Name Ken Demarest | Role Computer game developer | |
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Kenneth Llewellyn Demarest III is a computer game programmer, business person, and artist.
As a technical innovator, he worked on Wing Commander and helped advance the state of the art in video games by developing the first 3D, texture-mapped characters ever seen in a computer game with BioForge. As a Director of Technology at Origin Systems, Demarest recognized the potential for graphic massively multiplayer online games (MMOs) and developed the technical prototype for Ultima Online using Ultima VI as a code base. His later work would result in the first attempt at a persistent-world real-time strategy game, NetStorm: Islands At War, which as of March 2016 is being re-made in 3D as Disciples of the Storm, funded through KickStarter.
In social gaming, Demarest was part of the early work blending 3D MMOs and social game play both stand-alone and on networks such as Facebook and MySpace.
As an artist for Shadow Garden he wrote 'Sand', the most popular and frequently sold work on the platform developed by Zack Simpson. Sand is in the permanent collections of numerous museums worldwide including the Discovery Science Center and Sony Wonder Technology Lab. Demarest's later work supported technology that benefits humanity including MorSand, a 2006 Tech Award Laureate, and CellBazaar, a 2007 Laureate.
Demarest is now a founder of Appsoma, a PaaS for scientific analysis.