Merle Martin Rasmussen is an American

game designer Game design is the art of applying design and aesthetics to create a game for entertainment or for educational, exercise, or experimental purposes. Increasingly, elements and principles of game design are also applied to other interactions, in ...

and writer known for creating the espionage role-playing game ''

Top Secret Classified information is material that a government body deems to be sensitive information that must be protected. Access is restricted by law or regulation to particular groups of people with the necessary security clearance and need to kn ...

''.Rasmussen, M. W. (1981). ''Top Secret Espionage Role Playing Game'', second ed. Lake Geneva: TSR, Inc.

Education

Merle Rasmussen graduated from high school in

Underwood, Iowa Underwood is a town in Pottawattamie County, Iowa, United States. The population was 954 at the time of the 2020 census. History Underwood is located in Norwalk Township, so the early history of the township is also of the town. The historical ...

in 1975 and began classes to become a civil engineer (later a pre-professional medicine major) at

Iowa State University Iowa State University of Science and Technology (Iowa State University, Iowa State, or ISU) is a public land-grant research university in Ames, Iowa. Founded in 1858 as the Iowa Agricultural College and Model Farm, Iowa State became one of the ...

that same year.

Career

In his Iowa State dormitory in 1975, Rasmussen began to develop and playtest an espionage simulation with his friends, and the next year he wrote to TSR to see if the game could be published; he received a response letter from Mike Carr (game designer), Mike Carr wishing to review the game, and by the next year the simulation had the working title of ''

'', which was eventually accepted for publication in 1978. Allen Hammack is assigned to the project as an editor, and Hammack worked with Rasmussen on rules clarifications and editing, and the game saw print by the end of February 1980. He also continued to work on the graveyard shift as an orderly in a Council Bluffs, Iowa, Council Bluffs hospital and as a production technician in the Media Production Department of an educational agency in Southwest Iowa. He was also the President of Game Room Productions, Ltd., in Minden, Iowa since June 1979. Rasmussen's ''Top Secret'' (1980) was the sixth role-playing game published by TSR, and it was also the first espionage role-playing game ever published. Jackie and Merle Rasmussen wrote a two-part adventure, "Tortles of the Purple Sage", featured in ''Dungeon (magazine), Dungeon'' #6 (July/August 1987) and #7 (September/October 1987). Rasmussen has also authored several other role-playing game related titles such as ''Ghost of Lion Castle'', ''Midnight on Dagger Alley'', ''Quagmire!'', ''The Savage Coast'' and ''Top Secret Companion''.

References

External links

Abebooks.com
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Rasmussen, Merle M. American game designers American male writers Dungeons & Dragons game designers Living people Year of birth missing (living people)