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Ryan Holtz is a former game developer at Mojang Studios 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]

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.[11][16] 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 did not release 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 was not 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 old Customized world type, which was an adaptation of his mod Wedge.

Gallery[]

References[]

  1. a b c https://web.archive.org/web/20131112124927/http://www.batcountryentertainment.com/team.html
  2. "@Pyroarcher99 American, born and raised"@TheMogMiner (Ryan Holtz) on X, November 7, 2013
  3. "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 (Ryan Holtz) on X, November 6, 2013
  4. "Yay, my new site is up! http://polygonal-moogle.com/uncategorized/on-sweden/ …"@TheMogMiner (Ryan Holtz) on X, May 25, 2014
  5. "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 (Ryan Holtz) on X, November 19, 2013
  6. "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_ (Jens Bergensten) on X, December 20, 2013
  7. "I made a thing!"@TheMogMiner (Ryan Holtz) on X, April 22, 2014
  8. "Just a quick update, you folks asked for the ability to select a specific biome, so I went and did that too:"@TheMogMiner (Ryan Holtz) on X, April 22, 2014
  9. "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 (Ryan Holtz) on X, April 30, 2014
  10. "@iTouchMasterPro Almost! Just particles for now. :D"@TheMogMiner (Ryan Holtz) on X, April 30, 2014
  11. a b c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttBSiK01Mdg&t=26m34s
  12. "Woo, just realized it's the one-month anniversary of me starting here (my first technical day was 18 November)! Wooooooo!"@TheMogMiner (Ryan Holtz) on X, December 18, 2013
  13. "@MikeSloanCreate Buffalo NY, just bordering Canada. Lake effect snow equals 1m or more of snow every winter. Hardens you up real fast."@TheMogMiner (Ryan Holtz) on X, May 8, 2014
  14. "@Blingdaddy1 Technically I have "Autism Level 1" according to the DSM-V, which is the new name for Asperger's. Diagnosed in 1998."@TheMogMiner (Ryan Holtz) on X, November 5, 2013
  15. "@PoiPoiChen By contrast, I know way too much about Aerosmith, having worked on Guitar Hero: Aerosmith Wii. :D"@TheMogMiner (Ryan Holtz) on X, April 28, 2014
  16. "@Mogswamp I've gone as UltraMoogleMan longer than many Minecraft players have been alive, dawg"@TheMogMiner (Ryan Holtz) on X, November 8, 2013
  17. https://web.archive.org/web/0/http://notch.tumblr.com/post/7799649091/sharing-an-interesting-email
  18. "So, anyone know of any game studios in Stockholm that are hiring? :)"@TheMogMiner (Ryan Holtz) on X, January 29, 2015
  19. "@MushirMickeyJoe This is correct. ^OZ"@mojangsupport on X, February 8, 2015
  20. "Loving it here at @King_Games on the Candy Crush Soda Saga team! Game on!"@TheMogMiner (Ryan Holtz) on X, March 31, 2015
  21. "You know what the funny thing is, my tweet yesterday actually wasn't an April Fool's joke, but people thought it was. :)"@TheMogMiner (Ryan Holtz) on X, April 2, 2015
  22. "@Idkartist3D Final Fantasy moogle"@TheMogMiner (Ryan Holtz) on X, November 5, 2013
  23. "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."19, 2014 u/April 19, 2014 on Reddit
  24. "I played trombone in school from 4th grade through university, and this never fails to bring a tear to my eye"@TheMogMiner (Ryan Holtz) on X, December 27, 2014
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