The late
M.U.L.E. developer Dani Bunten (also known as Danielle Berry) is to become the latest video game designer to be enrolled in the AIAS Hall of Fame, following luminaries including Shigeru Miyamoto, Sid Meier, Hironobu Sakaguchi, John Carmack, Will Wright, Yu Suzuki, Peter Molyneux, Trip Hawkins and Richard Garriott.
Born Daniel Bunten, before undergoing gender reassignment surgery in 1992, Bunten’s name is perhaps less recognizable than previous inductees, although her legacy is no less significant. She developed the seminal Atari 800 multiplayer game
M.U.L.E. for Electronic Arts in 1983, followed by adventure title
The Seven Cities of Gold in 1985 and
Modem Wars in 1988 – the first multiplayer game to be playable online via a modem.
After joining MicroProse, she produced a board game adaptation of Axis and Allies named
Command HQ in 1990 and another first in four-player online title
Global Conquest. Bunten’s last game before her death from lung cancer in 1998 was
Warsport for MPath – a remake of the earlier
Modem Wars.
Bunten was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Computer Game Developers Association in 1998, just two months before her death. Although not yet officially announced, consumer website
GameSpot has reported that the AIAS award will be given at the D.I.C.E. Summit on February 8th, with former MicroProse colleague Sid Meier accepting the award on Bunten’s behalf.
