Dave Lebling

Dave Lebling
Lebling, Peter David
Dave Lebling
Born	October 30, 1949 Washington D.C.
Occupation	Founder, Programmer

Career

Early Life & Education

• Born in Washington, D.C. in 1949 or 1950, Lebling grew up in suburban Maryland.
• He earned a degree in political science from MIT, where he also became deeply involved in programming and computing.

MIT & the Dawn of Zork

• At MIT’s Laboratory for Computer Science (LCS), starting around 1976–1978, Lebling co-developed early games such as Maze— one of the first networked, first-person perspective games— and Trivia.
• Inspired by Colossal Cave Adventure, he, along with Marc Blank, Tim Anderson, and Bruce Daniels, began building a more advanced text adventure using the MDL programming language. This evolved into the proto-Zork and ultimately Zork, featuring a notably sophisticated parser and richly imaginative world.

Infocom Years (1979–1989)

• In 1979, Lebling and his collaborators formally launched Infocom to commercialize Zork and other interactive fiction— they officially incorporated on June 22, 1979.
• As one of Infocom’s “Imps” (implementers), Lebling co-authored several landmark titles:
  • Zork I, Zork II, Zork III
  • Enchanter (co-authored with Marc Blank)
  • And solo creations: Starcross, Suspect, Spellbreaker, The Lurking Horror (Lovecraft-style horror), and James Clavell’s Shōgun.
• His work earned him high regard— he even introduced the concept of the Grue in the original Zork, one of early gaming’s iconic creatures.

Post-Infocom Career

• Following Infocom’s closure in 1989, Lebling shifted to software outside gaming:
  • At Avid Technology, he helped design digital film software used for visual effects, from roughly 1989 to 1999.
  • He then worked at Ucentric Systems (1999–2002) on server applications and home-multi-media/web services.

Later Roles & Honors

• More recently, Lebling has served as a Principal Investigator and Senior Principal Engineer at BAE Systems, where he develops cross-domain, web-based tactical planning tools—for example, for the U.S. Air Force.
• In 2013, he and Marc Blank received the Pioneer Award from the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences, recognizing their foundational influence in game development.

Legacy

Dave Lebling is celebrated as one of the pioneering figures in interactive fiction. As a co-creator of Zork and co-founder of Infocom, he helped transform computer games from simple diversions into rich, literary experiences. His work advanced natural-language parsing, gave gaming its first enduring “monsters” like the Grue, and set standards for puzzle design, humor, and atmosphere that still influence game writers today.

List of major works

• Category:1984 Dave Lebling
• Suspect (C64 and Commodore Plus-4, 5 1/4" Disk) Infocom/Commodore - 1984 USA, Canada Release
• Enchanter

External links

• Wikipedia]