Meet the Authors of
Inherit the Earth: Quest for the Orb

Joe is the president of Wyrmkeep Entertainment and was a co-founder of The Dreamers Guild, the original developers of Inherit the Earth. He has been a professional programmer since 1986 and has a B.S. from UCSD in Physics. Joe sometimes thinks he can do other things like game design, art, audio production and running a game development company.

Home page: The Bit Zone

Talin played many roles in the development of Inherit the Earth. Prior to being a co-founder of The Dreamers Guild, Talin created the popular computer game The Faery Tale Adventure and the popular Amiga music sequencer Music-X. Talin is currently involved in technology development at a Northern California game publisher.

Home page: Viridia

Allison Hershey was a co-founder of the Dreamers Guild, the company that originated the Inherit the Earth game. She was part of the team that created the storyline and was also art director. Some of the sketches in the Inherit the Earth Adventures Guide are hers as well. She is the artist and co-writer of the new Inherit the Earth comic strip.

Home page: Allie's Toybox

Robert touched his first computer when he was 11. Thirteen years later he co-founded the Dreamers Guild. Another fifteen years later he's still figuring out what to be when he grows up.

Home page: Ironwolf

Walter has been a game designer, game programmer and entrepreneur since he was 12 years old. He started his first software company in Seattle in the 70's, built his second company "InexSoft" in the 80's before going on to becoming one of the charter members of The Dreamers Guild. He was the producer and one of the programmers of Inherit the Earth and wrote the Clue Book.

Walter has programmed or been involved with the programming of over 120 games from first person shooters to racing games, to chess games, to planetariums, to helicopter simulations on 13 different platforms using 17 different programming languages. He still develops puzzles for various game companies and is professional puzzle player.

He has since retired from game programming and invests and sells real estate as a Realtor in the San Fernando Valley in California.

Home page: Walter Hochbrueckner

I have been drawing since age 3. By the time I was 7, I was making puppets, writing plays, designing puzzles, and creating secret langauges. Who would have believed that a youth spent building physical mazes and haunted houses would translate into a profession building virtual worlds? Not me! I was 36 before I touched a computer.

Up at a game company called SierraOnLine, the owner thought it would be easier to teach an artist how to use the machine than to teach a programmer how to draw. That was 15 years and many, many games ago.

I enjoy making worlds for other people to play in, and the online community is one of the largest possible worlds, yet games bring us all together.

Home page: Haukshavn

April Lee has credits on over fifteen game titles, including many in the Might and Magic and Heroes of Might and Magic lines and most recently has worked on War of the Ring and DragonShard. As an artist she works on everything from manual art, concepts and icons to 3D modeling, texturing and animation. In addition to her work on fantasy games for the PC, she also illustrates for many tabletop fantasy role-playing games and collectible card games, such as Legend of the Five Rings and Magic: The Gathering. She holds degrees from Art Center College of Design, Oxford University and Mount Holyoke College.

Home page: April Lee Illustration

Michael implemented the Macintosh version of Inherit the Earth and contributed as a contractor to several games produced by The Dreamers Guild. Michael currently works as a machine learning researcher and systems engineer on Google's websearch and gmail products.

M. Leander Hasty is the latest member of the Inherit the Earth development team. He was the primary member of the quality assurance team for the new Linux release of the game.