Lyle Rains
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Lyle Rains was a senior executive at the arcade game company Atari and conceptualized the original idea for Asteroids, which was then developed and implemented by Ed Logg.[1] Rains reportedly called Logg into his office and said "Well, why don’t we have a game where you shoot the rocks and blow them up?"[2]
Rains also served as Executive Producer for a large number of Atari coin-op games. An avid gamer, he wrote a popular online FAQ for the Atari coin-op game KLAX.
Rains also had creative input in Cyberball (1988), where he suggested a football game where opponents could input plays while being blocked from seeing each other's screens.[3]
He joined old compatriot video game designers in a new company called Innovative Leisure headed by Seamus Blackley in 2012 to design games for phones.[4][5]
Game credits
[edit]- Tank (1974)
- Jet Fighter (1975)
- Steeplechase (1975)
- Sprint 2 (1976) - also credited with designing the well-known 'Atari arcade font'.
- Sprint 4 (1977)
- Atari Football (1978)
- Sky Raider (1978) - game designer
- Asteroids (1979)
- Hard Drivin' (1988)
- Race Drivin' (1990)
- Space Lords (1992)
References
[edit]- ↑ Cohen, Scott (1984). Zap!: The Rise and Fall of ATARI. McGraw-Hill. p. 81. ISBN 9780070115439.
- ↑ William Cassidy. "Asteroids". ClassicGaming. IGN. Archived from the original on October 29, 2012. Retrieved January 6, 2014.
- ↑ Hickey, Jr., Patrick (2020). The Minds Behind Sports Games: Interviews with Cult and Classic Video Game Developers. McFarland. p. 210. ISBN 9781476640105. Retrieved 18 August 2025.
- ↑ "Atari "dream team" reforms to make games for "the new arcade", iOS". Eurogamer.net. 3 February 2012. Retrieved 17 May 2015.
- ↑ "The Founding Fathers of Video Games". Time. Retrieved 2021-10-03.
External links
[edit]- History of Atari's Asteroids
- Article at The Dot Eaters, on Rains and the development of Asteroids
- Lyle Rains at Arcade-History.com
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