ken lightner is the founder of holistic design. he co-designed a tabletop miniatures game with chris wiese called "noble armada" (1998), a spaceship combat game compatible with "fading suns". while andrew greenberg was directing video game development, lightner was head of programming. lightner created more game lines specifically for d20 system publication, including military adventures set in the modern world such as "afghanistan" (2002). among his more notable successes with holistic include "battles of destiny", "hammer of the gods", "final liberation", "machiavelli the prince", "merchant prince ii", "emperor of the fading suns", and "mall tycoon". he also worked heavily on a computer game called "noble armada" that never materialized. he has worked as a third-party developer for very large companies such as mindscape, take two interactive, red storm, microprose, and segasoft. "mall tycoon" was arguably his largest game, which sold extremely well. the merchant prince series was highly critically acclaimed.