Paul Neurath

Paul Neurath is an American game developer and entrepreneur. Neurath was the founder of the game development company Looking Glass Studios , which under his direction produced influential titles such as Ultima Underworld , System Shock and Dark Project: The Master Thief .

Career

Neurath began his career as a game developer in 1984. He worked a. a. for the development studio Origin Systems , for which he developed the 1989 published Space Rogue , a genre mix of space combat simulation and computer role-playing game , which is considered the unofficial predecessor of Origins successful series Wing Commander . Lastingly impressed by the three-dimensional presentation of the game in the role-playing game Dungeon Master , he founded his own company Blue Sky Productions after working on Space Rogue in Salem (New Hampshire) with the aim of developing a real-time 3D fantasy role-playing game. He built a core team of ten, including ex-Origin graphic designer Doug Wike , IBM programmer Chris Green, and young MIT graduates Doug Church and Dan Schmidt . The team developed a prototype entitled Underworld , which the young company presented to various companies at the CES trade fair in May 1990. The prototype earned the company a development contract with Origin Systems and led to the development of Ultima Underworld , the first computer game to display three-dimensional, textured graphics in real time and to have an early physics engine .

In 1992, Blue Sky Productions merged with Ned Lerner's Lerner Research to create the Looking Glass Technologies development studio , which from 1996 onwards went by the name of Looking Glass Studios . The company was the nucleus of influential technologies and game titles such as System Shock or Dark Project: The Master Thief and produced numerous influential designers. But on May 24, 2000 the company had to cease operations due to financial problems.

Paul Neurath then founded Floodgate Entertainment, with whom he developed the first add-on for the computer role-playing game Neverwinter Nights , among other things . Floodgate later switched to mobile games and casual games . In 2011, the social games specialist Zynga took over the development team at Floodgate, and Paul Neurath became the creative director of Zynga Boston. In 2013 Neurath was appointed to the Advisory Board of the developer Demiurge Studios . In 2014 Neurath founded the Otherside Entertainment studio and received approval from Electronic Arts to develop a successor to Ultima Underworld in terms of content , which, however, had to do without the Ultima addition. Underworld Ascendant was funded in 2015 through a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign .