My name is Matt and I am a game designer. Or so I want to be. What you have just stumbled upon is my portfolio.
Games are not just a form of entertainment for me, they are a passion. I have always looked forward to the part of my day that involves games. I can remember getting into games so much as a kid that my friends and I would take the time to set the mood for the game we were playing beforehand. It may sound cheesy, but some of my fondest memories are of games and the people who played them with me. As time went by I began enjoying making games just as much as playing them. Whenever my friends and I would get together I always enjoyed altering quests or tasks required by the game we were playing. My passion for making games started for me back in high school through a very interesting and complex set of events.
During my freshman year in school I was introduced to the guitar. I had an excellent teacher and trained classically for about two years. I took to it like a fish to water and ended up going from knowing absolutely nothing about the instrument to being the only participant at all-state (a state wide musical competition for high school students) to receive a perfect rating against hundreds of other participants. While continuing my passion for music my teacher pulled me aside one day and told me that she could no longer teach me anything because I had moved past her own abilities. That conversation led me to begin studying music on my own time at home. Around that time I was introduced to MTV’s Music Generator and the flames of passion received the spark they needed to spring to life. My game, my PlayStation, and my memory card were virtually inseparable. That was until the release of RPG Maker on PlayStation. By this point I was done for. If I thought making music was fun I was not even close to being ready for the obsession that would grip me by making games for others to play. Eventually though, reality caught up with me and it was time to go out and get a job.
My career path through life provided me with experience in many different fields. My first job was that of a pizza delivery boy. That was fun, but it wasn’t going to get me where I wanted to be in life, so I joined the Navy. After a short stent in the service I found myself back home and then took a job as an instrument repair apprentice at a local music shop. While working there I made connections and was introduced to field of heavy equipment operation. I ran heavy equipment for the better part of a decade and ended up getting my CDL and my certification as a tower crane operator. Running cranes was as close to a real world gaming job as I could get at the time. After some soul searching I decided to return to school. I began pursuing a degree in software engineering and during that time I was introduced and turned on to entertainment media design. This eventually lead me to FSU where I changed my focus to game design and I have never looked back. Now, all I want to do is get back to feeding my obsession with making games and entertaining others.
I graduated Salutatorian of my class and received my BS in Game Design on December 18, 2015. In this site you will find many of the creative endeavors I have taken throughout my time at FSU and beyond. Some of them were done as student projects, some were Ludum Dare submissions, and others are just passions of mine. I always put 100% of myself into whatever I do.
I am currently employed by Lionbridge and work on Microsoft Campus as a Test Associate for the Xbox One.
-Matthew Mathis
Contact me at mattmathis at outlook dot com.
Matt Mathis 