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Sandy Petersen

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Sandy Petersen
Sandy Petersen at Lucca Comics & Games 2011.
Born
Carl Sanford Joslyn Petersen

(1955-09-16) September 16, 1955 (age 69)
St. Louis, Missouri
OccupationGame designer

Carl Sanford Joslyn "Sandy" Petersen (born September 16, 1955) is an American game designer. He worked at Chaosium, contributing to the development of RuneQuest and creating the acclaimed and influential horror role-playing game Call of Cthulhu. He later joined id Software where he worked on the development of the Doom franchise and Quake. As part of Ensemble Studios, Petersen subsequently contributed to the Age of Empires franchise.

Biography

Petersen was born in St. Louis, Missouri and developed a love for dinosaurs at age 3. He studied paleontology in college and later attended University of California, Berkeley, majoring in zoology.[1]

Work

Chaosium

He became a full-time staff member at Chaosium.[2] His interest for role-playing games and H. P. Lovecraft were fused when he became principal author of Chaosium's game Call of Cthulhu, published 1981,[3] and many scenarios and background pieces thereafter.[4] [citation needed]

He authored several critically acclaimed RuneQuest supplements for Avalon Hill and Games Workshop.[4] Petersen served as co-designer for West End Games's Ghostbusters role-playing game.[4]

MicroProse

He worked some time for MicroProse, where he is credited for work on Sid Meier's Pirates! and Sword of the Samurai.[4] Between 1989 and 1992 he worked on the video games Darklands, Hyperspeed, and Lightspeed. He made some contributions to Civilization.[citation needed] Petersen was laid off in 1992 and was jobless for 5 months. He considered that period as one of the worst times of his life.[5]

Ensemble Studios

He left id Software for Ensemble Studios in June 1997.[6] There, he worked as a game designer on several of their Age of Empires titles, including Rise of Rome, Age of Kings, and The Conquerors.[4] During this time, he was a frequent poster on the HeavenGames forums under the username ES_Sandyman. He ran a popular series of threads, "Ask Sandyman", where forum members could ask him about anything they wanted.[7]

Other works

Petersen was the executive producer for the 2011 film The Whisperer in Darkness which was nominated for awards at the Chicago International Film Festival and Warsaw International Film Festival. It was produced by H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society Motion Pictures in the style of a 1930s black and white horror film.[citation needed]

In April 2011[8] he served as the publisher of horror magazine Arcane: Penny Dreadfuls for the 21st Century.[9]

Petersen took a professorship at The Guildhall at SMU in 2009 following the closure of Ensemble Studios, where he taught several courses on game design.[10]

Petersen worked at Barking Lizards Technologies as their creative director, after leaving The Guildhall, and worked on their iOS release Osiris Legends.[citation needed]

In mid-2013 Petersen led a successful Kickstarter campaign by his company, Green Eye Games, to produce the boardgame Cthulhu Wars. Over US$1,400,000 was raised achieving over 3,500% of the initial target. This success allowed the creation of more figures (60), map expansions and additional scenario options.[11] Green Eye Games also produced the unsuccessful kickstarter Cthulhu World Combat (iOS, Android, Windows, PSN, Xbox Live).[12][13][14]

In June 2015, it was announced that Petersen and Greg Stafford returned to Chaosium Inc.[15] Petersen retired from the board in 2019, but continues to do occasional freelance work for the company.[16]

Personal life

Petersen is a practicing member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but sees no conflict between his faith and his design of games involving Satanic elements. While working on Doom, he said to John Romero, "I have no problems with the demons in the game. They're just cartoons. And, anyway, they're the bad guys."[17]

Sandy is married, has five children, and 15 grandchildren.

Credits

Video games

Year Title Developer Notes
1989 Sid Meier's Pirates! MicroProse Atari ST version
1990 Lightspeed
1991 Civilization (1991)
Hyperspeed
1992 Darklands
1993 Doom id Software
1994 Doom II: Hell on Earth
1995 The Ultimate Doom
1996 Quake
Hexen: Beyond Heretic Raven Software Sega Saturn version
Final Doom TeamTNT
1997 Quake II id Software Uncredited
Age of Empires Ensemble Studios
1998 Age of Empires: The Rise of Rome
1999 Age of Empires II
2000 Age of Empires II: The Conquerors
2005 Age of Empires III
2006 Age of Empires III: The WarChiefs
2009 Halo Wars
2011 Osiris Legends Barking Lizard Studios

Role-playing games

Board games

  • Cthulhu Wars (2015)
  • Theomachy (2016)
  • Orcs Must Die! (2016)
  • Castle Dicenstein (2017)
  • Evil High Priest (2018)
  • The Gods War (2018)
  • Hyperspace (2019)
  • Planet Apocalypse (2020)

Films

See also

References

  1. ^ Petersen, Sandy. "Yithian Evolution". YouTube. Retrieved 23 March 2022.
  2. ^ Shannon Appelcline (2011). Designers & Dragons. Mongoose Publishing. p. 86. ISBN 978-1-907702-58-7.
  3. ^ Petersen, Sandy (September 1993). "Eye of the Monitor". Dragon (197): 57–62.
  4. ^ a b c d e Petersen, Sandy (2007). "Up Front". In Lowder, James (ed.). Hobby Games: The 100 Best. Green Ronin Publishing. pp. 341–344. ISBN 978-1-932442-96-0.
  5. ^ Petersen, Sandy. "Tales from the Dark Days of Id Software". YouTube. Retrieved 15 March 2022.
  6. ^ Feldman, Curt (July 9, 1997). "Ensemble's Second Title Picks Up Speed". GameSpot. CBS Interactive. Archived from the original on December 3, 1998. Retrieved November 28, 2016.
  7. ^ "Ask Sandyman – Age of Kings Heaven".
  8. ^ Shumate, Nathan; Petersen, Sandy; Crook, Jeff; Pollock, Justin (April 2011). Arcane: Penny Dreadfuls for the 21st Century. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform. ISBN 978-1461059608.
  9. ^ Arcane: Penny Dreadfuls for the 21st Century.
  10. ^ The Guildhall at SMU Faculty, Guildhall @ SMU Faculty Biographies.
  11. ^ "Cthulhu Wars".
  12. ^ Barking Lizards Management Team.
  13. ^ "Cthulhu World Combat by Sandy Petersen — Kickstarter".
  14. ^ http://www.cthulhuworldcombat.com Archived 2012-11-21 at the Wayback Machine
  15. ^ Stafford, Greg (2015-06-02). "GREG STAFFORD & SANDY PETERSEN REJOIN CHAOSIUM INC". Retrieved 2015-06-03.
  16. ^ Chaosium. "The Chaosium Team". Retrieved 2023-10-24.
  17. ^ Kushner, David (2003). Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture. p. 144.


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