Ryan Holtz
| Real name |
Ryan Alexander Holtz[1] |
|---|---|
| Date of birth |
August 5, 1985 (age 32) |
| Occupation |
Game developer |
| Nationality |
American[2] |
| Languages |
English, French[3] |
| Website |
"Mog's Musings"[4] (defunct) |
| Known for |
Colored lighting video |
| Reddit name | |
| Twitter name | |
| Minecraftforum.net name | |
| Bug tracker profile | |
| Minecraft name |
TheMogMiner |
Ryan Holtz was a game developer at Mojang AB who worked on the rendering engine of Minecraft. His employment at Mojang was announced on November 2, 2013 at the "Future of Minecraft" panel at MineCon 2013.[11] His first day at the Mojang office was November 18, 2013.[12]
Contents
Biography
Holtz is from Buffalo, New York.[13] In his early teens, he was diagnosed with autism. He says he "technically [has] "Autism Level 1" according to the DSM-V, which is the new name for Asperger's."[14]
Holtz is a graduate of East Tennessee State University in computer science,[1] who has been involved in the video game industry since 2005.[11] He started his career at EA Tiburon working on Superman Returns, then later for Activision at Vicarious Visions working on the Guitar Hero series.[1][15]
Holtz is well known for his Minecraft mods which he posted on the Minecraft Forums under the name UltraMoogleMan[16][11]. His modding led to talks with Markus Persson about the implications of increasing Minecraft's then world height of 128.[17]
On January 29, 2015, Holtz announced on his twitter page if anyone knew of any game studios in Stockholm that are hiring.[18] While the tweet did not make it clear whether or not this was the truth or simply a joke, the employees page on the Mojang Support website no longer stated him as a game developer.
On February 8, 2015, Mojang confirmed Holtz is no longer an employee[19] but hasn't released a formal announcement about it.
On April 1, 2015, Holtz announced that he was hired by King to help develop Candy Crush Soda Saga.[20] He confirmed that it wasn't a joke the next day.[21]
Trivia
- Holtz's Minecraft skin is a moogle from the Final Fantasy game series.[22] Holtz says "[He's] been considering making a custom player renderer just for [his] model so [he] can have proper moogle wings, similar to Nathan's model being upside-down, but [he] just can't seem to find the time."[23]
- Holtz has also played the trombone.[24]
- He implemented rabbits.
- Holtz added the Customized world type, which is an adaptation of his mod Wedge.
Gallery
-
Holtz's twitter avatar
References
- ↑ a b c https://web.archive.org/web/20131112124927/http://www.batcountryentertainment.com/team.html
- ↑ “@Pyroarcher99 American, born and raised” – @TheMogMiner, November 7, 2013
- ↑ “I like being the de facto francophone Mojangster. Everyone poked fun at me for taking French instead of Spanish, now who has the last laugh?” – @TheMogMiner, November 6, 2013
- ↑ “Yay, my new site is up! http://polygonal-moogle.com/uncategorized/on-sweden/ …” – @TheMogMiner, May 25, 2014
- ↑ “Hooray: http://i.imgur.com/SYqd70E.png Hooray again: http://i.imgur.com/fsZKAqe.png Hooray (two in one!): http://i.imgur.com/KgSuIge.png” – @TheMogMiner, November 19, 2013
- ↑ “Last screenshot of the year, a bouncy block that wasn't possible before @TheMogMiner's transparency render fix: http://i.imgur.com/kl66PIp.png” – @jeb_, December 20, 2013
- ↑ “I made a thing!” – @TheMogMiner, April 22, 2014
- ↑ “Just a quick update, you folks asked for the ability to select a specific biome, so I went and did that too:” – @TheMogMiner, April 22, 2014
- ↑ “A hint about one of the bugs I fixed for this week's snapshot, which should make people happy: http://i.imgur.com/t218sP5.png” – @TheMogMiner, April 30, 2014
- ↑ “@iTouchMasterPro Almost! Just particles for now. :D” – @TheMogMiner, April 30, 2014
- ↑ a b c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttBSiK01Mdg&t=26m34s
- ↑ “Woo, just realized it's the one-month anniversary of me starting here (my first technical day was 18 November)! Wooooooo!” – @TheMogMiner, December 18, 2013
- ↑ “@MikeSloanCreate Buffalo NY, just bordering Canada. Lake effect snow equals 1m or more of snow every winter. Hardens you up real fast.” – @TheMogMiner, May 8, 2014
- ↑ “@Blingdaddy1 Technically I have "Autism Level 1" according to the DSM-V, which is the new name for Asperger's. Diagnosed in 1998.” – @TheMogMiner, November 5, 2013
- ↑ “@PoiPoiChen By contrast, I know way too much about Aerosmith, having worked on Guitar Hero: Aerosmith Wii. :D” – @TheMogMiner, April 28, 2014
- ↑ “@Mogswamp I've gone as UltraMoogleMan longer than many Minecraft players have been alive, dawg” – @TheMogMiner, November 8, 2013
- ↑ http://notch.tumblr.com/post/7799649091/sharing-an-interesting-email
- ↑ “So, anyone know of any game studios in Stockholm that are hiring? :)” – @TheMogMiner, January 29, 2015
- ↑ “@MushirMickeyJoe This is correct. ^OZ” – @mojangsupport, February 8, 2015
- ↑ “Loving it here at @King_Games on the Candy Crush Soda Saga team! Game on!” – @TheMogMiner, March 31, 2015
- ↑ “You know what the funny thing is, my tweet yesterday actually wasn't an April Fool's joke, but people thought it was. :)” – @TheMogMiner, April 2, 2015
- ↑ “@Idkartist3D Final Fantasy moogle” – @TheMogMiner, November 5, 2013
- ↑ “Nah, giving ourselves special weapons or diamonds or whatnot wouldn't really be good for the community. I've been considering making a custom player renderer just for my model so I can have proper moogle wings, similar to Nathan's model being upside-down, but I just can't seem to find the time. Plus I'm pretty happy with the existing moogle skin I found.” – /u/April 19, 2014
- ↑ “I played trombone in school from 4th grade through university, and this never fails to bring a tear to my eye” – @TheMogMiner, December 27, 2014
