Deborah Todd

Deborah Todd is an American game designer, writer, and producer who began her career in the entertainment industry in 1991 writing cartoons for MGM/UA's new Pink Panther Saturday morning cartoon series. She is known for her pioneering work in children's interactive media, and as one of the first women game designer-writers in the industry, working with many of the early video game icons including Ron Gilbert and Humongous Entertainment, Broderbund, the Discovery Channel, Disney Interactive, 20th Century Fox, Houghton Mifflin Interactive, McGraw Hill, Warner Bros., and the Starlight Children's Foundation.

She is a member of the IGDA and the Writers Guild of America, west,[1] and is a New Media Council Board Delegate of the Producers Guild of America.[2] Todd is also the author of several books including an algebra book, an astronomy book, and the industry book Game Design: From Blue Sky to Green Light, which includes a forward by film producer Jon Landau.

Television and video games

Todd's early career began in the Hanna-Barbera animation writing program. Within months of graduating from the program she made her first sale to MGM, writing for the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Animation Saturday morning cartoon series The Pink Panther featuring the voice of Matt Frewer. Her television and children's writing background paved the way to write, design, and produce her first game, an interactive storybook for the Discovery Channel based on the children's television show Professor Iris.[3] Her next two projects were with Gilbert at Humongous Entertainment, writing two of the three Junior Field Trips titles. She returned years later to work with Humongous again, this time on the Blue's Clues 1-2-3 Time early math game in conjunction with Nickelodeon.

Todd was the writer on the first Curious George CD-ROM, Curious George Comes Home, which was honored with the ABA Book Seller's Choice New Media Award, and the ComputEd Best Interactive Story Award. Todd's other children's titles include the Anastasia CD-ROM game released in conjunction with the Anastasia animated feature by 20th Century Fox, and 101 Dalmatians: Escape from DeVil Manor[4] released with the live-action feature starring Glenn Close.

In addition to young children's titles, Todd created projects designed specifically for the teen market. A computer-based training project for new drivers was created with independent developer Interactive Masters for Adept Driving, and has been in use since 1995. It is currently the American Automobile Association TeenSmart Driving Course, which claims the product has resulted in a decrease in the crash rates of 16–19-year olds by 30%.[5]

She also created three teen-centric online games for the National Endowment for Financial Education, and wrote Grade Builder: Algebra 1 for the Learning Company, which won a U.S. News & World Report Top 12 Titles of the Year award. Other projects within the Serious Games segment of the industry include an Astronomy reference title for software publisher Mindscape, and MyBrainGames,[6] a cognitive exercise game for Multiple Sclerosis patients.

Another serious game written, produced, and directed by Todd was a First-person shooter entitled The Monkey Wrench Conspiracy, designed to teach engineers how to use CAD software. This game was developed in conjunction with the CEO of think3, Joseph Costello, and learning expert Marc Prensky, best known for coining the terms "digital native" and "digital immigrant." The company shipped more than 1 million copies of the game.[7] It has been a little known fact that the voice of the computer in the game is Todd's, who recorded at the urging of Costello.

Todd immersed herself in the world of MMOG's as designer and writer of MiniMonos with the New Zealand developer/publisher of the same name. The game, for kids ages 6–12, has an underlying theme of sustainability, with NPCs (non-player characters) and mini-games that play cooperatively with each other. The game's narrative places the island of MiniMonos in the heart of the Bermuda Triangle, where highly evolved monkeys – the NPCs and player avatars – play together and take care of their portion of the planet. The game was released from Beta on April 1, 2011, and achieved nearly 1 million registered users by its one-year anniversary. It also launched a full-page comic series in April 2012 in the UK's #1 boys periodical Toxic.

Books

Todd is the author of Algebra Handbook, and lead author of The A to Z of Scientists in Space and Astronomy, both published by Facts on File.

Todd's Game Design was published by AK Peters in 2007. Game Design was a Frontline Award finalist[8] and named one of the top five industry books of 2007 by the video game industry periodical Game Developer.[9]

Publications include:

Gameography

References

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External links