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Countdown to CGE 2007 ~ July 2007 ~ 28 JUL 2007 |
Classic Gaming Expo Distinguished Guest:
DENNIS KOBLE
A true veteran of electronic games, Dennis Koble got his start in
Atari's coin-op division, where he developed Avalanche (a spiritual
predecessor of Kaboom!), Dominoes, and the popular Sprint 2. Dennis
moved into Atari's fledgling hand-held division and worked on numerous
hand-held and table-top games, most of which were never released. One
that did get released was the translation of the hit coin-op, Touch Me.
After some work on Atari's APX program, he left to start his own
development company. In 1982 he and Bill Grubb established Imagic, the
second third-party game software publisher in the history of videogames.
For three years, the storied company flourished under his guidance.
Koble programmed Atlantis, Trick Shot, Shooting Gallery and Solar Storm,
all big sellers for the Atari VCS console.
Koble left Imagic in 1984 and joined Sente Corporation (which was under
the leadership of Nolan Bushnell at the time), where he designed Night
Stalker, Mini-Golf and several other games for the arcades. More recently,
he co-founded Polygames where he was involved in the development of the
PGA Tour Golf series for Electronic Arts.
Dennis is currently the Vice-President of Technology at Universal Studios,
where he is the lead designer of the Sony Playstation game Xena: Princess
Warrior.