| • Science | • People | • Locations | • Timeline |
| Contents | ||
Freeman, along with friend Jim Connelley , started Epyx as Automated Simulations as a vehicle to publish a game they had created together called Starfleet Orion for the Commodore PET home computer. They eventually published dozens of titles for numerous platforms, some very successful.
By 1981, however, Freeman had become frustrated with what he called "office politics" and decided to leave the company. His wife, Westfall, joined him, though she cites a desire to learn assembly language programming on the Atari 800 as a motivation. Reiche joined the duo as the company's third member.
Free Falls' first game was 1982Events January January 6 William Bonin is convicted of being the "freeway killer". January 8 AT&T agrees to divest itself of twenty-two subdivisions January 11 Mark Thatcher, son of the British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, disappears in the Sahara du's Tax Dodge . A Pac-ManPac-Man is a video arcade game created by Namco game designer Toru Iwatani. Pac-Man was first introduced in Japan in the autumn of 1980 where it went by the name Puck Man''. It quickly became an instant hit. It was soon picked up for manufacture in the U. clone for the Atari home computerAtari built a series of 8-bit home computers based on the MOS Technology 6502 CPU, starting in 1979. Over the next decade several versions of the same basic design would be released, but the models remained largely identical internally. History As soon as systems, while clever, Tax Dodge didn't do well due to a lack of publicity.
Soon Freeman made a contact that would prove pivotal for both Free Fall and the fledgling computer game publisher, Electronic ArtsElectronic Arts is a leading video game developer and publisher. It was founded in 1982 by Trip Hawkins. As such, it is the largest video game publisher in the world, with sales exceeding $2 billion ( US) annually. EA's success over the years was built up (EA). The same day he incorporated his company, Trip HawkinsWilliam M. Trip' Hawkins III is a Silicon Valley entrepreneur and founder of Electronic Arts, The 3DO Company and Digital Chocolate. Hawkins was the Director of Strategy and Marketing at Apple Computer in 1982 when he left to found Electronic Arts (EA), a contacted Freeman. Freeman was attracted by EA's generous attitude and the welcome windfall of development cash. Soon, Free Fall signed EA's first two development contracts. frame 1984This page is about the year 1984. For other uses of 1984, see 1984 (disambiguation). 1984 is a leap year starting on Sunday (link shows calendar). Events January January 1 Brunei becomes a fully independent state January 1 AT&T is broken up into 22 indepe's ArchonC64 Archon is a computer game developed by FreeFall Associates and distributed by Electronic Arts. It was originally developed for Atari 8-bit computers in 1983, but was later ported to several other systems of the day, such as Apple II, Commodore 64, Ami, here shown as it appears on the Commodore 64, was an instant hit and proved to be lucrative for both EA and Free Fall Associates. They followed it the same year with the sequel, Archon II: Adept , which also proved to be very popular. For their first title, inspired by sword-and-sorcery themes and the holographic chess-like game featured in Star Wars, they set to work on Archon. Originally developed as a two-player only game, EA requested a one-player mode as well. Though it only had a passing resemblence to chess, Archon featured innovative gameplay and theme. Freeman and Reiche developed the game design and Westfall focussed on the programming. Freeman and Reiche also developed the artwork for this first version for the Atari home systems.
Upon its release in 1984, Archon was an enormous hit and EA asked for a sequel. Archon is still regarded as a seminal game in the history of computer games.
FreeFall immediately set out to create the sequel, but significantly altered the gameplay, strategies and premise of the game, adding a new gameboard, new spells, new creatures and abilities to the mix. Archon II: Adept was also released in 1984 and received even more acclaim than the original.
Both these games were lucrative for both Free Fall and EA and were key to EA's success as a fledgling publisher. Through the years, as more systems came on the market, such as the Amiga and the Atari ST, FreeFall ported these games to those systems. The games were hits on all systems for which they were released.
Free Fall also developed a murder mystery game concurrently with the first Archon. Murder on the Zinderneuf (MotZ), with Robert Leyland , was innovative in that it was different each time it was played. Freeman says he was inspired by his favorite board game Clue, and MotZ generated a new plot each time it's played. MotZ debuted a few weeks after Archon, but was eclipsed by Archon's enormous success.