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Los Gatos: Bankston goes missile systems to creating non-violent video games [Los Gatos Weekly-Times, Calif. :: ](Los Gatos Weekly-Times (CA) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) July 17--Video games have evolved over the decades from the simplicity of Pong and PAC-MAN to shoot 'em ups like Sniper Elite III. Of course, there are exceptions such as the wildly popular sports franchises and even lesser-known games produced by GIC-Software of Los Gatos, which is a division of General Investments Corporation. The company was started by Weldon Bankston and currently produces 11 age-friendly word games that challenge the mind and fingers. Besides English, the games are offered in a variety of languages including Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Japanese and what Bankston calls "simplified" Chinese. Think it's easy to trap three floating letters and combine them into words like "eat" and "sat" as a stopwatch ticks down? Think again. As is the case with other video games, there's a strategy to Bankston's games that needs to be mastered. Under a policy known as Community Games, the 40-year Los Gatos resident is making his games available to the town free of charge so they can be played at the library, in schools and at other community locales, such as the senior center. The games can be played alone or in groups on multiple platforms, including mobile devices and televisions. I've been playing Bubble Words and it's frustrating. What are some of the other games? These are all word games that build vocabulary and knowledge. They're family, age and gender friendly, fun and exciting. I like GUESSwords, it's an incredible game. It has over 60 topics, so you can set it up to cover things such as space, movies and sports. It's like a big tree. You figure out what you want to learn and how you want to learn it. Say you pick geography, the countries are never the same. The first time I showed this was to a bunch of VP's and they were jumping on the conference table. We also have a Chinese character recognition game--you don't have to know what it says to play it. Is there a GIC-Software office in town where the games are developed? I work from home. I think of these things and contract the development out to a group in St. Petersburg. I outline it and have the code written by them. Why did you decide to do these types of games? I was sick and tired of violence, seeing kids get points for shooting cops. You don't have to be a teenager to play my games. I understand you worked for Lockheed developing missile systems for the Navy, and you hold the patent for Exploding Bridgewire Systems. What is that? When they were loading sidewinders, the missiles could cause a spark that blew up planes. They had similar mishaps when they turned on radar. You can't have anything that sensitive on a ship. The EBS makes the systems insensitive to accidentally being initiated. It was designed for the Polaris and Poseidon submarines and is still being used by the Royal Navy. After I left Lockheed I started working on the games--turning swords into plough shares. You've also become something of an expert on telephone and Internet scams, and predator debt collectors who prey on seniors. How did that come about? I'm the last living Korean War veteran in Los Gatos, so I wrote a paper on scams for the dependants of Korean War veterans. I've also given copies to the Los Gatos library and police department, and even gave one to a neighbor. A couple of hours later the neighbor came over and said my information saved her sister $3,000. The sister received a call that one of our church members had been in an accident and needed money for a bond. The only thing is, we had just seen the accident "victim" earlier in church. What really gets me is some scam artists are calling people and saying, "We know where you live," stuff like that. It's terrible when they take advantage of people. Even worse, are the IRS scams. People are sending in stolen names and collecting people's refunds. With Target, Neiman Marcus, AOL--there are millions of people being scammed. My paper tells how the scam artists use people, so I'm giving it out to anyone who wants it. Visit gic-software.com for more information on Bankston's video games. Contact Weldon Bankston at P.O. Box 1353, Los Gatos, CA 95031. --Judy Peterson ___ (c)2014 the Los Gatos Weekly-Times (San Jose, Calif.) Visit the Los Gatos Weekly-Times (San Jose, Calif.) at www.mercurynews.com/los-gatos Distributed by MCT Information Services |