Falcon is, without any doubt, the most ambitious and realistic Air Combat Simulation ever created and, for this reason, many simmers all over the world still fly it regularly despite its aging graphics.Because of this success, I always hoped to have one day the opportunity to ask specific questions about its development.

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I can’t thank enough Kevin for agreeing to this interview and for answering in such a honest and professional way. This is a long interview that will reveal a lot of things that many simmers probably didn’t know. I’m proud to make it available for everyone who, like me, considers Falcon as one the best simulators out there. There is a lot to read so sit comfortably and enjoy!

GENERAL NOTES FROM KEVIN: Keep in mind that all this happened about 15 years ago and my memory is definitely fuzzy. I pulled up what I could from there, but I will be the first to admit my memory isn’t always accurate. I did no actual fact-checking on myselft, so take all this with a grain of salt.

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Let’s start from the beginning. What can you tell us about your background and how did you find yourself working for MicroProse?

I had been studying Aerospace Engineering at Cal Poly when an opportunity came up to take an Internship at MicroProse (which was still Spectrum HoloByte at the time). Back in the 80s I had written several multiplayer games for a gaming BBS I ran in high school, and I found the job opportunity through those contacts. Because of my background with both gaming and aerospace it seemed like a good fit.

Could you describe your roles and responsibilities during those years?

Initially I was hired as an intern and asked to design and develop a dynamic campaign. For better or worse there wasn’t a lot of direction on what that would entail – the directive was mostly to make something that would be a persistent world and generate dynamic missions instead of the pre-scripted model which was the norm. I’d written a few simple strategy games prior to this, so I approached it as designing and writing a strategy game. This was obviously a much bigger job than an intern could handle in a summer, so I eventually signed on full time. By the end of the project I’d ended up taking on much more, and was eventually lead programmer on the localization projects.

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