Author Notes

A Note on AI & Formatting

This handbook is a massive undertaking, and to keep the writing momentum going while I navigate the learning curve of Obsidian, I occasionally use AI to assist with text formatting and initial summaries/introductions. This helps keep the project approachable for a single author. While I personally review and edit everything to catch inaccuracies, you will undoubtedly spot a few AI-isms, expect to see a fair share of "in the vast landscape of" or "rich tapestry of" floating around. I plan to clean up those quirky phrases down the road, but for now, the priority is getting the core design knowledge out of my head and onto the page.

Project Status & Roadmap

Crafting Play is a living document that I started in 2022. In its current scope, it is projected to take a few years to reach its full ~1,100-page completion (unless the scope expands, which I hope it won't!).

I aim to publish new content regularly, often multiple pages a day. Rather than writing strictly from start to finish, I tend to hop around the handbook wherever my interest is piqued on a given day.

If there is a specific topic or framework you are eager to see fleshed out sooner, reach out to me directly on the Unreal Source Discord. Let me know what you need, and I will gladly move it up my priority list.

• Discord Username: mippithedork

• Display Name: ミピ

• Community: Unreal Source Discord

• LinkedIn: Mippi The Dork

• Github: mippi-the-dork (mippithedork)

Resume 2026

For context on my 20+ years of experience across game design, studio direction, systems architecture, and live-entertainment real-time tech, you can check out the three versions of my resume below:

• 1-Page Executive Summary: A tight, high-impact one-pager highlighting core competencies, key AAA studios, and primary technical leadership achievements.

• Standard Professional Resume: A comprehensive, traditional bulleted breakdown covering every project, system architecture, and operational lead role across my career.

• Narrative Career Retrospective: A human, story-driven long-form document detailing what I remember most from every job, the challenges faced, and why I love what I do.

A Note Regarding Portfolios

If you’re looking for a traditional, polished online portfolio site, you won’t find one here, and there’s a very practical reason for that! For the past 20-plus years, I’ve been so deeply in the trenches doing the actual work, architecting systems, and directing studio teams that maintaining a static portfolio site always took a backseat to shipping projects.

Historically, almost every step of my career has been driven entirely by word-of-mouth. Former colleagues, team members I’ve mentored, and industry peers reaching out with new opportunities to say, "Hey, we've got a complex problem, come help us solve it."

With the recent massive industry-wide layoffs, actively navigating the broader market is a relatively new space for me. While inbound opportunities still come my way regularly, I’m taking the time to be very intentional about finding the right next move: a position where I can make the highest possible impact, support a great team, and do work that is genuinely fulfilling.

In lieu of a traditional portfolio, my work lives in the shipped titles, the live performance systems built for millions of fans, the 125k-member Unreal Engine community I help lead, the 350+ pages of design frameworks written here on Crafting Play so far, and the recommendations of the people I’ve built games alongside over two decades.

Free Unreal Engine Content and Plugins

Here are some random tools, plugins, widgets, and other assets that I give away for free. Use them however you want, MIT license. It'd be cool if you reached out and let me know if anything was particularly useful, issues you've ran into, or ways you'd like to see these things improve.

I can't guarantee support, which is why they are free.

• Lux - An Unreal Engine 5.8 Editor plugin that adds a toggleable headlamp to the editor viewport, making dark levels easier to navigate and inspect. Adjust intensity, radius, and color directly from the viewport toolbar, with settings retained between levels.

  • https://github.com/mippi-the-dork/Lux

• Surface - An Unreal Engine 5.8 Editor plugin that brings component properties directly into an Actor’s Details panel, with component filters, grouped favorites, and quick Actor/component selection.

  • https://github.com/mippi-the-dork/Surface

• Focus - An Unreal Engine editor plugin that adds visibility, Solo, selection locking, and edit protection to the World Outliner, with settings saved across editor sessions.

  • https://github.com/mippi-the-dork/Focus

• Origin - An Unreal Engine 5.8 plugin that adds adjustable assembly pivots and one-click hierarchy selection for Unreal Engine. Reposition pivots without moving child actors.

  • https://github.com/mippi-the-dork/Origin

• Chroma - An Unreal Engine 5.8 plugin that adds color organization for Unreal Engine: named actor and folder colors, Outliner icon tinting, matching selection, colored outlines, and viewport visualization.

  • https://github.com/mippi-the-dork/Chroma

• Stem - An Unreal Engine 5.8 plugin that adds hierarchy guides for Unreal Engine's World Outliner, with selected and hovered path highlighting and adjustable line brightness and thickness.

  • https://github.com/mippi-the-dork/Stem

• Index - An Unreal Engine 5.8 plugin that add persistent manual hierarchy ordering in the standard World Outliner. Allowing you to customize the order of actors and folders.

  • https://github.com/mippi-the-dork/Index