ABSTRACT
Right around the time the bottom dropped out from under the North American video game market, Jennell Jaquays was stepping up. Already a veteran designer, Jaquays cut her teeth designing campaigns for Dungeons & Dragons and publishing The Dungeoneer, one of the first magazines tailored to gaming hobbyists. Her desire to try her hand at designing and creating art for different types of games—as well as a burning need to earn a living wage—led her to Coleco around the time the leather company released the ColecoVision to go head-to-head with Atari’s Video Computer System and Mattel’s Intellivision. Her mission as one of Coleco’s principal designers was to recruit teams of engineers and artists and convert popular arcade games to the 8-bit system. They were given no code, no art assets, no documentation—no foundation on which to duplicate hits like Donkey Kong and Pac-Man.
