Hey everyone!
My name is Matt Tanwanteng, and I am one of the engineers here at Runic Games. Mostly I just bask in the glowing light of Travis and Marsh, but sometimes I manage to avert my eyes and do a little coding myself. Particularly I enjoy adding more oomph to the skill systems, and then making fun spells like Bee Swarm to test them out.
I graduated from MIT with a Master’s degree in CS (course 6), taking CS and Comparative Media Studies (AKA games) as my undergrad major and minor. My first foray into the world of games programming started when my dad gave me money for copying programs out of Games for Basic books. Though I doubted the viability of going straight into games going into college, I decided to go for broke and pursue my dreams. I can’t think of a better place to have ended up than Runic Games!
I grew up quite the competitive gamer with an older and younger brother, most recently expressing itself in “King of Dreamland”-title fights with my younger brother in SSB:Melee and lots of Starcraft 2 1v1s and team games with both. Currently, I’m still on my Starcraft 2 kick, watching Day[9] and GSL as often as possible while pretending not to avoid the scary “Find 1v1 opponents” button. Playing random is quite intimidating with the number of possible match-ups.
Also I have just discovered Qix on Travis’ cocktail arcade cabinet, and that is pretty awesome! Marsh is riding my tails for the high score, but I’ll always be one step ahead muahahaha!
I am very excited for you guys to get to play Torchlight 2! I think you’ll be quite pleased with the direction we are heading.
