Classic Gaming Expo Distinguished Guest:
RICK LEVINE

Rick Levine got into programming games in the late 1970's after seeing the computer chess tournament at the 2nd annual microcomputer festival in the Silicon Valley area. His first non-commercial game was a 4k assembly language chess program running on an 8080-based computer that forced a tie with a handheld chess playing computer his friend had purchased. That inspired him to get a job at Mattel Electronics, where he worked for Mike Minkoff.

Being an avid bowler, he was excited to write a 1k software program for handheld bowling for Mattel. That was followed by PBA Bowling for Intellivision. He had started working on a motorcycle game, but left to work on medical electronics devices for a while before coming back to games at Imagic.

At Imagic, his prior medical electronics work was a great inspiration for designing and programming his biggest hit game: Microsurgeon for Intellivision. He won the award for most original game of the year at the Consumer Electronics Show that year. In addition to porting Microsurgeon to the TI 99/4a computer, he also designed and programmed Truckin' for Intellivision. The game was based on his love of driving around the country and seeing all the wonderful trucks on the highways.

Since Imagic, he has also worked on Palenque for RCA Labs, Sabrevision for American Airlines, It Came From the Desert for Cinemaware, and Kids on Site and Double Switch for Digital Pictures. Recently, he programmed software on the Windows 98 and Windows 2000 team at Microsoft, and was a Program Manager in the Microsoft Games Group working on a game with Alexey Pajitnov, inventor of Tetris. He is currently writing his first science fiction novel, designing new game ideas, and working as a software contractor in Arizona.