Contact Information

Patrick Lipo
patrick.lipo@patricklipo.com

The Lamplighters League

Style: Turn-Based Tactical Combat
Company: Harebrained Schemes / Paradox Interactive
Released: October 2023
Platform: PC, Xbox One Series X/S
Engine: Unity
Position: Lead Designer
Notes: After so many stints on games with an action or VR bent, it was truly magical to work on an honest-to-goodness turn-based experience along the same lines as I’ve enjoyed making in my personal projects. The Lamplighters League was a delight, from the worldbuilding to the mechanics to the presentation to the team.

Raccoon Lagoon

Style: VR Casual Lifestyle Adventure
Company: Hidden Path Entertainment / Oculus Studios
Released: July 2019
Platform: Oculus Quest
Engine: Unreal 4
Position: Senior Game Designer
Notes: After blowing things up with Brass, I got a chance to help out on a very different project, exploring a player’s relationship with an interesting world and characters. I worked on a lot of early prototypes and owned some of the core interactions, including the inventory and cooking, as well as quests and a lot of the creatures’ daily activities.

Brass Tactics

Style: VR Real-Time Strategy
Company: Hidden Path Entertainment / Oculus Studios
Released: February 2018
Platform: PC with Oculus Rift and Touch controllers
Engine: Unreal 4
Position: Lead Designer
Notes: This was a fantastic experience where we had the freedom to make a wholly new real-time strategy experience and reinvent all the interfaces for VR devices with hand controllers at a time when all this was incredibly new.  With iteration and refinement we created the most physical interface possible without compromising the classic RTS forms.

Defense Grid 2

Style: Top-Down Tower Defense
Company: Hidden Path Entertainment / 505 Games
Released: September 2014
Platform: PC, Xbox One, Playstation 4, Macintosh
Engine: Internal
Position: Senior Game Designer
Notes: Upon the sad cancellation of another project, I had some time to help DG2 get to ship. This included a huge balancing pass on towers and implementing most of the tower upgrades that can be unlocked over time.

Dead Space 3

Style: Third Person Sci-fi Action Horror
Company: Visceral Games / Electronic Arts Redwood Shores
Released: February 2013
Platform: Playstation 3, Xbox 360, PC
Engine: Renderware/Internal
Position: Lead Level Designer, Senior Gameplay Designer
Notes: DS3 had loads of challenges to tackle, from narrative to technology to planning. Most of all, integrating campaign coop into an established horror brand was really an incredible challenge.

Dead Space 2

Style: Third Person Sci-fi Action Horror
Company: Visceral Games / Electronic Arts Redwood Shores
Released: January 2011
Platform: Playstation 3, Xbox 360, PC
Engine: Renderware/Internal
Position: Senior Gameplay Designer
Notes: It was great to get well back into the swing of action games at such a cinematic-focused company like Visceral. Here I got to work on some bosses, analyze player metrics, and tune weapons and multiplayer modes.

Bioshock Infinite

Style: First Person Alt-History Shooter
Company: Irrational Games / 2K Games
Released: March 2013
Platform: Playstation 3, Xbox 360, PC
Engine: Unreal 3
Position: Lead Multiplayer Designer
Notes: Worked on Bioshock 3 for a year on a multiplayer mode that unfortunately just didn’t have the resources to happen.

Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar

Style: Classic Fantasy MMO
Company: Turbine, Inc. / Midway Games
Released: April 2007
Platform: PC
Engine: Internal
Position: Game Designer
Notes: This was a grand learning experience after coming out of Raven. MMO’s are large, gi-mundous games that require a tremendous amount of design, and managing all that content requires a veritable army!

Dungeons and Dragons Online: Stormreach

Style: Classic Fantasy MMO
Company: Turbine, Inc. / Atari
Released: February 2006
Platform: PC
Engine: Internal
Position: Game Designer
Notes: I mostly worked as part of the systems team, creating actual thief-like activities for Rogues like secret doors and trap disabling, which was a pretty new thing for MMO’s.

X-Men Legends

Style: Top-Down Multi-Character Action RPG
Company: Raven Software / Activision
Released: September 2004
Platform: Playstation 2, Xbox, Gamecube
Engine: Intrinsic Alchemy
Position: Project Lead
Notes: This game was kind of my baby from the ground up, what a great opportunity. It took a bit of work to sight in on the couch coop multi-character combat and powers but it clearly worked out. My game design and programming work (including a few bugs!) was ultimately used for the sequels X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse and Marvel Ultimate Alliance.

Soldier of Fortune II: Double Helix

Style: First Person Military Shooter
Company: Raven Software / Activision
Released: May 2002
Platform: PC
Engine: Quake III
Position: Game Programmer
Notes: Still gearing up for X-Men Legends, I helped out with weaponry and gore VFX, along with making the grass (“Vertigon”) shader tech that gave the game some of its lush look.

Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast

Style: First/Third Person Sci-fi Action
Company: Raven Software / LucasArts
Released: March 2002
Platform: PC
Engine: Quake III
Position: Multiplayer Lead
Notes: I worked on the lightsaber combat very early on, drawing from my work on Heretic II. We then put the multiplayer together and had a blast doing it.
This gameplay and programming work also appeared in the the semi-sequel, Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy.

Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force

Style: First Person Sci-fi Shooter
Company: Raven Software / Activision
Released: September 2000
Platform: PC
Engine: Quake III
Position: Multiplayer Lead
Notes: I helped out on Elite Force with weaponry and other VFX, but then dropped in to make the multiplayer portion because it hadn’t had anyone assigned to it until very near ship. We made it happen!

Soldier of Fortune

Style: First Person Military Shooter
Company: Raven Software / Activision
Released: February 2000
Platform: PC
Engine: Quake III
Position: Game Programmer
Notes: As I was gearing up to make X-Men Legends I jumped into this title and helped out of weapons and effects, among other things.

Heretic II

Style: Third Person Fantasy Action
Company: Raven Software / Activision
Released: November 1998
Platform: PC
Engine: Quake II
Position: Lead Programmer
Notes: This was my favorite game of all time. We completed this thing in about 10 months, and pioneered a lot of third-person action mechanics coupled with mouselook before anyone else in the industry.

Hexen II

Style: First Person Fantasy Action
Company: Raven Software / Activision
Released: September 1997
Platform: PC
Engine: Quake I
Position: Programming Manager
Notes: Learned a lot about how different a true-3D game could be here. The team expended a lot of effort refining their knowledge of base pages and figuring out how to make view weapons that looked correct for a FPS.

Take No Prisoners

Style: Top-down Action RPG
Company: Raven Software / Red Orb (Broderbund)
Released: September 1997
Platform: PC
Engine: Internal
Position: Programming Manager
Notes: TNP was one of three games that shipped within a month of each other at Raven, two of which used the same new technology (Good lord I forgot that we had maybe 50 people at the time). Raven was bought by Activision right around then too. Let’s just say it was a crazy-ass time.

Mageslayer

Style: Top-down Fantasy Action
Company: Raven Software / GT Interactive
Released: September 1997
Platform: PC
Engine: Internal
Position: Programming Manager
Notes: This used a new top-down engine developed by Chris Rhinehart, which was being used both by Mageslayer and Take No Prisoners.

Necrodome

Style: First-Person Combat Driving
Company: Raven Software / Mindscape
Released: September 1996
Platform: PC
Engine: Internal
Position: Lead Programmer
Notes: I helped create the core engine that Necrodome was built on, from the basic entity code to memory management, weaponry and vehicular systems, ground-based enemies and AI as well as UI again. I later worked with a tech programmer to kick off the project on the first Playstation, although it was later cancelled.

CyClones

Style: First Person Sci-fi Shooter
Company: Raven Software / Strategic Simulations, Inc.
Released: Fall 1994
Platform: PC
Engine: Internal
Position: Lead Programmer
Notes: I wrote a most of the weapon code, a solid chunk of the unique “pseudo-mouselook” UI and control scheme (I should note that this was before classic full mouselook was established in the original Quake), as well as enemy attacks and AI.

Shadowcaster

Style: First Person Fantasy Action RPG
Company: Raven Software / Electronic Arts
Released: Fall 1993
Platform: PC
Engine: id Software/Wolfenstein
Position: Scripting Intern
Notes: You gotta start somewhere. In this case I spent a few weeks scripting for this game as Raven tried to get it done. That period taught me more than I ever expected about the game industry.