Brian Reynolds (game designer)

{{Infobox person

| name = Brian Reynolds

| image = Brian Reynolds E3 2003.jpg

| caption = Reynolds at E3 in 2003

| birth_date = {{birth year and age|1967}}

| birth_place =

| death_date =

| death_place =

| education = University of the South

| 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.

Early life and education

Reynolds made his first game sale with Quest 1 to SoftSide magazine, its August 1981 cover feature. He was a gamer in high school, and a SysOp on Randolph School's (Huntsville, Alabama) PDP-11 mainframe computer.Walden, Lea Ann, et al. (Spring 2013). "[http://content.yudu.com/Library/A28edh/RandolphMagazineSpri/resources/index.htm?referrerUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.randolphschool.net%2Fpodium%2Fdefault.aspx%3Ft%3D149781%26uplid%3D431684260%26rc%3D0 Where Are They Now?]". [http://www.randolphschool.net/R/publications Randolph Magazine] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140827062016/http://www.randolphschool.net/R/publications |date=2014-08-27 }} 18 (1). pp. 20-27. Retrieved August 26, 2014. A 1990 graduate of the University of the South, Reynolds briefly pursued graduate studies in philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley.{{cn|date=October 2017}}

Career

Reynolds initiated his game career with MicroProse where he worked as lead programmer for a number of graphic adventure games. These included Rex Nebular in 1992 and Return of the Phantom and Dragonsphere in 1993.

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 Gettysburg in 1997, followed by the creation and design of Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri in 1998. Alpha Centauri became his second multi-million selling title. In 2000 Reynolds left Firaxis games and sold his share in the company to become CEO of Big Huge Games.{{cite web|first=Jason|last=Ocampo|url=http://www.gamecenter.com/News/Item/0,3,0-3727,00.html|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20000817113419/http://www.gamecenter.com/News/Item/0,3,0-3727,00.html|title=Reynolds Leaves Firaxis|website=gamecenter.com|archivedate=August 17, 2000|date=February 7, 2000|accessdate=July 13, 2019}}{{cite web|first=Mark|last=Asher|url=http://www.gamecenter.com/News/Item/0,3,0-3811,00.html|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20000817110217/http://www.gamecenter.com/News/Item/0,3,0-3811,00.html|title=Brian Reynolds's Big Huge News|website=gamecenter.com|archivedate=August 17, 2000|date=February 28, 2000|accessdate=July 13, 2019}}

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).{{cite web|url=http://www.bighugegames.com/#about |title=Big Huge Games - About Us|accessdate=September 1, 2015}} 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.{{cite web |url=https://venturebeat.com/2013/07/16/nexon-invests-in-brian-reynolds-secretnewco-game-startup/ |title=Nexon invests in Brian Reynolds' SecretNewCo game startup |last1=Takahashi |first1=Dean |date=July 16, 2013 |website=VentureBeat |accessdate=August 23, 2013}}

Big Huge Games was acquired by Nexon in 2016.{{Cite web|url=https://venturebeat.com/2016/03/09/nexon-acquires-dominations-developer-big-huge-games/|title=Nexon acquires DomiNations developer Big Huge Games {{!}} GamesBeat|website=venturebeat.com|date=10 March 2016 |language=en-US|access-date=2017-11-24}}{{Cite web|url=https://www.gamespot.com/articles/nexon-acquires-civilization-designers-big-huge-gam/1100-6435508/|title=Nexon Acquires Civilization Designer's Big Huge Games|last=Makuch|first=Eddie|date=2016-03-09|website=GameSpot|language=en-US|access-date=2017-11-24}}

Contributions

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."{{cite web|url=http://www.ign.com/articles/2000/02/12/brian-reynolds-interview-2|title=Interview with Brian Reynolds|date=12 February 2000 |accessdate=September 3, 2013}} 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, published by Microsoft.

Reynolds and Klaus Teuber collaborated to develop the Xbox Live Arcade game Catan.{{cite news |url=https://ca.ign.com/articles/2007/02/09/settlers-of-catan-release-date |title=Settlers of Catan Release Date |first=Bennett |last=Ring |date=May 14, 2012 |publisher=IGN |quote=[...] 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}}

Reynolds led the development of FrontierVille and CityVille 2 for Facebook.{{cite news |url=https://www.ibtimes.com/zynga-loses-chief-game-designer-brian-reynolds-1050046 |title=Zynga Loses Chief Game Designer Brian Reynolds |first=Yannich |last=LeJacq |quote=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.” |date=January 30, 2013 |newspaper=International Business Times}}

Games

class="wikitable sortable" ! Year !! Title !! Role !! Publisher
1981	Quest 1	Author	Softside
1992	Rex Nebular and the Cosmic Gender Bender	rowspan=2 \| Lead programmer	rowspan=5 \| MicroProse
1993	Return of the Phantom
rowspan=2 \| 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	rowspan=2 \| Electronic Arts
1999	Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri	rowspan=3 \| Lead designer
2003	Rise of Nations	rowspan=3 \| Microsoft Game Studios
2004	Rise of Nations: Thrones & Patriots
2006	Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends	Project lead and lead designer
rowspan=2 \| 2007	Catan	Project lead and AI	Big Huge Games
Age of Empires 3: The Asian Dynasties	Creative director	Microsoft Game Studios
2010	FrontierVille	rowspan=2 \| Chief game designer	Zynga
2014	DomiNations	Nexon