WarCraft: Orcs and Humans
Warcraft: Orcs and Humans is a real-time strategy game released in November 1994 by Blizzard Entertainment (then Silicon & Synapse). Inspired by Dune II, it put players in command of either Humans or Orcs fighting for control of the fantasy world of Azeroth.
This title was my first original title as a project lead, and I served as both Producer and Lead Programmer, starting as the sole developer in September 1993. I built the core engine, user-interface, gameplay, and art tools before the broader team came together in early 1994.
One feature I'm still proud of is the rubber-band multi-unit selection, where players could drag a rectangle to select a group of units and command them together. It was something Dune II didn't have, and once I had it working I spent way more time playing with it than writing new code.
I also designed and implemented the network synchronization system that made multiplayer possible — sending only player commands rather than full game state, so the game could run over modems.
The first-ever multiplayer game was played between me and Bob Fitch in June 1994. It crashed. But even through the crash we both knew we were onto something amazing.