David Maxwell

David "Max" Maxwell was one of the mission designers of the LucasArts Entertainment Company video games Star Wars: X-wing and Star Wars: TIE Fighter.

Biography
David Maxwell began working with Lucasfilm Games as a technician in the Quality Assurance department. His early work with the company involved testing video games, including Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, Defenders of Dynatron City and Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe. When fellow Lucasfilm developers Lawrence Holland and Edward Kilham began working on the Star Wars flight simulator Star Wars: X-wing early in the 1990s, Maxwell joined their team as a mission builder.

Working with his longtime friend David Wessman, Maxwell was responsible for designing the missions in the game, and the two also served as the lead testers. Maxwell and Wessman attempted to make the missions progress differently based on what the player did. To this end, certain events were triggered specifically by players attacking certain targets. Some missions also featured multiple endings. For example, failing in the mission "Protect a Disabled X-wing" resulted in the arrival of the Imperial I-class Star Destroyer Intrepid to capture a T-65 X-wing starfighter, while winning saw the starfighter rescued by Rebel CR90 corvettes. However, it was possible to do the mission in such a ways that both would arrive simultaneously, resulting in a battle between the capital ships.

As an avid simulator pilot, Maxwell tended to make difficult missions and was had to learn to make them more approachable for less experienced players&mdash;this led him to be concerned that the game would prove too easy. One of his favorite missions, "Guard Vital Supply Depot", saw the player using Maxwell's starfighter of choice, the A-wing interceptor, to defend a Rebel weapons cache from attack by the Imperial EF76 Nebulon-B escort frigate Retsub. When the mission proved too difficult, Maxwell implemented three versions of it, varying the difficulty by having the frigate start in different locations. The original version remained and, though many players considered it impossible, Maxwell maintained that drawing the frigate's fire to the player would allow the weapons cache to survive.

Following the release of X-wing, in February 1993, Maxwell worked with Wessman and Rusel DeMaria to write X-wing: The Official Strategy Guide. The book featured the story of the player character, Keyan Farlander, as written by DeMaria. Maxwell and Wessman contributed mission strategies and general tactics, along with most of the screenshots in the book.

After Holland formed Peregrine Software in 1994, Maxwell joined him there in working on the sequel to X-wing, Star Wars: TIE Fighter. On TIE Fighter, Maxwell once more worked on designing the missions&mdash;which he still found too easy &mdash;with David Wessman, and also joined Wessman, Holland and Kilham in developing the overall story for the game. He also worked with Wessman once more in submitting strategies and screenshots for the subsequent TIE Fighter: The Official Strategy Guide, which also featured the story of Maarek Stele by DeMaria.