Greg Zesinger: DoughMain

Name: Greg Zesinger

Company: DoughMain

Title: Director of Game Development and Marketing Services

Favorite Classic Game: Quest For The Rings – Magnavox Odyssey2

Quote on why it is your favorite: I could have gone a few different directions here – Madden 93, Super Tecmo Bowl, Castelvania, Secret of Monkey Island, or Ultima, but went with Quest For The Rings which predated them all and helped spark my interest in games. The Odyssey2 was our first home video game system..before we even started regularly using the term “video games”. In our house, they were “TV games”. As a 7 year old, I would spend quite a bit of time and effort writing up and drawing “concept images” of games I’d like to see on my beloved Odyssey. Quest For The Rings was a gamechanger – one of the first games I can remember that included multiple levels with different environments tied together by a tangible boardgame-like experience that admittedly we didn’t use as often as just jumping into the game.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Ll_bbzRHKQ[/youtube]

Four character classes – the Warrior with his magic sword that could teleport lesser monsters (orcs and firewraiths) to a different part of the screen (and if you were lucky, you could get two of them to jump to the same spot and get stuck together, immobilized), the Wizard with his paralyzing power bolts capable of temporarily warding off the terrible Doomwinged Bloodthirsts and the nightmarish Spydroth Tarantulus, the Changeling who could turn invisible and sneak by the dragons, and the Phantom who could walk through walls…unless they were made of lava. Featured co-op play, truly a masterpiece for its time. Loved it and helped fuel my desire to get into the game industry. And while the folks at Magnavox rejected the one submission seven-year old Greg made to them (a Pitfall-esque adventure called Jungle Safari), their games like Quest For The Rings, Pick Axe Pete, Showdown in 2100 A.D. and Monkeyshines set me on my path.

 

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