Stephen Lewis was one of the four founders of Micro Forté in 1985 with John De Margheriti, Steve Wang and John Reidy. Lewis was originally the artist/programmer on the team when in 1985 they made their first game Arnies America’s Cup Challenge (1986) also known as the Official America’s Cup Sailing Simulation.
Steve Fawkner began distributing his own games in the 1980s at games conventions such as Arcanacon and Fanasticon. From 1983 Fawkner recalls making about a game a year which he would give away each year at the various local game conventions. Over the years his games got more polished and his game “Warlords” had real commercial quality. Publishers ´SSG helped him refine and polish the game and it was immediately successful. Fawkner founded Infinite Interactive and designed four more games and a number of expansion packs in the “Warlords” series.
A self-taught programmer, Luckett worked on several games including Goldfields, Vote 1, Zoopak, Bush Rescue, Kraken: A deep-sea quest , Crossing the Mountains, Maths Bingo, Clockwise: Time activities for the whole primary school, and Desert Quest.
Steve Wang co-founded Micro Forte and BigWorld. Games that Wang has worked on include: “Demon Stalkers” (1987), Electronic Arts, Inc.; “Fire King” (1989), SSG Strategic Studies Group Pty Ltd.; “The Official America’s Cup Sailing Simulation” (1986), U.S. Gold Ltd.
In 1982 Stuart Richie was student at the University of Melbourne doing a dual degree in linguistics and computer science. He was hired by Alfred Milgrom to consult on the design of the parser for The Hobbit.
Tim Hartnell, an Australian journalist, became internationally renowned in the 1980s for his popular books on microcomputing. With Trevor Sharples, Hartnell co-founded the UK-based Sinclair Users Club, editing the club magazine, and was the editor of “ZX Computing” when in launched in the summer of 1982. In 1981 he started the publishing company Interface Publications, with Sue North. As a writer and editor he is distinguished by his ability to engage readers with his enthusiasm and wit.
Author of Goldfields, an education game. Also author of the education books. In the beginning: A perspective on traditional Aboriginal societies(1991) and co-author of Southland: The Maritime Exploration of Australia, Volumes 1-2 (1987) – both published by the Ministry of Education, WA.
Vaughan Clarkson started writing games when he was a schoolboy. Clarkson got a Microbee, which is the system he wrote “Gridfire” and “Hoards of the Deep Realm”. “Gridfire” sold somewhere in the vicinity of 1,700 copies. Clarkson recalls to make things work in “Hoards of the Deep Realm” he pushed the capabilities of the Microbree to its limit.
Veronika Megler worked at Beam Software when she was a computer science student in the early 1980s. She co-designed “The Hobbit” with Philip Mitchell. Megler was responsible for the creation of The Hobbit’s remarkable game world, alive with possibility and emergent events. A text world but one rich with with physics and populated by creatures and character all behaving autonomously.
Best known as the author of the Horace games William Tang was Beam Software’s first employee. He was studying commerce and computer science at the University of Melbourne when Alfred Milgrom hired him in December 1980 to work during his University break. Bundled with the Sinclair ZXSpectrum Tang’s Horace games were often the first computer games a generation of people played.