John Newcomer

John Newcomer
Born	1955 (age 61–62) Granger, Indiana
Occupation	Game designer
Known for	Joust

John Newcomer (b. 1955) is an American game designer, best known for being the designer and lead developer of the 1982 pioneering arcade game Joust. He designed, animated, and produced multiple games for Williams Electronics, Midway Games, Cybiko, and MumboJumbo.

Newcomer was born in Granger, Indiana, the second of two children. His father, Robert, was a milkman and then a maintenance worker in a movie theater. His mother, Beverly, was an administrative assistant and office manager. Newcomer attended Clay High School in South Bend, Indiana, where coincidentally one of his friends in the school chess club was Franz Lanzinger, who also ended up in the coin-op industry, working for Atari and designing games such as Crystal Castles. Newcomer attended Notre Dame University, graduating in 1977 with a degree in industrial design. His first job was at Gordon Barlow Design in Skokie, Illinois, the company known for famous games and toys such as Mouse Trap and Toy Bomb. Newcomer worked as part of a team that generated over 100 new products through the prototype stage, some of which then went on to be manufactured by companies such as Hasbro, Mego, and Ideal.

In 1981, Newcomer moved to Williams Electronics. The company had had a recent success with the 1980 game Defender, and believing video games to be the future of entertainment, sought new creative staff. To emphasize his creative spirit, Newcomer submitted his resume stuffed down the throat of a rubber chicken, and got the job. After a few days on staff, he generated a list of game ideas that included one based on The War of the Worlds and another for Joust. His vision for War of the Worlds was not technically feasible with the hardware at the time, but Joust was possible with Williams' existing hardware, and development began.

...
Wikipedia