Patrick M. Lawlor (born 1951) is a video game and pinball machine designer.
Lawlor's pinball career began as an engineer for Williams in 1987, when he co-designed a dual-playfield machine called Banzai Run with Larry DeMar. Pat Lawlor had previously been a video game designer and had entered the coin-operated game design world in 1980, working for Dave Nutting Assoc. In 1988, he was given the reins of his first individual design project, a machin...
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Patrick M. Lawlor (born 1951) is a video game and pinball machine designer.
Lawlor's pinball career began as an engineer for Williams in 1987, when he co-designed a dual-playfield machine called Banzai Run with Larry DeMar. Pat Lawlor had previously been a video game designer and had entered the coin-operated game design world in 1980, working for Dave Nutting Assoc. In 1988, he was given the reins of his first individual design project, a machine entitled Earthshaker, which was released in January 1989.
Lawlor's first solo project, Earthshaker!, was noteworthy for its integration of a relatively obscure theme (earthquakes). The follow-up to Earthshaker! tackled a different form of natural disaster: tornados. The new game, Whirlwind, was released in early 1990 to similar praise. Both games demonstrated components of Lawlor's design methodology.
First and foremost, Lawlor exhibited his instinct for introducing elements that were thematically appropriate but also altered gameplay. For...
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