He will be missed. I still remember fondly he would fly around the floor of the West Coast Computer Faire on rollerskates, going everywhere to make sure it was running smoothly.
I did indeed. I had one of the earliest expansion interfaces and disk drive. It had severe noise on the bus cable which caused no end of problems! They finally came out with a field service repair for it.
I could indeed been on the cover. I hope he was a good teacher. I loved geometry and it was my first exposure to solving things logical. I remember it came naturally and I aced the course. QED
Best one I did in that area was The Inheritance. It requires you to read and show you understand some bible verses. You don't have to agree with them but you do need to comprehend what they are saying.
1) yes this has always been an issue. My early Marvel games had to deal with this as there were numerous characters to interact with. In Escape the Gloomer I mostly avoided it as Gillig is trying to stay hidden so you just get to hear conversations. In Adventureland XL I brought by my old friend the pirate. And you do get have some interactions with him as well as Robin's Merry Men. Still not very deep or rich
2) That's harder to answer. I have done a lot of things that may not have panned out commericially but I enjoyed the technical challenge and was happy with the results. I never see failure, just an oppurtunity to improve something :)
3) I am sure it could be, just not an area I have been spending much time addressing!
4) Depends on the game of course. So many of my games are more puzzle based so having an strong NPC isn't really needed there. But I did have fun with both the Pirate and the Chimpanzee in Adventureland XL !
5) AI dungeon is an interesting idea. Each iteration gets more and more promising. But still has a ways to go yet.
All my games used either my original engine or my later SAGA engine. I have since built on that engine and created CLO+# (pronounced Clopas Sharp)
The reason the later games may not be available would also be due to licensing. The licenses for the Marvel games and Buckeroo Banzai have all expired and can't be legally used anymore.
Keep searching on the internet though. There are users and user groups still playing them :)