Bruce Shelley

Bruce Campbell Shelley is an American game designer who was among other things, on the development of Sid Meier 's Civilization and Railroad Tycoon for MicroProse and in 1997 for the Ensemble Studios to their real- time strategy series Age of Empires involved.

Life

Bruce Shelley was born in the United States in the state of Michigan, and grew up in Baltimore. He was at Syracuse University and the College of Forestry of the State University of New York where he obtained in Environmental Science and Forestry at the same time a Bachelor of Science degree. Shelley then studied at the University of Virginia economics. During his school years he was interested in board games like Risk or Stratego and claims to own more than 500

For the first time Shelley thought in the 1970s because of earning his livelihood with the development of games. Finally in 1980, he and some of his fellow students from the University of Virginia the game publisher Iron Crown Enterprises and received a license for games based on The Lord of the Rings, this was Shelley's first work in the games industry. The Strategy & Tactics Magazine his first game was released based on the American Civil War in the early 1980s. In 1981, he worked briefly for Simulation Publications Inc (SPI). From 1982 he worked for six years for Avalon Hill, where he was involved in the development of, among others, in 1830, titanium and Britannia.

Shelley left the board game industry, however, in favor of computer games after he Sid Meier 's Pirates! was impressed and came to MicroProse as a game designer. There he assisted in the development of Sid Meier Civilization, Covert Action and Railroad Tycoon. During his time at MicroProse he learned from Meier game development to be considered scientific. After five years of employment there, but left MicroProse to first as a freelance writer to work.

In February 1995 he met with his friend Tony Goodman, who had recently founded his new development studio Ensemble Studios in Dallas, Texas. There he worked as a game designer on Age of Empires, which was published in 1998. Shelley was then involved in the expansions and all successors of the first Age of Empires, but this mostly in an advisory capacity. After the meantime purchased by Microsoft Ensemble Studios were closed in late 2008, he was involved in the subsequent period as a consultant to The Settlers 7 by Blue Byte.

1999 Shelley magazine was called one of the " 25 Game Gods" as well as 2002 by GameSpy as eight most influential game developers of PC Gamer.

Between 2000 and 2006 he was a member of the Board of Directors of the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences and was accepted in 2009 into the Hall of Fame of the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences.