About this episode
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. Become a My Perfect Console supporter and receive a range of benefits at www.patreon.com/myperfectconsole Take the Acast listener survey to help shape the show: My Perfect Console with Simon Parkin Survey 2025 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.