What i've been up to
New games! ➫Homely Haunting ➫SAMHAIN ➫starfig grottobligedBalancer, wiki moderator and occasional level designer for ➫PvZ2: ReflourishedLatest music release: ➫Monsters Can Fight EP
Videos
Contacts and socials
About me
About Me sections are kinda funny, right? They provide a forward impression of a person's professional ethics and desires, intended to paint oneself in their best light. But a lot of About Me sections out there feel very business-y. If you ask me, a bit more casualness goes a long way.
Anyway, hi i'm Maw my pronouns are ➫(they/xem)!
I like to make videogame stuff! Programming is my main jam, though I have also worn hats ranging across balance design, level design, game design in general, gamemaster-ing, music production, proofreading, audio design, graphic design and sprite artwork, all depending on what the job requires.A lot of what I've done is simply for games that I enjoy, when I have new ideas to help make those games better. It's something that technically anyone can do, but it's much more gratifying to actually produce these ideas into something tangible. When it comes to game design, I am a modder at heart.Music is my secondary hobby. The music I make certainly isn't up to a professional standard (I usually use LMMS for goodness sake), but it is very fun. I am a believer in free music and local file playlists, so my music is usually free to download ➫here.
Programming
Music
Gamejam Projects
Other
PvZ2: Reflourished
Balance designer, level designer, wiki editor & moderator
About the game
Plants vs. Zombies 2: Reflourished is a mod of Plants vs. Zombie 2: It's About Time, a strategy tower defense game where you plant plants on your lawn to stop zombies from eating your brains.After the original version of PvZ2 finished its main campaign, the game became bloated with live-service content that now stifles the older levels. Reflourished has reverted the game to its pre-live-service youth, then built tons of new plants, zombies, levels and worlds on top for a fresh, yet authentic experience.
My contributions
I work on this game in the background as a balance designer, making sure the plants are strong and fun to use, while not making the game too easy. Some specific examples of my balance contributions are:
- Giving the idea of upgrading Blooming Heart's Plant Food effect to toss multiple times, increasing the boost to her infatuation status (especially with multiple Plant Food feedings)
- Crunching numbers to help balance Solar Pea's two attack forms (making the multi-lane form weaker than the single-lane form)Occasionally, I also act as a level designer - specifically in designing "Penny's Challenges", longer levels made to challenge even the most experienced players. My style of level design is marked by challenges that bend the rules of what makes a Reflourished level, often with very pronounced gimmicks (e.g. "Rats", where there's way more zombies but they also die really easily; and "Appease the Wealth God", where your only offensive plant is the Peashooter.)Outside of official mod developer duties, I also work as an editor and moderator on the Reflourished wiki, working to provide accurate game information for curious and advanced players.
Level design examples
In Reflourished, levels are designed using pre-existing assets demarcated into individual worlds (e.g. pirate zombies come from the Pirate Seas world). The bulk of the level design focuses on how zombies and grid items from a given world (or worlds) are deployed onto the lawn.
"Penny's Challenge - Rats" is a challenge level with the following features:- Zombies are small, fast and fragile
- Lots of waves of zombies, but progress is equally quick
- Many plants that do area damage are banned, encouraging different plant usage
- Low level difficulty
"Penny's Challenge - Watery Graves" is a challenge level with the following features:- Graves spawn zombies in the lawn and water
- Gargantuar Prime's lasers destroys Lily Pads from afar, drowning any plants on top
- Slider tiles push zombies into the pool during middle section
- High level difficulty
PvZ2: Reflourished level designs
Penny's Challenges
This type of level is designed to be challenge experienced players, with a gauntlet of at least 40 waves of zombies. Surviving a Penny's Challenge rewards the player with loads of Coins, so it's well worth it to try and win.
"Penny's Challenge - Exam 9" is a challenge level with the following features:- Multiple objectives at once (see video) that restricts the player's planting habits
- To make up for the lack of a shovel, the player must use Escape Root to move plants around
- Several zombies have special interactions with Escape Root: Mecha-Football Zombies can't push them; and certain other attacks cause Escape Root to explode for big damage
- Zombie ambushes can help the player by eating less useful plants to restore planting space
- Medium level difficulty
"Penny's Challenge - Rats" is a challenge level with the following features:- Zombies are small, fast and fragile
- Lots of waves of zombies, but progress is equally quick
- Many plants that do area damage are banned, encouraging different plant usage
- Low level difficulty
"Penny's Challenge - Appease the Wealth God" is a challenge level with the following features:- All attacking plants are banned except for Peashooter, Split Pea and Draftodil; all three are very weak attackers
- Zombie waves are balanced around lower plant power, which allows weaker zombies to become more dangerous (e.g. Prospector Zombie, a fragile zombie that attacks the Peashooters from behind)
- Also features boss battles with the titular Wealth God
- Level was inspired by vanilla PvZ2's Appease-mint plant; and Discord user Waxadred's habit of only using Peashooters in Penny's Challenges
- Low-medium level difficulty
"Penny's Challenge - Watery Graves" is a challenge level with the following features:- Graves spawn zombies in the lawn and water
- Gargantuar Prime's lasers destroys Lily Pads from afar, drowning any plants on top
- Slider tiles push zombies into the pool during middle section
- High level difficulty
Hot Sauce Challenges
These levels are modified variants of existing Penny's Challenges. A Hot Sauce Challenge isn't just a more difficult variant of the original challenge; it also adds new gimmicks and/or remixes existing ones to add a fresh spin to the original level.Hot Sauce Challenges have been officially discontinued, but you can find the existing ones in the ➫Level Archive.
"Hot Sauce Challenge - Ram Out Of Batteries" is a challenge level variant with the following features:- Sun Bombs fall from the sky and primary sun producers are banned
- Gravestones spawn at the back every flag, spawning more each time
- Overall edits of original level are moderate
Here is the original challenge level "Penny's Challenge - Battery Ram" for comparison.
The original level was designed by Snap, while I made the Hot Sauce variant.
"Hot Sauce Challenge - Double Time Shuffle Snuffle" is a challenge level variant with the following features:- Combines pairs of zombie waves into one, greatly increasing zombie density
- Overall edits of original level are light
Here is the original challenge level "Penny's Challenge - Double Shuffle" for comparison.
The original was designed by Kris, while I made the Hot Sauce variant.
Homely Haunting
Systems programmer
Made in Unity engine
About this game & my contributions
In this cleaning sim game, you play as a spooky ghost that cleans up the messes of a troubled family.I'm one of a few programmers on this project - in particular, being responsible for systems refinement. Some examples:
* Reworked a click-to-drag camera system, into a security camera system.
* Converted a single keyboard-controlled object movement script, into a mouse-controlled state machine.
Development footage
These are recordings made mid-development, as I was working on some new systems for the game.
First recording of adding a state machine
Adding a "basketball hoop" system
Second recording of adding a state machine
Quick devlog/progress update for moving objects using mouse
starfig grottobliged
Programmer, level designer, music producer, proofreader
Made in Unity engine
A simple platformer where you must plant seeds to save your village, while evading the sprouting nightmares.Made as part of a week-long game jam, I worked as the main level designer, one of two programmers, and produced the soundtrack.
A simple momentum-based PvE shooter where you battle hordes of pumpkins.Made as part of a 24-hour game jam, I worked as one of two programmers and made the battle music. It's quite hodge podge, but technically playable.
This is the first EP I've published commercially (though I also always make sure that my music can be downloaded for free).
It features three different styles of song that I like to make:
- A multi-part medley,
- An almost industrial trance,
- And a calmer trance with psychedelic & new wave influences.
Pokemon Insurgence custom cards
Graphics design & card game design
These are cards based off two things: Pokemon Trading Card Game, a 1v1 monster card battler that adapts said monsters from a series of monster-catching RPG games; and Pokemon Insurgence, a fangame based on Pokemon's monster-catching RPG series.After playing Pokemon Insurgence, I was inspired to make some custom Pokemon TCG based on the fangame. This custom card set follows the same rules as that of the Pokemon Trading Card Game, using Pokecardmaker as a templating tool to format and design each card.Making this card set was an exercise in graphic design and game design. I am no artist, so I picked from a limited pool of fan art and game sprites, and threw it into GIMP for some graphics edits - especially when designing ex cards like the one shown, which demand lots of visual flair. I also came up with new Pokemon moves to try and capture the uniqueness of each Pokemon from the fangame, doing my best to match the wording of official Pokemon cards as closely possible.
Original Space Mew artwork by ➫Mx. aka Miss. Additional artwork from stock sites (➫Freepik) (➫pngimg.com) (➫CleanPNG). Card holosheets made by icycatelf. Card made using Pokecardmaker.
➫ Check out the published cards➫ Download the card set + unpublished WIP materials
Disclaimer: Custom cards are intended for personal use only (non-commercial). No copyright infringement intended.
Bloons TDX: Maw Mod
Game design, programming, music producer, balance design, character design, level design, 2D sprite art
Made in Gamemaker studio 1.4
➫ Download the mod + version archive➫ Gameplay showcase (thanks Ramaf)➫ BTDX modding discord server
About the game
Bloons TDX is a fangame based on the Bloons TD series of games, where monkeys and machines use weapons ranging across darts, tacks, bombs and the freakin' power of the sun to pop balloons. Bloons TDX pays homage to the classic top-down 2D style & gameplay of the series' older titles, while adding some new towers and, most excitedly, a whole bunch of epic new bloon types in the "Nightmare" difficulty mode.Bloons TDX: Maw Mod is both an extension and a QoL rebalancing mod. This mod doubles the number of towers, providing an insane number of options for popping the bloons. And the hallmark "Party Mode" acts as an even crazier Nightmare Mode, with even more wacky bloons and an insane level of difficulty.On top of that, all the existing towers have been rebalanced to be fairer & funner, especially for those harder difficulty modes. And don't forget the added maps - some of which come with custom music - and a new final boss to bookend your playthrough!
My contributions
This is a solo-developed mod where I did basically everything that a game needs - character design for the towers and bloons, sprite art, programming, music production, you name it. There's also plenty of additional contributors for sprites and tower ideas.I put a lot of work into tower balancing - not just with the mod's own towers, but also plenty of reworks and revamps for a more well-rounded vanilla cast. Balance takes a bit of a different direction to final version of vanilla, too.A lot of time was spent on rewriting the code from the base game. It is a known fact that the original code is absolute spaghetti, and I needed better-written code to actually work with it for this mod, even if this is the kind of work that is invisible to the player. This is the kind of programming ethics that I have since carried into projects like ➫Homely Haunting.
Monopoly Gamer custom cards
Graphics design & card game design
The first time I took a shot at digitally designing custom cards was with Monopoly Gamer, a variant of the property board game Monopoly that adds character abilities and boss battles.
This started with SpikeStarkey's ➫templates on BoardGameGeek. Besides custom characters and bosses, I was also inspired by @enjoymycake's ➫custom item card set and produced my own take.
➫ Download the card sets + additional resources
Disclaimer: Custom cards are intended for personal use only (non-commercial). No copyright infringement intended.
Mario Party Discord
Game design, gamemaster
Oh hi! This page is work-in-progress. If you found your way here, then you must be a very smart cookie.
➫Mario Party Discord v6.9 server
➫Mario Kirby CRUSADE community
Disclaimer: Game is purely personal use only (non-commercial). No copyright infringement intended.