Arnold Hendrick
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Arnold J. Hendrick (1951 – 25 May 2020) was an American designer and developer of role-playing games (RPGs), board games and video games. He is best-known for the single-player video RPG '' Darklands''.


Early life

Hendrick started to play with toy armies while in primary school, designing combat rules for them. In high school, he played
board wargames A board wargame is a wargame with a set playing surface or board, as opposed to being played on a computer or in a more free-form playing area as in miniatures games. The modern, commercial wargaming hobby (as distinct from military exercises, ...
published by
Avalon Hill Avalon Hill Games Inc. is a game company that publishes wargames and strategic board games. It has also published miniature wargaming rules, role-playing games and sports simulations. It is a subsidiary of Hasbro, and operates under the compan ...
, then switched to tabletop RPGs such as ''
Dungeons and Dragons ''Dungeons & Dragons'' (commonly abbreviated as ''D&D'' or ''DnD'') is a fantasy tabletop role-playing game (TTRPG) originally created and designed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. The game was first published in 1974 by Tactical Studies Rule ...
'' and '' Traveller'' in the mid-1970s. He credited his interest in gaming in leading to a bachelor's degree in history.


Tabletop games

Hendrick began his creative career by developing board games. His first game was a historical board wargame created by Ed Smith for Avalon Hill, released as ''
Trireme A trireme ( ; ; cf. ) was an ancient navies and vessels, ancient vessel and a type of galley that was used by the ancient maritime civilizations of the Mediterranean Sea, especially the Phoenicians, ancient Greece, ancient Greeks and ancient R ...
'' in 1971. Hendrick became the publishing director at
Heritage Games Heritage Models was an American game company that produced role-playing games, metal miniatures, and game supplements. Wargaming and fantasy miniatures Heritage Models, a manufacturer of metal miniature wargaming soldiers, was founded by Jim Oden ...
in 1979, to coordinate non-miniatures production and design designing RPGs and board games. He designed the game ''
Knights and Magick ''Knights and Magick'' is a role-playing game published by Heritage USA in 1980. Description ''Knights and Magick'' is a fantasy/medieval miniatures system designed for mass or single combat, in individual battles or large political-economic-mi ...
'' (1980) for Heritage. Hendrick also designed the 1980 fantasy games ''Caverns of Doom'', and '' Crypt of the Sorcerer''. He created several games for the
Dwarfstar Games Dwarfstar Games was a division of Heritage Models that published microgame-sized fantasy and science fiction board wargames ''WarGames'' is a 1983 American techno-thriller film directed by John Badham, written by Lawrence Lasker and Walte ...
division such as '' Barbarian Prince'' (1981), '' Demonlord'' (1981), ''
Star Viking ''Star Viking'' is a 1981 board game published by Heritage Models. Gameplay ''Star Viking'' is a game in which one player controls the Federate force tasked with protecting a cluster of star systems, while the other player is the Star Vikings loo ...
'' (1982), and ''
Grav Armor ''Grav Armor'' is a science fiction tank combat board game published by Heritage Models in 1982. Description ''Grav Armor'' is a two-player science-fiction tank wargame designed by Arnold Hendrick, with graphic design by David Helber, with Tom ...
'' (1982). He designed '' Swordbearer'' (1982) with Dennis Sustare, a full role-playing game published by Heritage. Hendrick and David Helber designed ''The Tavern'' (1983), a set of dungeon floor plans intended to be published by Heritage, but wound up being the sole product published by the Genesis Gaming Products division of
World Wide Wargames World Wide Wargames, or 3W, was a wargame company founded in 1977 (as UKW, UK Wargamer) by Keith Poulter.The Wargamer Issue 9, page 10 History 3W Inc, also known as World Wide Wargames, was a wargame company that began publishing in 1977. Origi ...
after Heritage went out of business.


Video games

Just as console videogames hit the market in 1983,
Jennell Jaquays Jennell Allyn Jaquays (born Paul Jaquays; October 14, 1956 – January 10, 2024) was an American game designer, Game art design, video game artist, and illustrator of tabletop role-playing games (RPGs). Her notable works include the ''Dungeons & ...
hired Hendrick to work at
Coleco Industries Coleco Industries, Inc. ( ) was an American company founded in 1932 by Maurice Greenberg as The Connecticut Leather Company. The name "COLECO" is an abbreviation derived from the company's original name which combines the first two letters of "C ...
. Hendrick worked at Coleco as Senior Game Designer, and when Coleco imploded during the
video game crash of 1983 The video game crash of 1983 (known in Japan as the Atari shock) was a large-scale recession in the video game industry that occurred from 1983 to 1985 in the United States. The crash was attributed to several factors, including market saturatio ...
, Hendrick moved to
Microprose MicroProse is an American video game publisher and video game developer, developer founded by Bill Stealey, Sid Meier, and Andy Hollis in 1982. It developed and published numerous games, including starting the ''Civilization (series), Civilizat ...
in 1986 to work as a game designer. His credits at Microprose include ''
Gunship A gunship is a military aircraft armed with heavy aircraft guns, primarily intended for attacking ground targets either as airstrike or as close air support. In modern usage the term "gunship" refers to fixed-wing aircraft having laterally-mo ...
'', ''
F-19 Stealth Fighter ''F-19 Stealth Fighter'' is a combat flight simulator developed and released in 1988 (PC DOS) and 1990 (Amiga and Atari ST) by MicroProse, featuring a fictional United States military aircraft. It is the 16-bit remake of the 8-bit game '' Proje ...
'', and ''
Silent Service II ''Silent Service II'' is a submarine simulation game developed and published by MicroProse for MS-DOS in 1990 and for the Amiga in 1991. It is a sequel to 1985's '' Silent Service'', also set in the Pacific Ocean during World War II. Tommo purc ...
''. He worked with
Sid Meier Sidney K. Meier ( ; born February 24, 1954) is an American businessman and computer programmer. A programmer, designer, and producer of many strategy video games and simulation video games, including the ''Civilization'' series, Meier co-found ...
on the Commodore 64 versions of ''
Sid Meier's Pirates! ''Sid Meier's Pirates!'' is a video game created by Sid Meier for the Commodore 64 and published by MicroProse in May 1987. It was the first game to include the name "Sid Meier" in its title as an effort by MicroProse to attract fans of Meier' ...
'' doing documentation and scenario design, and also on ''
Red Storm Rising ''Red Storm Rising'' is a war novel, written by Tom Clancy and Larry Bond, and released on August 7, 1986. Set in the mid-1980s, it features a Third World War between the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and Warsaw Pact forces, and is notab ...
''. Hendrick collaborated with Meier on 15 different games. Hendrick collaborated with
Lawrence Schick Lawrence Schick is a game designer and writer associated with role-playing games. Early life and education Schick attended Kent State University in Ohio. Career Schick, as the head of design and development at TSR, brought aboard Tom Moldvay ...
on '' Sword of the Samurai''. Henrdick was the chief designer of the 1989 tank simulation ''
M1 Tank Platoon ''M1 Tank Platoon'' is a tactical simulator of tank warfare developed and published by MicroProse for the Amiga, Atari ST and MS-DOS in 1989. The game features a mixture of first-person, third-person tank warfare, and tactical simulation gamepla ...
''. Hendrick was responsible for the cartridge games section at MicroProse, and in the early 1990s he was involved in moving away from 16-bit game systems towards 32-bit and 64-bit game systems. It was at Microprose that he designed his best-known game, '' Darklands''. The
MS-DOS MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few op ...
videogame took three years and $3 million to develop — a large amount of money at the time — and the result was a unique and ground-breaking program that was plagued by glitches and bugs. As Andy Chalk noted in ''
PC Gamer ''PC Gamer'' is a magazine and website founded in the United Kingdom in 1993 devoted to PC gaming and published monthly by Future plc. The magazine has several regional editions, with the UK and US editions becoming the best selling PC games m ...
'', "It wasn't a hit, largely because it was wracked with bugs at release, but featured remarkably deep systems and attention to detail, and genuinely unique, 'realistic' game world: a mythologized version of the 15th-century
Holy Roman Empire The Holy Roman Empire, also known as the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation after 1512, was a polity in Central and Western Europe, usually headed by the Holy Roman Emperor. It developed in the Early Middle Ages, and lasted for a millennium ...
, in which the creatures and dangers that people of the era believed were real actually are." Critics who could look past the game's glitches called ''Darklands'' "one of the best multicharacter FRPGs we've had the delight to play" and "surpass sthe complexity and historical accuracy seen in any other contemporary computer game." ''Darklands'' was a finalist for ''
PC Games ''PC Games'' is a monthly-released PC gaming magazine published by the Computec Media GmbH in Germany. History ''PC Games'' was founded in 1992 and included a 3½-in floppy disk, which was changed to a CD-ROM in 1995. By 1999 it became the ...
'' Best Role-playing Game of 1992 (losing to '' Wizardry VII''), and won the 1992 "PC Special Achievement Award" from ''
Game Players ''Game Players'' was a monthly video game magazine founded by Robert C. Lock in 1989 and originally published by Signal Research in Greensboro, North Carolina. The original publication began as ''Game Players Strategy to Nintendo Games'' (the ...
'' magazine. Decades later, ''Darklands'' continued to be an inspiration for game development.
Todd Howard Todd Andrew Howard (born 1970) is an American video game designer, Creative director, director, and Video game producer, producer. He serves as director and executive producer at Bethesda Game Studios, where he has led the development of the ...
cited the game as an influence on
Bethesda Softworks Bethesda Softworks LLC is an American video game publisher based in Rockville, Maryland. The company was founded by Christopher Weaver in 1986 as a Division (business), division of Media Technology Limited. In 1999, it became a subsidiary of Z ...
' popular fantasy role-playing series ''
The Elder Scrolls ''The Elder Scrolls'' is a series of action role-playing games, action role-playing video games primarily developed by Bethesda Game Studios and published by Bethesda Softworks. The series focuses on Nonlinear gameplay, free-form gameplay in an ...
''. ''Darklands'' was a direct inspiration for
Obsidian Entertainment Obsidian Entertainment, Inc. is an American video game developer based in Irvine, California and part of Xbox Game Studios. It was founded in June 2003, shortly before the closure of Black Isle Studios, by ex-Black Isle employees Feargus Urquh ...
's 2022 role-playing game ''
Pentiment Pentiment may refer to: * ''Pentiment'' (video game), a 2022 release *Pentimento In painting, a ; from the verb , meaning 'to repent'; plural ''pentimenti'') is "the presence or emergence of earlier images, forms, or strokes that have been cha ...
''. In 1995 Al Giovetti of The Computer Show interviewed Hendrick and two other Microprose employees about the creation and play of Darklands just two years after its release. Giovetti names Hendrick the designer and Hendrick describes detailed aspects of the game. In 1995, Hendrick moved to
Interactive Magic IEntertainment Network (IENT, stylized as iEntertainment Network and formerly known as Interactive Magic, iMagic, and iMagiconline) is an American video game company founded by Bill Stealey, the co-founder and former CEO of MicroProse Software ...
, where he was involved in growing and leading the design staff. He also helped to develop '' American Civil War: From Sumter to Appomattox''. In 2000, he went to
Electronic Arts Electronic Arts Inc. (EA) is an American video game company headquartered in Redwood City, California. Founded in May 1982 by former Apple Inc., Apple employee Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer game industry ...
/ Kesmai Studios to develop '' Air Warrior''. He later worked for
Forterra Systems Forterra Systems, Inc. was a 3D graphics software company headquartered in San Mateo, California that produced private and secure massively multiplayer online game (MMOG) virtual worlds for corporate, government, defense, medical and educational ...
, developing the MMORG '' Super Hero Squad Online'' (2011). He became a freelance consultant in 2016.


Awards

At the 1982
Origins Awards The Origins Awards are American awards for outstanding work in the gaming industry. They are presented by the Game Manufacturers Association (GAMA) at the Origins Game Fair on an annual basis for games released in the preceding year. For example, t ...
, ''Barbarian Prince'', the board game created by Hendricks, won the
Charles S. Roberts Award The Charles S. Roberts Awards (or CSR Awards) is an annual award for excellence in manual, tabletop games, with a focus on "conflict simulations", which includes simulations of non-military as well as military conflicts. From its founding in 1975 ...
in the category "Best Fantasy Board Game of 1981". In 2006, almost twenty years after its release,
GameSpot ''GameSpot'' is an American video gaming website that provides news, reviews, previews, downloads, and other information on video games. The site was launched on May 1, 1996, created by Pete Deemer, Vince Broady, and Jon Epstein. In addition ...
included ''Darklands'' on their list of "The Greatest Games of All Time".


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hendrick, Arnold 2020 deaths American video game designers Board game designers Role-playing game designers Wargame designers