Noah Falstein

Noah Falstein is a freelance game designer and producer who has been in the video game industry since 1980. He was one of the first 10 employees at Lucasfilm Games (which became LucasArts Entertainment), DreamWorks Interactive (which became EALA), and The 3DO Company (which became defunct). Currently he runs The Inspiracy and writes the "Better by Design" column for Game Developer magazine. A few of his credits include:

• Sinistar (arcade game) - project leader, co-designer (Williams Electronics, 1983)
• Koronis Rift (Commodore 64) - project leader, designer, programmer (Lucasfilm Games, 1985)
• PHM Pegasus (Commodore 64) - project leader, designer, programmer (Lucasfilm Games, 1986)
• Battlehawks 1942 (DOS) - producer, design contributor (Lucasfilm Games, 1988)
• Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: The Graphic Adventure (DOS) - co-project leader, co-designer (LucasArts, 1989)
• Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis (DOS) - co-designer (LucasArts, 1992)
• Chaos Island (Windows) - designer (DreamWorks Interactive, 1997)
• Hungry Red Planet (Windows) - designer (Health Media Lab, 2002)

Since 1996, Falstein has been president of The Inspiracy, a consulting firm specializing in game design and production for clients on five continents, ranging from corporate training (Cisco, Microsoft) to medical education (Hopelab, Health Media Lab, Medical Cyberworlds) to entertainment (LucasArts, Disney, DreamCatcher, Micro Forte).

Falstein's work on "The 400 Project" has attracted recent attention. It is an attempt to collect rules of computer game design under a standard format. The concept was pioneered by Hal Barwood, who co-designed Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis with Falstein. Falstein is also active in the development of the emerging market of serious games.

Falstein was Chair of the International Game Developers Association from 1997 to 1999, he is on the advisory boards of the Games for Health Conference and Serious Games Summit.