Russ Wetmore

Russ Wetmore is an American software engineer and video game designer best known for writing commercial games and applications for Atari 8-bit computers in the early to mid 1980s. His Frogger-inspired Preppie! was published by Adventure International and praised by reviewers for the music and visuals. He also wrote the maze-game sequel Preppie! II. Wetmore stopped writing games after the video game crash of 1983 and developed the integrated HomePak productivity suite for Batteries Included. He has remained in software development in director and architecture roles.

Education Interested in classical music, Wetmore majored in music composition at Morehead State University, from 1973 to 1975, until running out of money. The TRS-80 original, by Wayne Westmoreland and Terry Gilman, draws the undersea terrain as monochrome outlines, while the Atari version adds colorful, filled graphics. Wetmore designed and programmed, Preppie! II, released in 1983. It keeps the preppy theming and protagonist of the original, but involves coloring three mazes by moving through them. All three of Wetmore's games were developed under the name Star Systems Software and published by Adventure International.

In a 1983 interview with Electronic Games, he mentioned a third Preppie! game—Preppies in Space—and another project:

"My next game will be really esoteric," Wetmore confides. "It will involve a three-dimensional room filled with bouncing balls which the player must drop through holes in the floor." Also made available was a demo for an unfinished Atari 8-bit game, Lulu. It contains a word processor (HomeText), database (HomeFind), and terminal communications program (HomeTerm). HomePak was published by Batteries Included in 1984. It is one of the few commercial products written in the Action! programming language from Optimized Systems Software.

With Sparky Starks, programmer of the 1982 game Bug Off!, Wetmore co-authored HomeCard, an Atari 8-bit application advertised as an "electronic filing box" and "intelligent Rolodex." It was published by Antic Software in 1985.

Wetmore wrote short-lived columns for Atari computer magazines Hi-Res ("Advanced User Forum") and ANALOG Computing ("On Line").

He has since worked as a software architect and director of software development for a variety of companies, including Apple Computer.