Brian Reynolds

Infobox Person
name = Brian Reynolds

|100px|Bryan Reynolds
image_size = 100px
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birth_date = 1967
birth_place =
death_date =
death_place =
occupation = CEO and Creative Director at
Big Huge Games
spouse = Jill Reynolds

Brian Reynolds (born 1967) is a well known computer strategy game designer, formerly of MicroProse and Firaxis Games. He now runs his own game development company, Big Huge Games where he is CEO and creative director, and has been chairman of the International Game Developers Association. He has played a major part in designing a number of multi-million selling games including "Civilization II" and "Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri".

Early life

Reynolds was a gamer in high school, and a SysOp on Randolph School's (Huntsville, Alabama) PDP-11 mainframe computer. A 1990 graduate of the , Reynolds briefly pursued graduate studies in Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley. This influence is evident in the emphasis on philosophy encountered in one of his more famous computer games, "Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri".

Career

Reynolds initiated his game career with the now defunct MicroProse where he worked as lead programmer for a number of graphic adventure games. These included "Rex Nebular" in 1992 and "Return of the Phantom" and "Dragonsphere" in 1993.

It was at Microprose where Reynolds first worked with Sid Meier and the two collaborated on a strategy title by the name of "Sid Meier's Colonization" which was released in 1994. Reynolds went onto become lead designer on his next title where he worked with Douglas Kaufman to create a sequel to "Sid Meier's Civilization". "Civilization II" was released in 1996 and sold multi-million copies. This success gave Reynolds a great deal of credibility within the games industry and was the stepping stone to him becoming a founding partner in Firaxis Games.

Reynolds' first task at Firaxis games was his contribution to "Sid Meier's Gettysburg" in 1997, followed by the creation and design of "Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri" in 1998. "Alpha Centauri" was also popular, becoming his second multi-million selling title. In 2000 Reynolds left Firaxis games and sold his share in the company to become CEO of Big Huge Games.

Contributions

Unknown to many, "Civilization II", "Sid Meier's Colonization" and "Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri" were primarily Brian Reynolds' designs, not Sid Meier's. These games, however, borrow from Sid's original "Civilization".

Brian Reynolds' first major break was the design of "Sid Meier's Civilization II". Meier had created "Civilization" but had moved on to other projects. MicroProse wanted to make a sequel and asked Reynolds to design it. MicroProse put Meier on retainer for consultational advice and for the use of his name, but Meier only had peripheral involvement in the design of this game. The sequel game, hence, was primarily designed by Reynolds and bore the subtitle "A Brian Reynolds Design" in the introductory graphics screen.

Reynolds' latest PC game is "", a real-time strategy game, published by Microsoft. "Rise of Nations" is Reynolds' first game under Big Huge Games.

Reynolds and Klaus Teuber collaborated to develop the Xbox Live Arcade game "Catan".

Personal life

Reynolds met his wife, who at the time was an elementary school teacher in Greenwich, Connecticut, at a live action role-playing event in Washington, D.C.. The two were married in August 1994 and due to "Colonization" being released in less than a month, had only a week long honeymoon. They have two sons, Robert, and Caleb.

Charles Kibler, a game designer at BreakAway Games, is Reynolds' uncle.

Games

* "Catan" (2007)
* "" (2006)
* "" (2004)
* "Rise of Nations" (2003)
* "Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri" (1999)
* "Sid Meier's Gettysburg!" (1997) (contributions)
* "Sid Meier's Civilization II" (1996)
* "Sid Meier's Colonization" (1994)
* "Dragonsphere" (1992) (technical director)
* "Return of the Phantom" (1993) (lead programmer)
* "Rex Nebular and the Cosmic Gender Bender" (1992) (lead programmer)

References

* [http://www.bighugegames.com/team_breynolds.shtml Brian Reynolds' profile] at Big Huge Games
* [http://uk.pc.ign.com/articles/075/075111p1.html Interview with Brian Reynolds] at IGN

External links

*moby developer |id=1 |name="Brian Reynolds" profile