Ian Saunter
The late, great Ian Saunter (1956 - 2023) was involved with all games in the Creatures series, and indeed most games produced by Millennium; as a founding member with Michael Hayward, Tony Beckwith and one other, Ian was a game producer in a time when producing a game was even more of an art form than it is today.
Ian was directly involved with the production of most of Millennium's games prior to 1996, when he moved into his Development Director position (in charge of multiple producers). At this point he handed production of Creatures (and sequels) to Toby Simpson.
Ian temporarily departed to manage the transfer of Millennium's (now Cyberlife's) PS1 development team to Sony. He returned and was credited in Creatures 3, Creatures Village, Docking Station, the Amazing Virtual Sea-Monkeys and Silent Hill 2: Restless Dreams.
"Dr. Saunter" at ECTS 2000
Despite his many duties within the company, Ian was never very visible to outsiders, leaving the interviews and other "public face" operations to people like Steve Grand, Toby Simpson and Lisa de Araujo. In his words (slightly paraphrased by GreenReaper):
- I'm a back-room boy; if anyone wants to know what I think, they can take the train to Cambridge and ask me - or email!
Ian was one of the three core Creature Labs employees to survive the demise of the company when he co-founded Gameware Development with Jeremy Cooke - the other two were Mark Stamps and Dylan Banarse, although Lisa de Araujo and others soon returned to work with them, many on a part-time or contract basis.