Jason D. Anderson

Jason D. Anderson, usually credited as Jason Anderson, is a video game developer. He started out as a contract artist for Interplay on the USCF Chess project. He was later hired to work on Fallout for which he became Lead Technical Artist, working on the original game design, interface, and quests. After working on the prototype design for Fallout 2, Anderson left with fellow developers Timothy Cain and Leonard Boyarsky to found Troika Games. After Troika Games collapsed, Anderson left the game industry for a short time to sell real estate.

Interplay reopened in-house development and in 2007 hired Anderson as Creative Director for an unannounced massively multiplayer online game. In March 2009, Anderson joined inXile Entertainment as Creative Director. In January 2011, he left inXile to join Turtle Rock Studios. In March 2012, inXile announced the crowdfunded development of Wasteland 2 with Anderson as the game's storyline author.

In March 2019 it was announced on Twitter that Anderson had rejoined inXile, who in the meantime had been acquired by Microsoft alongside Obsidian Entertainment. This indirectly reunites him with Troika colleagues Tim Cain and Leonard Boyarsky, who work for Obsidian.

Biography Jason Anderson grew up being the youngest of 10 children. He got into Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) around the age of 10 when his mom bought him the basic D&D set. Already at a young age, he enjoyed using the D&D and Avalon Hill settings to imagine his own adventures set in other universes such as Blade Runner. He learned basic programming on the Apple II and created his own dungeon crawling program to simulate dungeons and random encounters from the D&D table top game. After high school he nearly stopped using the computer altogether, focusing on working in construction and getting his degree as Recording engineering from Golden West College in 1992. He later purchased an Amiga and subsequently taught himself to use both LightWave 3D and 3D Studio (for Windows). He sent a sample of his work to Interplay Entertainment, which got him started in the computer games industry.

He has mentioned X-COM, Jagged Alliance and Planescape: Torment as being some of his favorite games.

Career

Interplay Entertainment (March 1994 – July 1997) Anderson got his first contract working on USCF Chess and was subsequently offered a full-time position at Interplay Entertainment. His first job was 'clean-up artist' on Stonekeep, which was just about to ship. One of Anderson's fondest memory from Fallouts development was coming up with the ending to the game in conjunction with Leonard Boyarsky. They figured it would fit the tone of the game, including the xenophobic nature of the vault dwellers, if the main character would actually be rejected by his former people. Cain was skeptical at first, given its unorthodox nature compared to other RPGs which were usually about empowering the player and becoming a hero. But he eventually gave in to the idea. Anderson recalls disagreement with Interplay concerning who the next team members should be. Boyarsky and Anderson wrote the main story line for the game. However, the problems persisted. According to Cain, marketing and sales took counterproductive decisions pertaining inter alia to game box design without consulting him. His wish to become division manager for the marketing department was met with resistance from Urquhart, who saw this as an infringement on his own authority and responsibilities. Cain recalls spending too much time arguing with people and trying to defend the game from devolving into a lesser product. Boyarsky and Anderson were both unwilling to work on a sequel for Fallout without him. According to Anderson, each had their unique specialty: Cain being a talented programmer, Leonard a talented artist while Anderson created solutions for merging art and programming .

Arcanum was the first game from Troika Games. The initial design of the game was conceived by Cain, Anderson and Boyarsky after leaving Interplay. While reflecting on what game to make next, they decided that they wanted their turn at making an RPG set in a fantasy setting. The post-apocalyptic setting of Fallout had been a conscious design-choice to distance themselves from fantasy-titles like the Might and Magic series and other games based on Dungeons and Dragons. However, they did not want to make a ‘typical’ fantasy game set in the 14th century, often the case for games in the genre. Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura was thus set in the 18th century, imagining what would happen in a world where magic co-existed with the industrial revolution. Indeed, the desire to mix magic and technology was a given from the start. They drafted ideas for how each race in the world would be affected by technology, with Boyarsky stating that "the orcs would be used as the slaves of all the capitalist machinery". The project began when Boyarsky and Anderson were invited to Seattle to see the latest build of the Source engine. Subsequently, they had discussions with Scott Lynch of Valve about using the Source game engine to create a brand new, groundbreaking first-person RPG. Troika was thus the first external team to be allowed using the Source engine. Activision (who had recently founded a partnership with Valve), suggested them to make a game using the Vampire: The Masquerade setting, for which they had the license. Troika began to research the World of Darkness and the Vampire system before agreeing that it would be a great fit. " compared to his last two games (Fallout and Arcanum)and was happy that he able to make a game about vampires. However, he was not familiar with the Vampire: The Masquerade table-top games, and had to do some research to understand the setting and translate it to a video-game experience. Anderson relied on player experiences from colleagues and online forums, to understand what drew players to the game. First, he learned that the main point liked was Vampire's focus on character interaction with stats, items, and powers taking a backseat. Main elements for the players’ experiences were constantly changing intricacies of the world and vampiric society. Second, Anderson had to reproduce the pen-and-paper experience to satisfy fans of the setting and give newcomers an accurate introduction. Generally, the character attributes from Vampire were easily implemented into the video-game format, while others (such as ‘knowledge of law') had to be left out. Also, dice rolls and randomness were removed as they would not have fit in a first-person setting. Disciplines were confusing and thus challenging to implement. Thus, a deviation from the board game was made to streamline the disciplines into the game. Furthermore, Anderson designed the ‘haunted mansion’ level of the game, which is famous for being "eerily atmospheric" and well-paced. Boyarsky recalls that "several people took turns trying to make that work, but it wasn’t until Jason took it over that it really began to shine".

The development of Bloodlines was challenging for Troika. First, compared to the relative freedom they enjoyed during the development of Arcanum, Vampires design choices had more checks and balances as both White Wolf and Activision wanted to validate their decisions. Second, the deteriorating working relationship with Activision and constant deadlines had damaged the morale of the development staff. Cain recalls an embargo being placed on the game. In fact, Troika was not allowed to work on it for several months before the release date, as Activision kept a gold version master until the release date. Any patches and fixes that Troika worked on, where thus not allowed to be included in the game. This also included improvements made to the Source engine such as advancements in physics, modelling and facial animation which Bloodlines did not have. The embargo hurt the morale of the team, who had finished a game that could not be shipped, changed, or talked about. Furthermore, Activision wanted to ship it as soon as possible, resulting in many features being cut and forcing the Troika staff to work long hours. Anderson later stated that the vast majority of Bloodline's development time was spent in 'crunch-mode' . Nevertheless, initial sales figures were weak, failing to ensure financial stability to the company. They continued to present game ideas to publishers, Anderson's favorite being "Dreadlands, an [MMOG] set in mythical mid 19th century Eastern Europe". They also worked on a game set in a post-apocalyptic setting reminiscent of Fallout, for which an engine demonstration was released. However, Troika faced difficulty finding new publisher deals, haunted by a track record of great ideas with lackluster implementation. Consequently, Troika shut down their business operations in 2005. Reminiscent on the fate of Troika, Anderson said that Troika's games were considered B-titles, Something that publishers shun away from. He adds, "Unfortunately, although our games had depth and vision, we were never able to release a game that had been thoroughly tested and rid of bugs".

Post-Troika hiatus (2004 – 2007) After Troika shut down, Anderson took some vacation with his wife and family. They decided that they needed a break from the entertainment industry, in order to spend more time together. 2004 had been a difficult year, with several family issues on top of the demise of Troika. Anderson, who is skilled in many facets of construction, spent a few months repairing his house, remodeling the kitchen and baths, removing the sound room and replacing the balcony. After selling the house, they settled down in Phoenix, Arizona and got active in the real estate business. His wife acquired her Real Estate License and the couple bought another old house, which Anderson spent around 3 months fixing. Anderson also home-schooled his daughters during this period. Anderson worked on Project V13 with fellow Fallout creator Chris Taylor. Although it was never officially stated, the project he worked on was believed to be a Fallout-related MMO. Interplay retained the rights for such a title after selling the Fallout rights to Bethesda Softworks. However, Bethesda later disputed this right in a legal case, which further stalled its development. Anderson had been in talks with Hervé Caen (Brian Fargo's successor after Titus Software's acquisition of Interplay Entertainment in 2001) about the project for nearly a year, and felt it was one of the few projects that could entice him to get back into the video-game industry. As Creative Director, Anderson was responsible for a putting a team together and overseeing progress on the game. Nevertheless, although he enjoyed working on the project, Anderson later decided to leave Interplay to accept an offer from InXile Entertainment who presented him with "a more stable opportunity". Before successfully funding the project via Kickstarter, Brian Fargo attempted to generate publisher interest and secure their backing by having Anderson (Fallout lead designer), Mike Stackpole (lead designer on the first Wasteland) and someone who helped produce both games following the success of Fallout 3. Fargo was surprised at how little publisher interest there was. Subsequently, Anderson left the company before Wasteland 2 launched on Kickstarter. However, Anderson's work during his time with InXile was kept . The Kickstarter campaign directly mentions Anderson's work on the storyline, which was retained for the final game.

Turtle Rock Studios (2011–2019) Anderson subsequently joined Turtle Rock Studios in 2011. They shipped the first-person shooter Evolve in 2015. Anderson's exact role in that project is unknown, although he is credited for level design on the company's forum. He has stated that there are no titles at the company, as everyone is equal.

InXile Entertainment (2019–present) On March 26, 2019, Anderson re-joined InXile Entertainment. This was announced by Chad Moore on Twitter, whom Anderson had worked with both at Interplay and Troika. Since both InXile and Obsidian were acquired by Microsoft, this in-directly reunites the Troika: Tim Cain, Leonard Boyarsky and Jason Anderson.

On June 11, 2023, Xbox Games Showcase revealed the new game he has been working on in collaboration with Chad Moore: Clockwork Revolution.

Works

Title Year Role USCF Chess 1993 Artist Stonekeep 1995 Artist/Designer Fallout 1997 Lead Technical Artist, original game design Fallout 2 1998 Main story outline Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura 2001 Creative principal Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2004 Creative Director Project V13 2007 Creative Director Hunted: The Demon's Forge 2011 Design/Secrets and Exploration Wasteland 2 2014 Main Story Author Evolve 2015 Unknown Clockwork Revolution TBA Principal Designer

Personal life Apart from video games, music is one of Anderson's main hobbies. He has had an ear for music since being a child, and has composed several pieces on his own. He enjoys playing his guitar and prefers heavy, aggressive music such as Quicksand, Tool and Sepultura, which he listened to during the development of Fallout.