Legendary developer Mike Singleton dies at 61

Sad news today, folks. Mike Singleton, one of the pioneers of game development, died last Wednesday at the age of 61. He was responsible for many classics of the 8-bit and 16-bit era, including the likes of Shadowfax, Dark Sceptre (pictured above), Doomdark's Revenge, Carrier Command and the Midwinter Games. More recently he was involved in Gauntlet: Seven Sorrows and GRID.

You should head over to Mike Singleton's Wikipedia entry to see the full list of his achievements during the three decades in which he worked in the game industry. A former English teacher, Singleton retired from the Merseyside Education Authority to pursue a life in games way back in 1982, and was one of the few big name developers from the Spectrum era to remain at the industry's coal-face post-millennium. Singleton's long career saw him pass between a huge number of revered studios, from The Collective Inc. to Melbourne House, Simon & Schuster Interactive, Mirage, Microprose and Codemasters. His games, meanwhile, have influenced the imaginations of many other devs and gamers.

After a year long struggle with cancer, which saw the removal of his jaw, he died of natural causes in Switzerland last week.

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