Amy Briggs

Amy R. Briggs (born in 1962) is known for creating "Plundered Hearts", an interactive fiction computer game published by Infocom in 1987. A Minnesota native, she graduated from Macalester College in 1984 with a B.A. in English, specializing in British literature. Already a fan of Infocom's games, Briggs joined the company in 1985 as a game tester. Working long hours playtesting games and learning the ZIL programming language, she quickly rose to the rank of Implementor. [cite journal | author = Neil deMause
title = Romancing the Genre: An interview with "Plundered Hearts" author Amy Briggs
journal = XYZZYnews | volume = 12 | date = November/December 1996
url = http://www.xyzzynews.com/xyzzy.12d.html | accessdate = 2007-09-30 ]

Briggs's literary background led her to write the company's only romance-genre text adventure. She also chose an explicitly female lead character, again unique for Infocom (other lead characters were either of unspecified gender, male, or allowed a choice of sex). She explained these choices by saying, "C. S. Lewis said he had to write "The Chronicles of Narnia" because they were books he wanted to read, and nobody else had written them yet. "Plundered Hearts" was a game I wanted to play." [cite journal | title = Infocom's First Romance
journal = The Status Line | volume = VI | issue = 4 | pages = p.9
date = Winter 1987
url = http://www.csd.uwo.ca/Infocom/Articles/NZT/briggs.html
accessdate = 2007-09-30 ]

Although "Plundered Hearts" was her only text adventure, Amy Briggs worked as a writer and editor on a number of other Infocom projects: she did a major rewrite of , and helped to design "The Flathead Calendar", the main feelie included with "Zork Zero". After Infocom was shut down in 1989, she returned to Minnesota where she attended graduate school, eventually earning a Ph.D. in cognitive psychology from the University of Minnesota. Then she went to work for 3M as a human factors engineer. [ [http://www.infocom-if.org/authors/briggs.html Amy Briggs's Infocom biography] ]

References

Persondata
NAME = Briggs, Amy R.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES =
SHORT DESCRIPTION = Computer game designer
DATE OF BIRTH = 1962
PLACE OF BIRTH = Minnesota
DATE OF DEATH =
PLACE OF DEATH =