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Karl Deckard is a video game developer.
Biography[]
Banner from the Metroid Official Site.
Deckard started his video game career as a graphic designer at Nintendo Power, being in charge of its production. Among those duties, he also worked on many official player's guides for games such as Yoshi's Island and Killer Instinct.
He joined Valve after leaving Nintendo Power to help create Half-Life. He acted as artist and designer for the game. After departing Valve, Deckard made his way to Blizzard Entertainment in 2000 where he began work on Diablo II. It is unclear as to what work Deckard did on Diablo II. Considering the fact that Diablo II was in development at least a good two years before he joined Blizzard, his involvement would have been limited.
In his personal life, Deckard is a skateboarding fanatic. "There have been well over 100 skateboarding games released since 720 in 1986, but honestly, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater is what I play...religiously. Every installment. Period." Deckard once said. He used his love of the Tony Hawk titles to create the Morph Ball segments of gameplay in Metroid Prime. Additionally, Deckard worked with Jack Mathews on the Thermal Visor, and Mark Haigh-Hutchinson and Mark Pacini on tuning the camera system with the game's platforming.[1]
The beta name of 1LT W. Smythe in Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, K. Deckard, is likely named after Karl Deckard.
According to Mike Wikan, Deckard was responsible for Samus Aran's controls and the Luminoth Lore, and he created their written language based on the position of the species' knuckles in 3D space.[2] Wikan and Deckard had a graph paper map of Prime in their shared office.[3]
Deckard took part in an interview on the Japanese Metroid Official Site along with Mark Pacini and Michael Mann. It was published on April 16, 2003, and unofficially translated into English by Shinesparkers on February 26, 2021.[4]
He is currently a "game design guru" at Magic Leap, a startup company that has released a mixed reality headset.
External links[]
References[]
- ^ Kiwi Talkz. "#116 - Jack Mathews Interview (Metroid Prime Trilogy, Prototypes, Business, Armature Studios etc.)". YouTube. November 26, 2021. Retrieved June 7, 2022.
- ^ Michael Wikan: "Karl Deckard was behind the deep Luminoth lore including the handsign written language based on the position of their knuckles in 3D space." September 26, 2020 4:11 p.m. https://www.facebook.com/shinesparkers/posts/5064736973552418?__tn__=-R
- ^ KIWI TALKZ - #105 - Mike Wikan Interview (Metroid Prime Trilogy, Game Design, Crunch, Booz Allen Hamilton etc.) September 6, 2021. Retrieved September 18, 2021. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlbeRLmfCHk Starts at 3:38
- ^ "Metroid.jp Interview: Retro Studios", Shinesparkers, 2021-02-26. Retrieved on 2021-02-26.