Chuck Bueche (also known as Chuckles) is a

video game programmer A game programmer is a software engineer, programmer, or computer scientist who primarily develops codebases for video games or related software, such as game development tools. Game programming has many specialized disciplines, all of which fall ...

best known for co-founding

Origin Systems Origin Systems, Inc. was an American video game developer based in Austin, Texas. It was founded on March 3, 1983, by Richard Garriott and his brother Robert Garriott, Robert. Origin is best known for their groundbreaking work in multiple genres ...

and his involvement with the '' Ultima'' video game series. Bueche was a high school friend and university roommate of

Richard Garriott Richard Allen Garriott de Cayeux (''né'' Garriott; born July 4, 1961) is an American video game developer, entrepreneur and private astronaut. Although both his parents were American, he maintains dual British and American citizenship by birth. ...

Austin, Texas Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of Texas, as well as the county seat, seat and largest city of Travis County, Texas, Travis County, with portions extending into Hays County, Texas, Hays and Williamson County, Texas, Williamson co ...

. After being introduced to computers by Garriott in 1981, Bueche founded his own company, Craniac Entertainment. Shortly thereafter, three of Bueche's games, '' Lunar Leepers'', '' Jawbreaker II'', and '' Laf Pak'', were published by

Sierra On-Line Sierra Entertainment, Inc. (formerly On-Line Systems and Sierra On-Line, Inc.) was an American video game developer and publisher founded in 1979 by Ken and Roberta Williams. The company is known for pioneering the graphic adventure game genre, ...

. In 1983, Bueche, along with Richard Garriott,

Robert Garriott Robert K. Garriott (born December 7, 1956) is an American video game industry figure and entrepreneur. He co-founded Origin Systems and Destination Games with his brother, Richard Garriott, and was the CEO of NCsoft-North America until 2008. He ...

, and

Owen Garriott Owen Kay Garriott (November 22, 1930 – April 15, 2019) was an American electrical engineer and NASA astronaut, who spent 60 days aboard the Skylab space station in 1973 during the Skylab 3 mission, and 10 days aboard Spacelab-1 on a Spac ...

, founded the software company Origin Systems. Origin became the publisher of Richard's ''Ultima'' series; Bueche

ported In software engineering, porting is the process of adapting software for the purpose of achieving some form of execution in a computing environment that is different from the one that a given program (meant for such execution) was originally desi ...

many of the original

Apple II The Apple II (stylized as ) is an 8-bit home computer and one of the world's first highly successful mass-produced microcomputer products. It was designed primarily by Steve Wozniak; Jerry Manock developed the design of Apple II's foam-m ...

games to the

Commodore 64 The Commodore 64, also known as the C64, is an 8-bit home computer introduced in January 1982 by Commodore International (first shown at the Consumer Electronics Show, January 7–10, 1982, in Las Vegas). It has been listed in the Guinness ...

and

Atari 8-bit family The Atari 8-bit family is a series of 8-bit home computers introduced by Atari, Inc. in 1979 as the Atari 400 and Atari 800. The series was successively upgraded to Atari 1200XL , Atari 600XL, Atari 800XL, Atari 65XE, Atari 130XE, Atari 800XE, ...

. He designed and programmed other Origin games, including ''

Autoduel ''Autoduel'' is a 1985 role-playing video game published by Origin Systems for the Atari 8-bit family, Commodore 64, Apple II, Macintosh, and DOS. It was released in 1987 for the Atari ST and in 1988 for the Amiga. The game is based on the Steve J ...

'' and '' 2400 A.D.'' The last original game Chuck developed at Origin was ''2500 A.D.'', but was halted in production in 1988 due to poor sales of ''2400 A.D.'' Bueche left Origin in 1988 to obtain a

bachelor's degree A bachelor's degree (from Middle Latin ''baccalaureus'') or baccalaureate (from Modern Latin ''baccalaureatus'') is an undergraduate academic degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to six ...

electrical engineering Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems which use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

from the

University of Texas at Austin The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...

(1990). He later held executive positions at Velocity Incorporated,

Xatrix Entertainment Gray Matter Interactive Studios, Inc. (Gray Matter Studios; formerly Xatrix Entertainment, Inc.) was an American video game developer based in Los Angeles. History Drew Markham and his business partner Barry Dempsey founded Xatrix Entertai ...

, and

Dell Computer Dell is an American based technology company. It develops, sells, repairs, and supports computers and related products and services. Dell is owned by its parent company, Dell Technologies. Dell sells personal computers (PCs), servers, data s ...

. In the ''Ultima'' series, Bueche is represented by

Lord British Lord British, or Lord Cantabrigian British,Chuckles reveals Lord British's name as "Lord Cantabrigian British" in '' Ultima V'' when he welcomes the Avatar at the entrance of Castle Britannia. is the fictional ruler of Britannia, a kingdom in the ...

's court

jester A jester, court jester, fool or joker was a member of the household of a nobleman or a monarch employed to entertain guests during the medieval and Renaissance eras. Jesters were also itinerant performers who entertained common folk at fairs and ...

, also named Chuckles. In later games in the series, Chuckles taunts the main character, the

Avatar Avatar (, ; ), is a concept within Hinduism that in Sanskrit literally means "descent". It signifies the material appearance or incarnation of a powerful deity, goddess or spirit on Earth. The relative verb to "alight, to make one's appearanc ...

, with silly riddles and games.

References

External links

Craniac Entertainment
(Bueche's company) * * American video game programmers American technology company founders Video game businesspeople Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Origin Systems people Ultima (series) Cockrell School of Engineering alumni 20th-century American engineers 21st-century American engineers {{videogame-bio-stub