Brian Moriarty
• Name: Brian Moriarty
• Joined Infocom: 1984
• Games written: 3
• Left Infocom: 1989
Brian Moriarty built his first computer in the fifth grade. Oblivious to the path that spelled out for him, he graduated from the Southeastern Massachusetts University in 1978 with a degree in English Literature

Four years later, in 1982, working as an editor at Analog Computing magazine, he made his first experience with an Infocom adventure, "Deadline." Brian had already written a couple of games in BASIC, which had been published in Analog, and Deadline's impressive parser and depth of story immediately got him interested. For him it must have been the perfect mix between his geek affinity for computer technology and his sense of the finer arts.

It took until 1984 that Infocom offered him a job, not as author, but as technician: Brian maintained the 6502 interpreters of ZIL and it was his work that made the sonar in "Seastalker" possible.

Although it was not much later that Brian started to write his own games. Mike Dornbrook, head of marketing, came up with the idea of an easy adventure to introduce new adult players to the genre and gave the project to Brian. This project became known as "Wishbringer" and was a solid success, selling nearly a hundred thousand copies. Some people up to today rate it as one of the most beautiful stories ever told in an Infocom game.

But his most ambitious title was "Trinity," which, written in the final days of the Cold War, dealt with the story of the atom bomb and nuclear war. He traveled around the world to do research for it and even visited the "Trinity" site, where the world's first atom bomb was launched. Along with Steve Meretzky's "A Mind Forever Voyaging" the game made it clear that serious topics can benefit from being dealt with in an adventure game, as it gives an unusual and interactive angle on a subject.

Brian stayed with Infocom almost up to the end and incidentally his last game there, "Beyond Zork," marked the final struggle of transforming from text-only adventures to those with graphics.

It was not long after Infocom's end that his talent took him to the most powerful company in graphical adventure gaming in the late 80's and early 90's, Lucas Arts, and his first game there, "Loom" sold over half a million copies and received several industry awards, including MacWorld's Adventure Game of the Year.

In 1993 Brian left Lucas Arts while doing preliminary work on "The Dig," a space adventure. Eventually "The Dig" was done by Sean Clark, and although Brian was credited with "Additional Additional Story" he says he has nothing to do with any released version of the game.

He then became Senior Game Designer at Rocket Science, a now defunct company, where he wrote "Lodestar: The Legend of Tully Bodine." Not much later he and some friends decided to form their own company, Mpath, where they planned to write multiplayer games for the internet.

Mpath later was renamed to Hearme, filed bankruptcy in 2001 and Brian moved on to become Director of Game Development at Skotos Tech, a multiplayer gaming company specializing in interactive fiction, where he left in 2002.

He went on to design and present planetarium shows to finally come back to entertainment software by joining ImaginEngine as a Senior Producer in 2007.

Many thanks to Brian Moriarty for contributing to this biography.

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Titles written by Brian Moriarty:

Wishbringer (1985)

Trinity (1986)

Beyond Zork (1988)

Past Infocom:

Loom (1990, Lucas Arts)

Lodestar: The Legend of Tully Bodine (1995, Rocket Science) (with Ron Cobb)

American Girl: Julie Saves the Eagles (2007, ImaginEngine)

American Girl: Mia Goes for Great (2008, ImaginEngine)

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