Creative crucible

The creator of Shadowrun returns with Adventure Forge, an entirely code-free game-creation kit

- 

Jordan Weisman’s CV is something to behold. It begins in 1980, when he co-founded FASA Corporation, maker of the enduring tabletop games Shadowrun and BattleTech; in the early 1990s, the latter series birthed a chain of BattleTech Centers, pioneering virtual entertainment venues with 3D networked combat. He’s also at least partly responsible for the MechWarrior videogames, the Crimson Skies universe, collectible miniatures company WizKids, and Harebrained Schemes, developer of assorted videogames, primarily based on Weisman’s creations.

In short, then, he is something of a serial entrepreneur, always looking for the next big idea. His latest is Adventure Forge, a creation tool that lets players develop their own narrative games – digital ones, that is, though informed by his years spent working in tabletop gaming. “Some of my favourite stories are the stories that players have told me,” Weisman tells us. “I feel that the roleplaying universes that I created just kind of set the table, and then they made the meal. And they make wonderful, wonderful meals.” What if he could enable video game players to tell their own stories, regardless of aptitude? “All of us can pick up a paintbrush and paint badly,” he says, “but it’s very hard to make games of any kind, good or bad.”