James D. Sachs (born 1949) is a retired

United States Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the Air force, air service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is one of the six United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Tracing its ori ...

veteran A veteran () is a person who has significant experience (and is usually adept and esteemed) and expertise in an job, occupation or Craft, field. A military veteran is a person who is no longer serving in the military, armed forces. A topic o ...

video game artist Game art design is a subset of game development involving the process of creating the artistic aspects of video games. Video game art design begins in the pre-production phase of creating a video game. Video game artists are visual artists invo ...

and

game programmer A game programmer is a software engineer, programmer, or computer scientist who primarily develops codebases for video games or related software, such as game development tools. Game programming has many specialized disciplines, all of which fall ...

. Sachs was the lead artist on the groundbreaking

Amiga Amiga is a family of personal computers produced by Commodore International, Commodore from 1985 until the company's bankruptcy in 1994, with production by others afterward. The original model is one of a number of mid-1980s computers with 16-b ...

computer game A video game or computer game is an electronic game that involves interaction with a user interface or input device (such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device) to generate visual feedback from a display device, mo ...

Defender of the Crown ''Defender of the Crown'' is a strategy game, strategy video game designed by Kellyn Beeck. It was Cinemaware's first game, and was originally released for the Amiga, Commodore Amiga in 1986, setting a new standard for graphic quality in home co ...

'' from

Cinemaware Cinemaware was a video game developer and publisher. It had released several titles in the 1980s based on various film themes. The company was resurrected in 2000, before being acquired by eGames in 2005. Cinemaware Corp. (1986–1991) The co ...

(first published in

1986 The year 1986 was designated as the International Year of Peace by the United Nations. Events January * January 1 ** Aruba gains increased autonomy from the Netherlands by separating from the Netherlands Antilles. ** Spain and Portugal en ...

). He is also the author of the

Commodore 64 The Commodore 64, also known as the C64, is an 8-bit computing, 8-bit home computer introduced in January 1982 by Commodore International (first shown at the Consumer Electronics Show, January 7–10, 1982, in Las Vegas). It has been listed in ...

game '' Saucer Attack'', which was heavily

pirated Copyright infringement (at times referred to as piracy) is the use of works protected by copyright without permission for a usage where such permission is required, thereby infringing certain exclusive rights granted to the copyright holder, ...

. He called it "the Commodore 64 game everyone had, but no one purchased". He is also the author of the CompuTrainer 3D software, Marine

Aquarium An aquarium (: aquariums or aquaria) is a vivarium of any size having at least one transparent side in which aquatic plants or animals are kept and displayed. fishkeeping, Fishkeepers use aquaria to keep fish, invertebrates, amphibians, aquati ...

simulation

screensaver A screensaver (or screen saver) is a computer program that blanks the display screen or fills it with moving images or patterns when the computer has been idle for a designated time. The original purpose of screensavers was to prevent phosphor s ...

'' SereneScreen Aquarium'', and of the user interfaces and start-up animations of the

Amiga CDTV The CDTV (from Commodore Dynamic Total Vision, later treated as a backronym for Compact Disc Television) is a home multimedia entertainment and Home video game console, video game console – convertible into a full-fledged personal computer by ...

and

Amiga CD32 The Amiga CD32 (stylized as Amiga CD32) is a home video game console developed by Commodore as part of the Amiga line, as well as the final hardware to be developed by the company. Released in September 1993 in Europe, Australia, Canada, and B ...

. Some time after finishing development of ''Defender of the Crown'', Sachs began working on a video game adaptation of the ''20,000 Leagues Under the Sea''. Unable to secure from

Disney The Walt Disney Company, commonly referred to as simply Disney, is an American multinational mass media and entertainment industry, entertainment conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios (Burbank), Walt Di ...

the rights for a game based on their 1954 film, Sachs instead based his design on the original 1870 book by

Jules Verne Jules Gabriel Verne (;''Longman Pronunciation Dictionary''. ; 8 February 1828 – 24 March 1905) was a French novelist, poet and playwright. His collaboration with the publisher Pierre-Jules Hetzel led to the creation of the ''Voyages extraor ...

, ''

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas ''Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas'' () is a science fiction Science fiction (often shortened to sci-fi or abbreviated SF) is a genre of speculative fiction that deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts. These concepts may inclu ...

'', but was ultimately unable to secure funding.

External links

James D. Sachs Interview - 2020
on AmigaLove.com
James D. Sachs page
on

MobyGames MobyGames is a commercial website that catalogs information on video game A video game or computer game is an electronic game that involves interaction with a user interface or input device (such as a joystick, game controller, controlle ...

Interview with James D. Sachs

The same interview in French
on Obligement

on Yo Ho Video
Jim Sachs Interview - June 2009
at the

Personal Computer Museum The Personal Computer Museum was located in Brantford, Ontario, Canada, in a building formerly owned by the municipal government. The building was built with bricks reclaimed from the Brantford Opera House. Over fifty interactive personal comput ...

Living people 1949 births American video game artists American video game programmers {{US-compu-bio-stub