Laura Nikolich is a game designer and programmer who worked for Parker Brothers in the early 1980s where she was the sole developer for the 1982 Atari 2600 game Spider-Man and programmed the ColecoVision version of Frogger II: ThreeeDeep!.
Laura Nikolich | |
|---|---|
| Occupation(s) | Computer programmer Video game designer |
| Notable work | Spider-Man (Atari 2600) |
Education
editLaura Nikolich graduated in 1976 with a bachelor's degree in engineering technology from University of South Florida. She learned assembly language, which she used for pager technology at Motorola. Real-time programming in assembly language gave her skills useful for the emerging video game industry.[1]
Career
editLaura Nikolich was the fifth programmer hired at Parker Brothers in 1981 and the fourth hired for Atari 2600 development.[1] Nikolich worked alone for six months on the first game based on Spider-Man. Working with the limitations of the system, she designed it as a vertically scrolling game,[1] which was challenging to create.[2] Spider-Man was released in 1982, promoted through television commercials, and was a success.[2]
After Spider-Man, Nikolich developed a Care Bears game, which was never released.[3][4][5] The game was dropped because, according to Nikolich, “marketing didn’t know what they wanted”.[5] Nikolich was proudest of her work on Care Bears because of its technical challenges.[4] Her work on manipulating the sprites made the design more lively and impressed people.[4]
Games
edit- Spider-Man, Atari 2600, Parker Brothers (1982)
- Frogger II: ThreeeDeep!, ColecoVision, Parker Brothers (1984)
Unreleased
edit- Care Bears, Atari 2600, Parker Brothers (1983)
- Orbit, ColecoVision, Parker Brothers (1983)
References
edit- ^ a b c Stilphen, Scott. "Laura Nikolich interview". Atari Compendium. Retrieved 17 November 2020.
- ^ a b Campbell, Colin (14 September 2018). "The story of the first Spider-Man game". Polygon. Retrieved 17 November 2020.
- ^ "Care Bears". Atari Protos. Atari Protos. Retrieved 17 November 2020.
- ^ a b c "Laura Nikolich". Atari Women. 13 March 2019. Retrieved 17 November 2020.
- ^ a b "Atari Mania: Care Bears". Atari Mania. Atari Mania. Retrieved 17 November 2020.
External links
edit- Interview on the Spider-Man Crawlspace YouTube channel
- Spider-Man TV commercial (1982)