Maddy Thorson, game-maker (Towerfall, Celeste).

My guest today is Maddy Thorson, a Canadian writer and designer for video games. At the age of 14, she obtained a copy of GameMaker, software on which she learned to make simple games. After studying computer science at Grande Prairie Regional College in Alberta, she moved to Vancouver and there rented a house in which she and her friends began working on a multiplayer combat game featuring four archers. TowerFall Ascension, became a huge hit.

The following year, my guest took part in a game jam and co-created a game based on her experiences bouldering. That experiment grew into Celeste, which cast players as Madeline, a young woman suffering from anxiety and depression who aims to climb a mountain. En route, she meets manifestations of her self-doubt, which try to halt her progress.

A commercial version of Celeste launched in 2018 and became a smash hit. It won Best Independent Game at the Game Awards and in 2022 was ranked fourteenth in a USA Today list of the best games ever made.

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