Former
California Highway Patrol officer (
CHiP). First rose to fame as
designer of
Sierra Online's hit
Police Quest series of adventure games, and
Codename: Iceman. Later, he left
Sierra to create a fourth police adventure, the desperately mediocre
Blue Force for
Tsunami Media. His last and most recent appearance was in
Westwood Studios' 1997 adaption of
Blade Runner, where he makes a cameo as the weapons storage guy in the police station.
Paraphrasing Sierra's old catalogues, the story goes that Jim was on leave following a shootout that had left him traumatized. He met Ken Williams, then owner of Sierra, who encouraged him to relate his experiences so they could be converted into one of the 3D animated adventures Sierra specialized in at the time. The result was Police Quest: In Pursuit of the Death Angel. Many of the situations players encounter in the first three games are based on Jim's own experiences as a cop. In particular Jesse Bains, the main nemesis of Sonny Bonds, was based on a guy who, Jim relates, was constantly escaping custody. Whether or not Jim placed a live chicken on his sergeant's desk isn't revealed.