David Fox is a multimedia producer, best known for
his early work on
LucasArts games, most
notably
Zak
McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders. He and his wife,
Annie Fox, now work on
educational software, Web design,
Emotional Intelligence content,
online community, emerging technologies, and writing books for
children and teens.
Early work
Fox is
based in the San Francisco Bay Area
. At age eleven, he made his first 8 mm
cartoon using stacks of discarded
Flintstones cels he found in the trash bins
behind
Hanna-Barbera.
He studied engineering
at UCLA
and Humanistic Psychology at California State University at
Sonoma, where he received his bachelor's degree. Fox and his
wife Annie co-founded
Marin
Computer Center in 1977 - the world’s first public-access
microcomputer center. He co-authored the books Computer Animation
Primer, Armchair BASIC, and Pascal Primer.
LucasArts
His books led to him being hired as a founding member of the Games
Division at
Lucasfilm (now
LucasArts Entertainment Company). Over the next
ten years, he was the designer, project leader, and one of the
programmers for the games
Rescue on Fractalus!,
Labyrinth,
Zak McKracken and the
Alien Mindbenders and
Indiana
Jones and the Last Crusade: The Graphic Adventure. He also
worked on
Maniac Mansion as
the primary script programmer. Fox was part of the memorable team
that included
Ron Gilbert and
Noah Falstein.
He spent his last two years at LucasArts as Manager of
Entertainment Software on Mirage (a collaboration between LucasArts
and
Hughes Aircraft
Corporation). This multi-player, networked location-based
entertainment system was intended for theme parks, but like several
early Lucasfilm projects of the time, was too advanced and hence
too expensive for the market at that time.
Talk City
After leaving LucasArts, Fox was a Senior Game Designer at
Rocket Science Games, then worked as a
freelance consultant on several games. In 1996, he joined LiveWorld
Inc./Talk City, an Internet community provider, as their Director
of Kids and Entertainment Programming. During his four years at the
company, he produced The InSite, a Web site for teen empowerment,
and then became the Director of New Content.
In 2001, he returned to immersive gaming at Xulu Entertainment,
producing their motion simulator project. Then he produced and
designed a prototype of an educational game for Learning Friends
under a grant from the
William and Flora Hewlett
Foundation.
Recent and current work
In the run-up to the
2004
Democratic primaries, Fox was active on
Howard Dean's Media Team (responsible for
Switch2Dean.com) and built a
blog
for
Simon & Schuster on
Dean's book,
Winning Back America.
Since then, Fox has developed Web sites for authors
David McCullough and
Terry Gamble, Alaska Federation of Natives and
Marin Democrats, all with graphic designer
Daniel Will-Harris.
He is the Director of Production for
NewsTrust, a proposed citizen news rating service
aiming to bring together experienced journalists and volunteer
reviewers.
His
interests include science fiction, good films, photography, video
making, and taking long walks in the hills of Marin County
with Annie (and with their dog,
Vermont).
See also
External links
Wikis
Quiz
Map
Search