designer crush
___MASK98___ was an influential computer game industry figure of the 1980s and early 1990s . He was a co - founder of Epyx and Free Fall Associates and the spouse of game programmer Anne Westfall . Besides founding these two companies , though he is credited with some programming , Freeman is most noted as a game designer . ___MASK61___ ( born July 22 , 1959 , in New York City ), sometimes known under the pseudonym " Designer X ", is an American game designer and science fiction writer . Costikyan ' s career spans nearly all extant genres of gaming , including : hex - based wargames , role - playing games , boardgames , card games , computer games , online games and mobile games . Several of his games have won Origins Awards . He co - founded Manifesto Games , now out of business , with Johnny Wilson in 2005 . Epyx , Inc . was a video game developer and publisher active in the late 1970s and 1980s . The company was founded as Automated Simulations by Jim Connelley and ___MASK98___ , originally using Epyx as a brand name for action - oriented games before renaming the company to match in 1983 . Epyx published a long series of games through the 1980s , but nevertheless went bankrupt in 1989 before finally disappearing in 1993 . The Creature That Ate Sheboygan is a science fiction board game released in 1979 by Simulations Publications ( SPI ). The game was originally designed by ___MASK61___ . It won the Charles S . Roberts Award for " Best Fantasy or Science Fiction Game of 1979 ". The game is very similar to the Epyx 1981 release , " Crush , Crumble and Chomp !". Crush , Crumble and Chomp ! is a 1981 computer game from Epyx . In this game , the player takes control of a movie monster and attacks a famous city , such as New York or San Francisco . It resembles SPI ' s 1979 boardgame , The Creature That Ate Sheboygan .