Brian Reynolds (game designer)

Brian Reynolds ( born 1967) is an American computer game developer. He played a leading role in the development of successful game titles like Civilization II, Rise of Nations, Sid Meier 's Alpha Centauri and FrontierVille. Reynolds worked in his career for the developers Zynga, Big Huge Games, Firaxis Games and Microprose. He was also Chairman of the International Game Developers Association ( IGDA ) and board member of the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences.

Early years

Reynolds first published game was entitled Quest 1 and was in August 1981 cover story of the magazine Soft Side. Reynolds, who was a passionate player during his high school years, was the sysop for the mainframe PDP - 11 at the Randolph School's in Huntsville (Alabama ). After graduating in 1990 at the University of the South Reynolds briefly studied philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley. This study influenced later significant part of his work on Sid Meier 's Alpha Centauri.

Career

Reynolds began his career at MicroProse developer, where he worked as lead programmer on a series of graphic adventures, including Rex Nebular (1992 ), Return of the Phantom and Dragonsphere (both 1993). With Microprose - founder Sid Meier he eventually worked together on several of the tracks. After working as a designer at Sid Meier 's Colonization (1994 ) Reynolds was appointed as lead developer for the follow-up title to Sid Meier 's Civilization. Meier had created Civilization, was working at this time but on other projects. However, since MicroProse wanted to produce a sequel, Reynolds was asked to take over along with Douglas Kaufman design. Meier himself was involved only peripherally and took over, despite the use of his name on the game box only an advisory function. The intro screen of the game therefore also carried the subtitle "A Brian Reynolds Design". Civilization 2 was released in 1996 and proved to be great sales with several million copies sold.

As Meier left Microprose in the same year, Reynolds followed this and was a co-founder of Meier's new development studio Firaxis Games. Reynolds ' first work for Firaxis was his participation in the strategy game Sid Meier 's Gettysburg (1997 ), followed by his work as lead designer for Sid Meier 's Alpha Centauri (1998). Alpha Centauri is also proved successful and Reynolds was second million seller.

2000 Reynolds left Firaxis Games, sold his shares and became CEO of the co-founders of developer Big Huge Games. His first game for Big Huge Games was the strategy game Rise of Nations (2003 ), followed by Rise of Legends (2006 ), a real-time strategy game in a steampunk scenario, published in the sales of Microsoft. Together with the German game designer Klaus Teuber Reynolds continued to develop a computer game version of the board game The Settlers of Catan (2007) for the online distribution platform Xbox Live Arcade. In 2004 he became a member of the Supervisory Board of the industry association International Game Developers Association, 2006 Chairman.

On 30 June 2009, the US-based game developer Zynga announced that Brian Reynolds Big Huge Games have left to direct the construction of the new team of developers Zynga East, where he assumed the role of Chief Game Designer. He headed the development work on FrontierVille for the social network Facebook. In this role he was also elected as a board member of the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences. February 2013 left Reynolds Zynga.

Private life

In August 1994, shortly before the release of Colonization, Reynolds married his partner Jill, an elementary school teacher. The couple has two sons, Robert and Caleb. Reynolds is the nephew of the game developer Charles Kibler of Breakaway Games.

Ludography

  • Quest 1 ( 1981) ( writer)
  • Rex Nebular and the Cosmic Gender Bender (1992) ( lead programmer )
  • Return of the Phantom ( 1993) ( lead programmer )
  • Dragonsphere (1992) ( technical director )
  • Sid Meier's Colonization (1994 ) (designer)
  • Sid Meier 's Civilization 2 ( 1996) ( lead designer )
  • Sid Meier 's Gettysburg! (1997) ( Contributions )
  • Sid Meier 's Alpha Centauri ( 1999) ( lead designer )
  • Rise of Nations ( 2003) ( lead designer ) Rise of Nations: Thrones & Patriots ( add-on, 2004) ( lead designer )

Awards

  • Origins Award for Sid Meier 's Gettysburg (along with Sid Meier and Jeff Briggs )

2009 lists the U.S. online games IGN Reynolds at number 33 of the most significant game authors of all time. In the same year the magazine PC Gamer it was one of the 49 most important developers.

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