Chris Crawford

Computer Game developer

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Crawford_(game_designer)

http://www.erasmatazz.com/

At the 1992 CGDC, Chris Crawford gave "The Dragon Speech", which he considers "the finest speech of (his) life". Throughout the speech, he used a dragon as a metaphor for video games as a medium of artistic expression. He declared that he and the video game industry were working "at cross purposes", with the industry focusing heavily on "depth", when Crawford wanted more "breadth": to explore new horizons rather than merely furthering what has already been explored. He arrived at the conclusion that he must leave the gaming industry in order to pursue this dream... Although he returned to the next year's CGDC, he has never made a conventional computer game since. http://www.erasmatazz.com/library/JCGD_Volume_6/Dragon_Speech.html

Since that time, Crawford has been working on Story Tron (originally known as Erasmatron), an engine for running interactive electronic storyworlds (see interactive Story Telling). As of December 2008, a beta version of the Storytronics authoring tool, Swat, has been released. The system was officially launched March 23, 2009, with Crawford's storyworld sequel to Balance Of Power. http://www.storytron.com/

• Bruce Sterling takes a look.

• Greg Costikyan http://playthisthing.com/balance-power-21st-century |reviews