David Allen (born July 30, 1972) is a video game designer and entrepreneur who is most recently known as the creator of Alganon, a fantasy based

MMORPG A massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) is a video game that combines aspects of a role-playing video game and a massively multiplayer online game. As in role-playing games (RPGs), the player assumes the role of a Player charac ...

developed by Quest Online, a company he co-founded in 2006.

Game designer and entrepreneur

Born in

Denver, Colorado Denver () is a consolidated city and county, the capital, and most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Its population was 715,522 at the 2020 census, a 19.22% increase since 2010. It is the 19th-most populous city in the Unit ...

, Allen grew up in Bellevue, Washington where he actively played on the

PLATO network Plato ( ; grc-gre, Πλάτων ; 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC) was a Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. He founded the Platonist school of thought and the Academy, the first institution ...

, beginning of his interest in online gaming and programming. With a background of programming and development on the Windows platform, his first retail creation was '' Mordor: The Depths of Dejenol'' (released 1994) a dungeon-romp built for Windows 3.x. The sequel was a more evolved version of Mordor called ''Demise: Rise of the Ku'tan'' (released 2000). While finishing ''Demise'', Allen created the concept for the MMORPG called '' Horizons: Empire of Istaria'' and founded Artifact Entertainment in 1999 where he proceeded to raise capital and build the game, relocating to

Mesa, Arizona Mesa ( ) is a city in Maricopa County, Arizona, Maricopa County, in the U.S. state of Arizona. It is the most populous city in the East Valley (Phoenix metropolitan area), East Valley section of the Phoenix Metropolitan Area. It is bordered by ...

in the process. Allen departed Artifact in July 2001. He founded Pharaoh Productions later in 2001 where he designed a game called ''Dominion'' which was a mix of MMORPG and ''Diablo'' play style, but featuring dynamic content. Allen was unable to secure funding for Pharaoh and closed the company in 2004. He returned to the industry in 2006 relocating to

Chandler, Arizona Chandler is a city in Maricopa County, Arizona, United States, and a suburb in the Phoenix-Mesa-Chandler Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA). It is bordered to the north and west by Tempe, to the north by Mesa, to the west by Phoenix, to the ...

and co-founding a new company called Quest Online where he created a MMOG called ''Crusade'' which was later renamed to '' Alganon''. ''Alganon'' launched in December 2009 with a

social network A social network is a social structure made up of a set of social actors (such as individuals or organizations), sets of dyadic ties, and other social interactions between actors. The social network perspective provides a set of methods for an ...

called MyAlganon that included an online Library system where players could browse game data including items, quests, and characters.

Other activities

Allen has written two published books. The ''Visual Basic 4 Network Gaming Adventure Set'', was published in 1995, which showed readers how to create games in Visual Basic 4. He also published a work of fiction called ''Eight Days'' through

Amazon Kindle Amazon Kindle is a series of e-readers designed and marketed by Amazon. Amazon Kindle devices enable users to browse, buy, download, and read e-books, newspapers, magazines and other digital media via wireless networking to the Kindle Store. ...

in 2013. He also writes and publishes stories on a personal website called ''StoryBag''.

Companies created

* VB Designs (1996) * Artifact Entertainment (1999) * Pharaoh Productions (2001) * Quest Online (2006)

Games created

* ''

Mordor In J. R. R. Tolkien's fictional world of Middle-earth, Mordor (pronounced ; from Sindarin ''Black Land'' and Quenya ''Land of Shadow'') is the realm and base of the evil Sauron. It lay to the east of Gondor and the great river Anduin, and to t ...

'' (Released 1995) * '' Demise'' (Released 2000) * '' Horizons'' (Released 2003) * ''Dominion'' (Not Released) * '' Alganon'' (Released 2009)

References

External links