Based in Seattle, Stinnett taught himself programming during his school years creating video games. He had extensive programming experience (including the expansion pack for Falcon 3.0) by July 1993, when he was hired by LucasArts to develop a new Star Wars video game.
Initially Stinnett thought about a flight simulator but turned towards a first-person shooter, impressed by the revolutionary Wolfenstein 3D. As the genre was still an emerging trend, the team he assembled was based simply on talent than on experience. Along with Ray Gresko and Winston Wolff, he started in late August to develop the 3d engine of the game that would become Dark Forces.
As a project leader, Stinnett briefly attempted designing a level for the game, but was overwhelmed by the skills it required, namely architecture. It was when relating these problems to a friend in a movie theater when a stranger, overhearing the discussion, pointed out that University of California, Berkeley had a program that "combined architecture and computers". Thus Stinnett hired architectural undergrads Ingar Shu and Matt Tateishi.
Eventually Stinnett found free time to play Dark Forces, from start to finish, only after the release of the game.
He and George Lucas promoted the game at Disneyland at the opening of the Indiana Jones Attraction there (March 3, 1995).
Non-Star Wars credits for LucasArts included Outlaws and Full Throttle.
- Star Wars: Dark Forces (1995)
- Star Wars: Jedi Knight: Mysteries of the Sith (1998) (Thanks)
- Star Wars: Starfighter (2001)
- Star Wars: Jedi Starfighter (2002)
- Star Wars: Republic Commando (2005)
- Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005)
- "LucasArts Update: The Creation Story" — Star Wars Insider 23
- "LucasArts Update: The Real Characters at LucasArts" — Star Wars Insider 25
- Dark Forces Official Player's Guide