Frank Lantz
Frank Lantz | |
|---|---|
 Lantz at work in the area/code studio | |
| Born | December 17, 1963 Kansas City, Missouri, U.S. |
| Occupation(s) | Director of New York University Game Center, co-founder of area/code |
| Spouse | Hilary Lantz |
| Children | James Lantz |
Frank Lantz (born December 17, 1963) is an American video game designer. He is the Founding Chair, now Chair Emeritus of the New York University Game Center.[1] For over 12 years, Lantz taught game design at NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program. He has also taught at the School of Visual Arts and Parsons School of Design. His writings on games, technology, and culture have appeared in a variety of publications. In 2012, The New York Times referred to Lantz as a "reigning genius of the mysteries of games" following his design of iPhone puzzle game Drop7.[2]
In 2005 he co-founded area/code, a New York-based developer that created cross-media, location-based, and social network games.[3] In 2011 area/code was acquired by Zynga and became Zynga New York.[4] Lantz has worked in the field of game development for the past 20 years. Before starting area/code, he worked on a wide variety of games as the Director of Game Design at Gamelab, Lead Game Designer at Pop & Co, and Creative Director at R/GA Interactive.[5] In 2012, Lantz contributed an interview to the Critical Path Project.[6]
Lantz also had a cameo in the 1987 film Redneck Zombies, as "the crazy hitchhiker".
In 2017, Lantz created Universal Paperclips, an incremental game in which players manage an artificial intelligence focused on maximizing paperclip production. The game went viral and was praised for its exploration of the unintended consequences of optimization.[7]
Credits
[edit]Video games
[edit]- Gearheads (1996), Philips Interactive
- Junkbot (2001), Lego Group
- Spybot: The Nightfall Incident (2002), Lego Group
- Diner Dash (2004), PlayFirst
- Drop7 (2009), Zynga
- CSI: Crime City (2010), Ubisoft
- Universal Paperclips (2017)[8]
- Hey Robot (2020), Everybody House Games
- Babble Royale (2021), Everybody House Games
- Pac-Manhattan (2004), New York University
Footnotes
[edit]- ^ NYU Game Center, "NYU Game Center - People", 2013
- ^ Anderson, Sam, "Just One More Game: Angry Birds, Farmville and Other Hyperaddictive 'Stupid Games'", The New York Times, April 4, 2012
- ^ Creativity Online, "Creativity 50", Creativity Magazine Online, February 19, 2008
- ^ Rao, Leena, "Zynga Acquires Social Game Developer Area/Code; Launches New York Office", Tech Crunch, January 21, 2011
- ^ Ruberg, Bonnie, "Big Reality: A Chat with 'Big Game' Designer Frank Lantz", Gamasutra, August 10, 2006
- ^ Grabias, David, "Most Games Are Junk", Critical Path Project, July 23, 2012
- ^ Jahromi, Neima (2019-03-28). "The Unexpected Philosophical Depths of Clicker Games". The New Yorker. ISSN 0028-792X. Retrieved 2024-11-29.
- ^ Vincent, James (October 11, 2017). "A game about AI making paperclips is the most addictive you'll play today". The Verge.
External links
[edit]- "Game Center - The Department of Game Design at New York University". NYU. Archived from the original on 2022-03-08.
- "Home". Area/Code. Archived from the original on 2020-05-30.
- Frank Lantz at MobyGames
- Frank Lantz at IMDb
- "GO SPOTTING: Go, Poker and the Sublime". American Go Association. July 10, 2011. Archived from the original on 2020-11-24.
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