Hello. My name is Matt. Thanks for checking out my website, where I put things I can’t put anywhere else. I hope you enjoy it but I make no promises.
That’s the short version. For those who want more detail:
A long time ago, back when I had what high school guidance counselors like to call “potential,” I got a job at a small video game company in Chicago. That small video game company was called Bungie, and it eventually moved to Washington state and became a Big Famous Video Game Company. I was one of the public faces of that company for a while, interacting directly with the fans, as well as doing the occasional bit of writing: some combat dialog for Halo, some backstory things in the Halo and Myth II manuals, bits and bobs for the website, etc. If you recognize my name, that’s probably why.
If you don’t know me, here are some things I’ve done since 2003, when I left Bungie and moved back to Chicago to join a new small video game company:
- Stubbs the Zombie in “Rebel Without a Pulse”: I conceived and wrote up an idea for a game about an undead traveling salesman who conquers an entire city brain-by-delicious-brain. That idea evolved into this 2005 Xbox title, for which I wrote the story, cutscene scripts, and dialog; provided musical direction (and barbershop quartet song lyrics) to maestro Mike Salvatori; supervised cutscene storyboards; cast and directed the voice actors; and voiced a few roles myself, including the titular undead protagonist. The game has become something of a cult classic and I remain inordinately proud of it. It also provoked the ire of perpetually petulant Senator Joe Lieberman, which is another feather in my cap as far as I’m concerned.
- Hail to the Chimp: I was the guy who suggested the cable-news-election-coverage theme for 2008’s Most Hated Game. I also supervised the music, cast and directed the voice actors, worked with outside contractors on game content like fake ads and interviews, and wrote a lot of goofy animal-themed news stories and dialog. As the game’s release date approached, I edited a related promotional website, GRRnews.com, that hardly anyone saw. I could go on at length about the vast gulf between the game we had in our heads when we started development and the game we actually shipped a couple years later, and how that happened. Perhaps I will someday… but for now, I’ll just say that I don’t think many people gave Hail to the Chimp a fair shake. It’s a flawed game, but not utterly without merit as some have claimed.
- Guilty Party: I wrote character descriptions, story, cutscene scripts and dialog for this all-ages mystery game for the Nintendo Wii. I also cast and directed eight actors in 24 roles, provided musical direction, wrote the lyrics for the insidious earworm of a theme song, and voiced two of the Three Manatee Tenors. Guilty Party, like Stubbs before it, resonated deeply with many of the people who played it. If only there had been more of those people.
There were other things, but either I’m not at liberty to talk about them or they aren’t worth talking about.
I wanted an outlet for ideas I cannot use elsewhere, as well as a slightly more public face than I have had in recent years. Such was the crucible from which this website erupted like steaming dung from an ill-treated Clydesdale.
A few general notes:
I am largely tact-free. I don’t believe words can be bad in and of themselves. I don’t believe in The Line that supposedly separates certain subjects from the realm of frank discussion or acceptable joke fodder. This does not mean I am a hateful person actively looking for opportunities to cavort gleefully in the realm of the disturbing and repugnant. But it does mean I will go to absurdly great lengths in pursuit of embarrassingly small laughs. If you are easily offended, I am likely to offend you at some point. I’m also likely to not care about that, or at least act like I don’t. If you are offended, you can always tell me why; maybe you’ll teach me something and I’ll be more thoughtful in the future. Even if you don’t change my mind, you’ll get it off your chest and I’ll have a hearty laugh at your expense. It’s a win-win.
Opinions expressed here do not represent the views of any past/present/future employer or employee. There is no guilt by association; it’s all me, acting as an individual in my copious free time. The buck stops here.
Any and all content on this site is copyrighted by me unless otherwise specified or patently obvious. If it is patently obvious, I can probably muster up a reasonable-sounding Fair Use defense. If I use something of yours and you’d rather I didn’t, ask politely and I’ll probably remove it. No need to be uncivilized.
Thank you for reading this.