John Newcomer
John Newcomer | |
---|---|
Occupation | Game designer |
Known for | Joust |
John Newcomer is an American
.Biography
Newcomer is the second of two children. His father, Robert, was a milkman and then a maintenance worker at University Park East movie theater. His mother, Beverly, was an administrative assistant and office manager. Newcomer attended
In 1981, Newcomer moved to
Newcomer's initial vision was of Joust as a "flying game" with co-operative two-player gameplay. Rather than emulate the popular space theme of previous successful flying games such as Asteroids and Defender, he wanted to offer an alternative to spaceships. He made a list of things that could fly: machines, animals, and fictional characters. After evaluating the positive and negative of each idea, he chose birds, believing that they would have a wide appeal, choosing an ostrich and a stork as the main characters, with vultures as the enemies.[2]
The decision to use birds also prompted Newcomer to deviate from the then standard eight-direction joystick. He implemented a "flapping" mechanism to allow players to control the character's ascent and descent. With the vertical direction controlled via the arcade cabinet's button, a two-way joystick was added to dictate horizontal direction.[2]
Other games Newcomer helped design included the #1 coin-op games High Impact Football and its sequel Super High Impact.
Williams Electronics eventually sold off the division which became Midway Games. Newcomer worked there as Senior Game Designer for 18 years until 1999, then moving to become Director of Game Design at Cybiko from 2000–2003, and VP of Game Design at In-Fusio from 2003–2007. He then was hired by MumboJumbo in 2007, serving first as General Manager of the Dallas Studio, and then transitioning to Director of Game Design.[3]
Awards
- Joust
Joust has been listed in multiple sources as one of the more memorable games of its time, part of the Golden Age.
- Other games
- Top Hidden Object Game of 2012, Gamezebo, Angelica Weaver: Catch Me When You Can
Works
- Joust, coin-op game
- Joust 2: Survival of the Fittest, coin-op
- Tri-Sports, 1989 coin-op
- Turkey Shoot, coin-op
- TouchMaster, #1 touch-screen coin-op game
- Sinistar, coin-op
- NBA Jam, coin-op, animator (1st version), #1 in its genre
- Revolution X, coin-op, animator, #1 in its genre
- Gilligan's Island Pinball, coin-op (Newcomer did the dot matrix, the first to have digitized images)
- Star Rider, coin-op, Newcomer was manager in charge of game design
- Angelica Weaver, PC and mobile download, hidden object adventure
- Midnight Mysteries, PC and mobile download, hidden object adventure
- 7 Wonders sequels, match-3 game for PC and mobile download
- Pickers, hidden object for PC/mobile
- Samantha Swift (four titles), PC download, hidden object games
- Luxor: Quest for the Afterlife, co-designer, ball-shooter game
- Zombie Bowl-O-Rama, bowling game, co-designer
- Narc (1988), coin-op, animator
References
- ^ "Boardgamegeek.com".
- ^ a b c Bevan, Mike. "The Making of Joust". Retro Gamer (63). Imagine Publishing: 36–41.
- ^ "John Newcomer bio". LinkedIn. Retrieved March 2, 2014.
- ISBN 0-7615-3643-4.
- ISBN 978-1-904994-21-3.
- ^ Bowen, Kevin. "Game of The Week: Joust". Classic Gaming. Archived from the original on 2009-08-21. Retrieved 2010-07-14.
External links
- "The Story of Joust" (video). YouTube. February 28, 2007. Retrieved March 2, 2014.