Dave O’Conner
About Dave O’Conner:Dave O’Connor has been designing wargames since 1985, with his design credits including “Trial of Strength”, “Fire-Brigade”, “Airborne Assault: Highway to the Reich” and “Airborne Assault: Conquest of the Agean”. Panther Games was founded in 1985 by David O’Connor in Canberra, Australia. In the early years Panther Games initially focused on developing and producing board games and released three titles in the mid 80’s, Trial of Strength, Shanghai Trader and Warlords. The company shifted their focus to developing computer games in the late 1980s with the release of their first computer wargame, Fire Brigade, in 1988 on Mac, DOS, Atari and Amiga. Fire Brigade currently forms part of the historical collection of software; hardware; trade and promotional materials that document the history of Apple Inc. and its contributions to the computer industry and society. This collection is currently housed at Museum Victoria, Melbourne.
Parallel to its commercial wargame development, Panther Games also provides professional services to the military. Simulation Australia (part of the Australian Department of innovation, Industry, Science and Research) describe Panther Games’ professional services capabilities to include wargame design and development; artificial intelligence; user interface; programming; and scenario development. In 2007, Panther Games was a team partner along with Booz Allen Hamilton, Ball Solutions, CAE and Calytrix Technology in the successful Joint Decision Support and Simulations Centre (JDSSC) project for the Australian Department of Defence. In 2009, Panther Games became an associate member of the joint Defence-Industry initiative, Rapid Prototyping, Development and Evaluation Program (RPDE). In October 2010, Panther Games began a four month scoping study for the Australian Defence Simulation Office (ADSO) to determine the Defence requirements for a course of action analyser simulation tool. For more information go to: http://www.panthergames.com/About/Index.html
