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Creating Q*bert and Other Classic Video Arcade Games takes you inside the video arcade game industry during the pivotal decades of the 1980s and 1990s. Warren Davis, the creator of the groundbreaking Q*bert, worked as a member of the creative teams who developed some of the most popular video games of all time, including Joust 2, Mortal Kombat, NBA Jam, and Revolution X.
In a witty and entertaining narrative, Davis shares insightful stories that offer a behind-the-scenes look at what it was like to work as a designer and programmer at the most influential and dominant video arcade game manufacturers of the era, including Gottlieb, Williams/Bally/Midway, and Premiere.
Likewise, the talented artists, designers, creators, and programmers Davis has collaborated with over the years reads like a who’s who of video gaming history: Eugene Jarvis, Tim Skelly, Ed Boon, Jeff Lee, Dave Thiel, John Newcomer, George Petro, Jack Haeger, and Dennis Nordman, among many others.
The impact Davis has had on the video arcade game industry is deep and varied. At Williams, Davis created and maintained the revolutionary digitizing system that allowed actors and other photo-realistic imagery to be utilized in such games as Mortal Kombat, T2, and NBA Jam. When Davis worked on the fabled Us vs. Them, it was the first time a video game integrated a live action story with arcade-style graphics.
On the one-of-a-kind Exterminator, Davis developed a brand new video game hardware system, and created a unique joystick that sensed both omni-directional movement and rotation, a first at that time. For Revolution X, he created a display system that simulated a pseudo-3D environment on 2D hardware, as well as a tool for artists that facilitated the building of virtual worlds and the seamless integration of the artist’s work into game code.
Whether you’re looking for insights into the Golden Age of Arcades, would like to learn how Davis first discovered his design and programming skills as a teenager working with a 1960's computer called a Monrobot XI, or want to get the inside scoop on what it was like to film the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame band Aerosmith for Revolution X, Davis’ memoir provides a backstage tour of the arcade and video game industry during its most definitive and influential period.
"Davis, an International Video Game Hall of Fame inductee, reflects in this entertaining debut on his years as an influential creator at the forefront of the “video game revolution.” He recounts his “earliest exposure” to computers, in high school in Brooklyn in the 1970s, when he learned programming on a device “the size of a desk.” As a freshman at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, he discovered Pong, and later created his first game, a simulated gin rummy that was done via punch cards. After graduating, Davis landed his first programming job in 1982 at the arcade game company Gottlieb, where he helped create Q*bert—one of the most popular video arcade games of the ’80s—an accomplishment that led him to later achieve breakthroughs in automating the digitizing of graphics used in such games as Mortal Kombat and NBA Jam. Even in his more granular descriptions, Davis’s enthusiasm brings to the page the palpable excitement of the “golden age” he’d been a part of. From deciding on Q*bert’s moves (“Should I just keep him stuck at the edge [of the pyramid], or allow him to fall into nothingness?”) to procuring the flying footage needed for the alien invasion game Us vs. Them, every detail is parsed to convey the rigorous thought underpinning some of history’s most successful video games. Gamers will be fascinated."
—Publisher's Weekly
Warren Davis' career in the video game industry spans three decades. He began in 1982 working for Gottlieb where his first game was the hugely successful arcade classic, Q*bert. He followed that with a laserdisc game, Us vs. Them. In the mid-80s, while working at Williams, he co-programmed Joust 2 and helped develop the system that became NARC. Davis was also part of the team that created Terminator 2: Judgment Day and Revolution X featuring Aerosmith. He also developed the digitizing system that Williams/Bally/Midway would use for many of their hit games of the 1990s including Mortal Kombat, NBA Jam, and the aforementioned Terminator 2 and Revolution X. In 2018, Davis was inducted into the International Video Game Hall of Fame.
Ed Boon is the co-creator Mortal Kombat and the creative director of NetherRealm Studios.
John Newcomer is the designer and lead developer of Joust.
1) The Shaping of a Young Mind
2) Entering Wonderland
3) The Cubes Game
4) A Noser is Born
5) The Aftermath
6) US vs THEM
7) Gottlieb’s Demise
8) Williams and the Dawn of Digitization
9) The Premier Years
10) Return to Williams
11) Last Days in the Funhouse
12) Loose Ends