Brian Reynolds
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| Born | 1967 (age 56–57) |
| Occupation | Videogame Designer |
| Spouse | Jill Reynolds |
Brian Reynolds (born 1967) is an American videogame designer. Reynolds has designed at SecretNewCo, Zynga, Big Huge Games, and MicroProse 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, Rise of Nations, Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, and FrontierVille. He has also founded or co-founded three game companies, SecretNewCo, Big Huge Games, and Firaxis Games.
Reynolds made his first game sale with Quest 1toSoftSide magazine, its August 1981 cover feature. He was a gamer in high school, and a SysOponRandolph School's (Huntsville, Alabama) PDP-11 mainframe computer.[1] A 1990 graduate of the University of the South, Reynolds briefly pursued graduate studies in Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley.[citation needed]
Reynolds initiated his game career with MicroProse where he worked as lead programmer for a number of graphic adventure games. These included Rex Nebularin1992 and Return of the Phantom and Dragonspherein1993.
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 on to become lead designer for a sequel to Sid Meier's Civilization. Civilization II was released in 1996 and sold multi-million copies.
While at Firaxis, Reynolds contributed to Sid Meier's Gettysburgin1997, followed by the creation and design of Sid Meier's Alpha Centauriin1998. Alpha Centauri became his second multi-million selling title. In 2000 Reynolds left Firaxis games and sold his share in the company to become CEOofBig Huge Games.[2][3]
On June 30, 2009, Zynga announced that Brian Reynolds was leaving Big Huge Games to lead the formation of Zynga East, and serve the role of Chief Game Designer.
In February 2013, Reynolds left Zynga. In March, he revived Big Huge Games (temporarily known as SecretNewCo).[4] In July, the team announced their partnership with Nexon, a South Korean game developer, to develop their first game, DomiNations, a mobile game similar to Civilization or Age of Empires.[5]
Big Huge Games was acquired by Nexon in 2016.[6][7]
Although marketed under Sid Meier's name, Civilization II, Sid Meier's Colonization and Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri all credited Reynolds as lead designer. The credits for Civilization II only list Meier as the designer of the original Civilization game, and Reynolds stated in an interview that for this game Meier "was no longer involved except in name."[8] The credits for Alpha Centauri state that the game was "Created by" Brian Reynolds and Meier is listed with several other team members on the "With" line - in the Designers Notes in the game manual Reynolds also thanks him for all his sage advice.
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.
Rise of Nations was Reynolds' first game at Big Huge Games. Later came Rise of Legends, a real-time strategy game, publishedbyMicrosoft.
Reynolds and Klaus Teuber collaborated to develop the Xbox Live Arcade game Catan.[9]
Reynolds led the development of FrontierVille and CityVille 2 for Facebook.[10]
| Year | Title | Role | Publisher |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1981 | Quest 1 | Author | Softside |
| 1992 | Rex Nebular and the Cosmic Gender Bender | Lead programmer | MicroProse |
| 1993 | Return of the Phantom | ||
| 1994 | Dragonsphere | Technical director | |
| Sid Meier's Colonization | Designer and programmer | ||
| 1996 | Sid Meier's Civilization II | Lead designer and programmer | |
| 1997 | Sid Meier's Gettysburg! | Designer and programmer | Electronic Arts |
| 1999 | Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri | Lead designer | |
| 2003 | Rise of Nations | Microsoft Game Studios | |
| 2004 | Rise of Nations: Thrones & Patriots | ||
| 2006 | Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends | Project lead and lead designer | |
| 2007 | Catan | Project lead and AI | Big Huge Games |
| Age of Empires 3: The Asian Dynasties | Creative director | Microsoft Game Studios | |
| 2010 | FrontierVille | Chief game designer | Zynga |
| 2014 | DomiNations | Nexon |
[...] with the creator of the game collaborating on AI logic with Brian Reynolds, designer of Civilization II and Rise of Nations. [...] Klaus Teuber, the designer of both the board game and Xbox Live version, believes that Mr. Reynolds' assistance has led to very challenging AI opponents
At Zynga, Reynolds led the development of popular Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) games such as "CityVille 2" and "FrontierVille" and supported the launch of recent games "FarmVille 2" and "ChefVille."
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| Civilization series |
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| XCOM series |
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| Civil War games |
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| Other games |
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| International |
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| National |
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| Other |
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