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[[image:Jim Dramis - Designer's Spotlight.jpg|400px|thumb|left|An Interview with John C. Plaster - Designer and Programmer of "Tombstone City:21st Century"]]
'''GMK: ''' Have you progra/1',med programmed many games? '''JCP: ''' Tombstone City wasthe first. I've since programmedone other, and startedwork on a third. '''GMK: ''' What experienceshave you had that you thinkcontributed to your desireand ability to design computer
games?
'''JCP: ''' Nothing special, really.I just had a regular childhood... played things likecheckers, Old Maid, and poker.I never had played any arcadegames before I designedTomstone Tombstone City. '''GMK: ''' Are you an artisticor creative person in otherfields or activities? '''JCP: ''' I don't know thatI'm that creative in otherareas. I have a pure mathbackground-that's what Imajored in in school ... somaybe I have more of a logical-type mind than a creativemind. '''GMK: ''' What jobs have youhad before coming to work atTI? '''JCP: ''' I guess I've only hadthree jobs in my life. My firstjob was working for my dad,a farmer in Canyon, Texas. Iworked with him on the farmup until the time I went tocollege. I got my B.A. at RiceUniversity, and spent a yearat the University of Arizonadoing graduate work. I completedmy Masters and PhDin math at Texas Tech. Thatwas where I worked as a TA[ teaching assistant] . I alsospent one semester at AbileneChristian University. '''GMK: ''' How did you startgetting involved in computergames, and where did the ideafor Tombstone City comefrom? '''JCP: ''' I just started playingaround in 9900 [AssemblyLanguage for the TI-99/4A]code. I really wasn't intendingto write a game when I started... I just drew a spaceshipon the screen and played withit. I was probably influencedby the fact that most of thearcade games I was familiarwith were space oriented. Asfar as the background ofTombstone, I spent a year atthe University of Tucson inArizona. The saguaro cactusfound in the game comesfrom my living in Arizona. '''GMK: ''' How about specifics specifics of the game . .. how didthese develop?
'''JCP:''' It was really what you'd consider spontaneous. I started putting the game together in April, and got a working version of it in May. There really wasn't a whole lot of forethought to it. I started putting it on the screen as fast as I thought of it. So, from the conception of the idea, to completion of the basics, we're talking about a four-week period.
