Sim-Tex
From Wiki
I worked at Sim-Tex in the 90s, my first professional work in the computer game business. (I later worked at Kinesoft.)
1830
In 1993 and 1994 I was the lead programmer, including the AI players, for the computer version of 1830. I was the only programmer for the first half, then Eric Brown joined and did lots of work on the GUI etc.
I also ended up doing a lot of the art with Animator Pro. I did all the hex tiles for railroad track and mountains which had to match up in all possible combinations. 2^6=64 different mountain tiles which needed to verifiably all fit together... Same story on the couple hundred different track tiles which needed all 6 orientations for each! This was at least as much a math puzzle as an artistic endeavor, which I guess is why 3 different artists quit doing it and I ended up doing the mountain tiles!
I also did the stock certificate art and a few other bits of art in the game. The rest of the game art was done by real artists. :)
It was frustrating that our library at the time was still lo-res, but given the constraints of a 320x200 (or was it 240?) screen, I think it all came out all right...
I also co-wrote the game manual, which was quite good IMHO.
All in all, I was quite proud of this game, as it had a lot fewer bugs than most computer games, and the AI players are strong without cheating. It sold respectably (though wasn't a huge hit) and got great reviews.
Master of Orion 2
I was the programmer of all the game mechanics and AI players (except for tactical battles) for Master of Orion 2. This was a big project with a half dozen programmers and a half dozen artists and it went way longer than scheduled (even preventing me from going to my first US Go Congress). As a result of this archetypal "death march" project with a huge sprawling buggy project, I got very interested in software development methodologies, testing methods, and so forth.
Despite the internal development frustrations, the public found the game to be quite enjoyable and it was a commercial and critical success.
