Lauren Elliott is an American

video game designer Video game design is the process of designing the content and rules of video games in the pre-production stage and designing the gameplay, environment, storyline and characters in the production stage. Some common video game design subdiscipline ...

, internet entrepreneur, publisher and inventor. He is recognized as one of the pioneers in the

edutainment Educational entertainment (also referred to as edutainment) is media designed to educate through entertainment. The term was used as early as 1954 by Walt Disney. Most often it includes content intended to teach but has incidental entertainmen ...

video game industry. Elliott's greatest success to date came as the original co-designer for the

Carmen Sandiego ''Carmen Sandiego'' (sometimes referred to as ''Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego?'') is a media franchise based on a series of computer games created by the American software company Broderbund. While the original 1985 '' Where in the World ...

game series which remains the best-selling edutainment game in history.

Biography

Lauren Elliott is the grandson of

Hall Roosevelt Gracie Hall Roosevelt (June 28, 1891 – September 25, 1941) was an American engineer, banker, soldier, and municipal official who was the youngest brother of First Lady of the United States Eleanor Roosevelt and a nephew of President Theodore Ro ...

, brother of

Eleanor Roosevelt Anna Eleanor Roosevelt () (October 11, 1884November 7, 1962) was an American political figure, diplomat, and activist. She was the first lady of the United States from 1933 to 1945, during her husband President Franklin D. Roosevelt's four ...

Education

After graduating from the Millbrook School for Boys, Elliott attended

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to tea ...

, transferring three years later to the

University of Colorado Boulder The University of Colorado Boulder (CU Boulder, CU, or Colorado) is a public research university in Boulder, Colorado. Founded in 1876, five months before Colorado became a state, it is the flagship university of the University of Colorado sy ...

, where he received his degree in architecture. Becoming interested in environmental design, he then studied briefly at the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

under Ian McHarg, followed by two years of graduate work in ecology at the

University of California at Davis The University of California, Davis (UC Davis, UCD, or Davis) is a public land-grant research university near Davis, California. Named a Public Ivy, it is the northernmost of the ten campuses of the University of California system. The institut ...

Career in game design

In 1983, Elliott walked into Broderbund Software in San Rafael, California, with a sketchpad full of game designs and was hired on the provision that he could convince a programmer to take on one of his designs. Over the next 13-year period he authored and worked on more than 23 titles. He now has over 30 million copies of his work in circulation and is a winner of over 50 awards in originality and lifetime sales categories. While at Broderbund, Elliott and Gene Portwood were Will Wright's project managers on his first video game, Raid on Bungeling Bay, in 1984. In 1996, Elliott left to form Elliott Portwood Productions with his partner Gene Portwood. During the next four years, they produced titles for

The Learning Company The Learning Company (TLC) was an educational software company founded in 1980 in Palo Alto, California and headquartered in Fremont, California. The company produced a grade-based line of learning software, edutainment games, and productivity ...

, Maxis Software,

Virgin Software Virgin Interactive Entertainment (later renamed Avalon Interactive) was the video game publishing division of British conglomerate the Virgin Group. It developed and published games for major platforms and employed developers, including Westwoo ...

, and

The Software Toolworks The Software Toolworks (commonly abbreviated as Toolworks) was an American software and video game developer based in Novato, California. The company was founded by Walt Bilofsky in 1980 out of his Sherman Oaks garage, which he converted into ...

. In 2002, Elliott formed Dream Zero, an internet gaming company, later acquired by The Big Network. In 2005, Elliott published a book – ''With Love, Aunt Eleanor'' – written by his mother, who is the niece of

. Elliott is currently the Executive Producer of Proxi.

Games designed by Elliott

*''Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? (1985), Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego?'' *''Where in the U.S.A. Is Carmen Sandiego? (1985), Where in the U.S.A. Is Carmen Sandiego?'' *''Where in Time Is Carmen Sandiego? (1989), Where in Time Is Carmen Sandiego?'' *''Where in Europe Is Carmen Sandiego?'' *''Where in America's Past Is Carmen Sandiego?'' *''Where in Space Is Carmen Sandiego?'' *''Where in North Dakota Is Carmen Sandiego?'' *''Widget Workshop'' *''Marty in Where’s Morgan'' *''Marty and the Trouble with Cheese'' *''Reader Rabbit's Ready for Letters'' *''Time Riders in American History'' *''Mario is Missing'' *''Mario's Time Machine'' *''Science Toolkit Master Module'' *''Science Toolkit Speed and Motion'' *''Science Toolkit Body Module'' *''Science Toolkit Earthquake Lab'' *''Whistler's Brother'' *''Captain Goodnight and the Islands of Fear'' *''Galleons of Glory: The Secret Voyage of Magellan'' *''VCR Companion'' *''Shufflepuck Café''

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Elliott, Lauren Carmen Sandiego American game designers Living people American businesspeople University of Colorado Boulder alumni Cornell University alumni University of California, Davis alumni Roosevelt family Year of birth missing (living people)