Wookash Podcast Dan Schmidt | Behind Great Games
Oct 18, 2025
Dan Schmidt, an experienced game programmer and designer known for his work on classic titles like Guitar Hero and System Shock, shares his fascinating journey in game development. He discusses his early programming experiences on home computers and how he blended music with computer science at MIT. Dan reveals the intense culture at Looking Glass Studios and the challenges of developing iconic games like Ultima Underworld. He also dives into the creation of Guitar Hero, detailing its innovative mechanics and design philosophy. Finally, he reflects on his transition to Harmonix and the evolution of music games.
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Humble Beginnings With Teletype And Apple II
- Dan Schmidt began programming on a teletype connected by modem and an Apple II using BASIC and Pascal.
- Early tinkering with cellular automata and simple editors shaped his exploratory approach to code and systems.
Scheme Taught Computation Over Syntax
- MIT's Scheme-based intro taught fundamental computation, not just syntax tricks.
- Building a Scheme interpreter in a semester gave deep architectural and theoretical grounding.
Games In The Lab Led To Looking Glass
- Dan met Doug Church and other students via shared game-playing on MIT computer clusters.
- That friendship led to Dan joining Blue Sky to write AI for the then-new Underworld project.
