Profiles

Chuck Bueche
Chuck Bueche (also known as Chuckles) is a game programmer most famous for his involvement with the Ultima computer game series.

Bueche was a high school friend and university roommate of Richard Garriott in Austin, Texas. After being introduced to computers by Garriott in 1981, Bueche founded his own company, Craniac Entertainment. Shortly thereafter, three of Bueche's games, Lunar Leepers, Jawbreaker II and Laff Pak, were published by Sierra On-Line.

In 1983, Bueche, along with Richard Garriott, Robert Garriott, and Owen Garriott, founded the software company Origin Systems Inc. Origin became the publisher of Richard's Ultima series; Bueche ported many of the original Apple II series games to the Commodore 64 and Atari 800. He was also responsible for the design and programming of many of Origin's other hits, including Autoduel and 2400 A.D.

Bueche left Origin in 1988 to obtain a Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin (1990). He later held executive positions at Velocity Incorporated, Xatrix Entertainment, and Dell Computer.

In the Ultima series, Bueche is represented by Lord British's court jester Chuckles. In later games in the series, Chuckles is notorious for taunting the series's main character, the Avatar, with silly riddles and games.

Helen Garriott
The mother of Richart Garriott, she was a talented artist in her own right. She is credited for game design for Ultima II, and is personally thanked by Lord British for her contributions to the Ultima III manuals. She was also responsible for the artwork for the Ultima III map of Sosaria.

Denis R. Loubet
Denis Loubet is responsible for a large proportion of Ultima imagery, dating back to Akalabeth. The span of his work includes: box cover artwork for every entry in the series (including spin-offs) except Ultima II; some or all of the illustrations for most of the accompanying playbooks; in-game tile, screen graphics and, in the case of later titles, 3D rendered cinematics. Additionally, he provided the voices of the Great Earth Serpent and Dupre in Ultima VII Part Two.

Loubet left Origin in 1997 to join Illusion Machines—a small software house in Austin, Texas—and subsequently worked as a freelance artist. He maintains a web site that showcases a lot of artwork from past Ultimas, including the original art for some of the box covers.

See Denys and Loubet.

Herman Miller
Herman Miller is prolific creator of constructed languages and artificial scripts, and worked on several Ultimas as a programmer, composer, and occasional writer.

Miller created the Gargish language as well as the anthem, "Audchar Gargl Zenmur," for Ultima VI. He would also go on to compose "Wisp Call" for Ultima VII.

His website lists many Internet-based fictional languages, most of which are developed for sapient rodents and other furry creatures.

Many of his artificial scripts have also been introduced to the ConScript Unicode Registry.

Dr. Cat
Dr. Cat (born David Shapiro) worked notably as a writer on Ultima VI and was responsible for the C64 and C128 ports of Ultima V. Both games feature his namesake as a bartender.

He is currently president, co-founder, executive producer and creative director of Dragon's Eye Productions and is best known for creating the 2003 Independent Games Festival finalist MMOG Furcadia with game artist Talzhemir. In the game Furcadia, his character goes by the name "Felorin."

He has worked in various capacities for Origin, Electronic Arts, Accolade, Microprose, Apogee, and Time Warner Interactive, among others. Notable titles he has significantly contributed to include the Ultima series and DragonSpires.

Dr. Cat lives in Round Rock, Texas.

David R. Watson
David R. Watson is a bowyer currently living in Austin, Texas. He is the real-life inspiration behind the companion Iolo and composed the music for the song "Stones," which became a series staple following its initial appearance in Ultima V. Additionally, Watson is a fencing master and lutenist, with a varied career of video game support including level designer in X-COM: Apocalypse and lead mission analyst in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.