Mike McShaffry

Mike McShaffry is a game programmer who was employed at Origin Systems from 1990 to 1997, where he worked on Martian Dreams, Ultima VII, Ultima VIII, Ultima IX, and Ultima Online.

Early career
University of Houston

Allright Parking

At Origin
Looking to join Origin, McShaffry first sent his resume directly to Richard Garriott. After receiving no response, he called the company weeks later and was told to send it to Dallas Snell, who quickly hired him.

Martian Dreams
Programmer

Ultima VII
Programmer

Ultima VIII
Project Director and Programmer

Ultima IX
McShaffry was the first director of Ultima IX: Ascension, forming a small team with artist Denis Loubet and writer-designer John Watson for its nascent period of development in 1994. At this time, he collaborated with Loubet and Watson on early story concepts utilizing a design ethic inspired by Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar, V, VI, and VII. In 1997, while work on the game was officially suspended to hasten the release of Ultima Online, McShaffry continued in his spare time by porting its engine to the hardware-accelerated Glide API, significantly increasing performance and enabling the three-dimensional trailing viewpoint that appeared in the final release. However, it was soon decided the project would resume without him and he parted ways with Origin.

After Origin
Authored Game Coding Complete.

Having founded or joined several gaming companies since his time at Origin, McShaffry is currently principal engineer for ArtCraft Entertainment's Crowfall, an MMORPG funded via Kickstarter.

In-game counterparts

 * Nikola Tesla: He played Tesla in the introduction.
 * Gordy: