, artists, etc. Most game development companies have video game publisher financial and usually marketing support. Self-funded developers are known as independent or indie developers and usually make indie games. A developer may specialize in specific Game engine, game engines or specific video game consoles (such as Nintendo's Nintendo Switch, Switch, Microsoft's Xbox Series X and Series S, Sony's PlayStation 5), or may develop for a number of systems (including personal computers and mobile devices). Video game developers specialize in certai ...
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Adept
An adept is an individual identified as having attained a specific level of knowledge, skill, or aptitude in doctrines relevant to a particular author or organization. He or she stands out from others with their great abilities. All human qualities are developed in them, including intelligence and spirituality. Anyone can become an adept through spiritual development and self-improvement. Etymology The word "adept" is derived from Latin ''adeptus'' 'one who has attained' (the secret of transmuting metals). Authors H. P. Blavatsky Madame Blavatsky makes liberal use of the term ''adept'' in her works to refer to their additional function as caretaker of ancient occult knowledge. She also mentions their great compassionate desire to help humanity and also documents other powers of the adept such as being able to take active control of elemental spirits as well as the physical and astral conditions of non-adepts. Alice Bailey In Alice Bailey's body of writing she outlines a hie ...
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GameTV
GameTV is a Canadian English language specialty channel owned by Anthem Sports & Entertainment. It currently broadcasts a mixture of game shows, reality competition series, and films. The channel was first launched in 2005 under the ownership of Stuart Media Group as Casino and Gaming Television (CGTV), which primarily focused on sports betting and televised poker. Larry Tanenbaum's Insight Sports served as the channel's operating partner. In 2007, the channel was re-launched under its current name, expanding its format to include competition programming (such as game and reality shows, and for a period, reruns of classic Canadian game shows) and films, and eventually phased out its gaming programming. In 2016, the channel was acquired by Anthem, after which it briefly expanded to include occasional sports and sports entertainment programming. Sports programming would later be dropped and shifted to new sister channel Game+, returning GameTV to its existing format. History In S ...
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Prodigy (ISP)
Prodigy Communications Corporation (Prodigy Services Corp., Prodigy Services Co., Trintex) was an online service from 1984 to 2001 that offered its subscribers access to a broad range of networked services, including news, weather, shopping, bulletin boards, games, polls, expert columns, banking, stocks, travel, and a variety of other features. Prodigy was described by the ''New York Times'' as "family-oriented" and one of "the Big Three information services" in 1994. Initially, subscribers using personal computers accessed the Prodigy service by means of copper wire telephone " POTS" service or X.25 dialup. For its initial roll-out, Prodigy used 1,200 bit/s modem connections. To provide faster service and to stabilize the diverse modem market, Prodigy offered low-cost 2,400 bit/s internal modems to subscribers at a discount. The host systems used were regionally distributed IBM Series/1 minicomputers managed by central IBM mainframes located in Yorktown Heights, New York. The co ...
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Card Game
A card game is any game using playing cards as the primary device with which the game is played, be they traditional or game-specific. Countless card games exist, including families of related games (such as poker). A small number of card games played with traditional decks have formally standardized rules with international tournaments being held, but most are folk games whose rules vary by region, culture, and person. Traditional card games are played with a ''deck'' or ''pack'' of playing cards which are identical in size and shape. Each card has two sides, the ''face'' and the ''back''. Normally the backs of the cards are indistinguishable. The faces of the cards may all be unique, or there can be duplicates. The composition of a deck is known to each player. In some cases several decks are shuffled together to form a single ''pack'' or ''shoe''. Modern card games usually have bespoke decks, often with a vast amount of cards, and can include number or action cards. This ...
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Toys For Bob
Toys for Bob, Inc. is an American video game developer based in Novato, California. As the creators of the award-winning ''Star Control'' and ''Skylanders'' series, the studio originated as a partnership between Paul Reiche III and Fred Ford (programmer), Fred Ford. They had separately attended the University of California, Berkeley in the late 1970s, before entering the video game industry in the early 1980s. They later met through mutual friends in 1988, when Reiche was seeking a programmer to develop ''Star Control'' for Accolade (company), Accolade. This led to the creation of their partnership in 1989 and the debut of ''Star Control'' in 1990. The release was considered a landmark science fiction game and led to the 1992 sequel ''Star Control II'', which greatly expanded the series' story and scale. ''Star Control II'' is celebrated as one of the List of video games considered the best, greatest games of all time and is featured on several "best of" lists for music, writing, ...
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Accolade (company)
Accolade, Inc. (later Infogrames North America, Inc.) was an American video game developer and publisher based in San Jose, California. The company was founded as Accolade in 1984 by Alan Miller and Bob Whitehead, who had previously co-founded Activision in 1979. The company became known for numerous sports game series, including ''HardBall!, Jack Nicklaus'' and ''Test Drive''. By the early 1990s, Accolade saw critical acclaim for '' Star Control'' (1990), as well as strong sales for ''Bubsy'' (1993). However, Sega sued Accolade for creating unauthorized Sega Genesis games by reverse-engineering the console's boot-protection. Accolade won the case on appeal, overturning an injunction from the lower court that had interrupted their sales and development. The founders soon left the company. The new chief executive, Peter Harris, attracted new investment from Time Warner. The following year, Accolade president Jim Barrett replaced him. He focused on existing franchises hoping ...
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Fred Ford (programmer)
Robert Frederick Ford is an American video game programmer. He is the son of mathematician L. R. Ford Jr. Ford is the co-creator, with Paul Reiche III, of the '' Star Control'' universe. Ford did the programming, while Reiche was responsible for the game design and fiction. Ford was also the lead programmer on '' The Horde'' and '' Pandemonium''. Career Beginnings and ''Star Control'' Ford attended the University of California, Berkeley. In the early 1980s, Ford began his game career while in college, creating games exclusively for the Japanese market. Working for a company called Unison World (later Magicsoft), he worked on his first games for a Japanese monochrome handheld, including a bowling game, a bi-plane flight game, and a tank game. Soon after, he moved onto developing for the NEC PC-6000 series, the MSX, and Fujitsu systems, with titles such as ''Pillbox, Sea Bomber,'' and ''Ground Support.'' Ford was working on an unreleased title, when Magicsoft ran out of ...
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Archon Ultra
''Archon Ultra'' is an action-strategy video game developed by Free Fall Associates and published by Strategic Simulations in 1994 for MS-DOS. It is a remake of the 1983 game '' Archon: The Light and the Dark'' which was one of the first releases from Electronic Arts. Gameplay A remake of '' Archon: The Light and the Dark'', ''Archon Ultra'' adds updated graphics and sound. New gameplay features include secondary weapons that give all units two unique abilities, and the battle sequences are shown from a diagonal overhead point of view to simulate a third dimension in the battles. The game also has a multiplayer mode via modem. Reception '' Computer Gaming World'' approved of how ''Ultra''s new features made the game "worthwhile to players of the original" without "destroy ngthe balance of the original", and noted the computer opponent's skill in the middlegame and endgame. The magazine concluded that the developers "brought the graphics and sound of ''Archon'' up to current s ...
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Swords Of Twilight
''Swords of Twilight'' is a 1989 video game developed by Free Fall Associates and published by Electronic Arts for the Amiga. Gameplay ''Swords of Twilight'' is a multi-player role-playing game in which each player character is capable of performing actions, dialogue and travel simultaneously. Reception Douglas Seacat reviewed the game for '' Computer Gaming World'', and stated that "the game wins my vote for CRPG of the year. One simply cannot recommend this game highly enough." Reviews *Amiga Computing - Jan, 1990 *Amiga Action - Jan, 1991 * ASM (Aktueller Software Markt) - Nov, 1989 *The Games Machine - Jan, 1990 *Amiga Format - Jan, 1990 * Amiga User International - Dec, 1989 *Amiga World - Feb, 1990 References External links *{{moby game, id=/swords-of-twilight''Swords of Twilight''at the Hall of LightReviewin Info Info is shorthand for "information". It may also refer to: Computing * .info, a generic top-level domain * info:, a URI scheme for information assets wit ...
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Cluedo
''Cluedo'' (), known as ''Clue'' in North America, is a murder mystery game for three to six players (depending on editions) that was devised in 1943 by British board game designer Anthony E. Pratt. The game was first manufactured by Waddingtons in the United Kingdom in 1949. Since then, it has been relaunched and updated several times, and it is currently owned and published by the American game and toy company Hasbro. The object of the game is to determine who murdered the game's victim, where the crime took place, and which weapon was used. Each player assumes the role of one of the six suspects and attempts to deduce the correct answer by strategically moving around a game board representing the rooms of a mansion and collecting clues about the circumstances of the murder from the other players. Numerous games, books, a film, television series, and a musical have been released as part of the ''Cluedo'' franchise. Several spinoffs have been released featuring various ext ...
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