Mortdog

My time at Riot and on TFT as a Game Designer has come to an end. Just under 10 years, and to be honest I thought it was going to be longer, but sometimes things change. ------------------------------------------------- I’m so grateful for what I was able to be a small part of, and able to accomplish in the last decade. It’s been a dream career, and I have got to do so much thanks to Riot. Even trying to list it all feels insane what I managed to do in this time. And the crazy 7 years on TFT where I got to design, balance, teach, lead, and more for my job, but then also build a community, stream, cast, go to events…it’s just been amazing. Ending on stuff like the Unlock system and a couple other things…I’m heading out proud. To everyone I worked with over the years, thank you for letting me be a part of everything we accomplished. I hope I managed to teach you something or bring you joy in some way. I genuinely hope our paths cross again in the future. To everyone who supported TFT or me over the years, you have no idea what it means to me. I cherish all the moments over the years, and they’ll keep me going. I am so blessed to have been a part of your lives and thank you for letting me bring some fun into your world. ----------------------------------------------------- So…what’s next for me? I’m trying to figure that out. First off, since I was on sabbatical and am terrible at relaxing/not working, I have been making my own small indie game. I’m about 2 months into development and have already had folks playtesting some early builds. I’d say the game is like 20-30% done, but my goal is to release it as a full game. It’s been fun keeping my skills sharp in a different space, and I hope to share it with you all someday. Beyond that, I’m keeping my eyes open for other opportunities. I’ve had a few conversations here and there already during my Sabbatical. It’s a brutal industry right now, so I’m taking one day at a time and figuring out what’s next for me, whether it’s working on another studio’s game or even my own thing. And I’d love to find a space to do some content creation and be able to share my knowledge of game development. But that may take some time to figure out how to do it right. -------------------------------------------------------Again, thank you for everything these last 10 years. It’s a big change and I’m nervous but hoping it all works out. Until next time, take it easy! -Mort

Just the essentials.

Guys I ran out of Pepsi body wash 😭. It’s over, I’ll never be this fresh again…

Went to bed. Woke up too early. Figure time to get back to checking these. MONKA. (This is on top of the 180 I dealt with before bed)

It's so awesome we live in a world where you can post this, and have 150+ replies in 2 hours. Pretty awesome. Going to give everyone 24 hours to be fair, then I'll start grabbing folks. Thank you all for the help and responses <3

Hey everyone. Using my network here to reach out to see if anyone wants to join me as I try to wrap up my little indie game. I need help with localization! If you're someone who wants a small side project to help me localize in Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, German, French, Korean, or Polish hit me up. It would be a small paid bit, but I'm looking for folks who want to make their mark and add a bit of personality to their respective language for the game. If you'd be interested, shoot me an email at [email protected] Thanks, and sorry everyone else for the spam!

Some info on how the milestone for my little indie game went. Hope it's educational!

In an effort to relax more, today and tomorrow is my friends 2nd annual Magic weekend. 2 days straight of various drafts and gaming. Will be a great time. Hope yall have a great weekend as well.

It’s another Happy Taco Tuesday! Hope you’re having a great week. I needed these tacos…

Who has two thumbs and just played his little indie game on a Steam Deck for the first time? THIS GUY!! (It's also revealing a bunch of optimization/settings work to do so yay....) But still... HYPE!

Finally finished the latest milestone of my little indie project, version 0.4. Which means a whole new group of testers have started playing the game, which has been rewarding to see. A bunch more will join this weekend, so I'll be observing and taking notes. It's one of the fun parts of the process where people get to see the work. I gotta say, just being able to make a game with nothing but the time of day to stop you is pretty addicting. Especially as I pushed towards the milestone, I've certainly been pushing myself pretty hard. Between this and my actual NDA'd job, I realize I haven't actually done much else in like a month lol. What I SHOULD be doing is relaxing today and trying to recover a bit. Maybe record a walk the dog, or just get out of the house for a bit. What I WANT to do is start working on the next system the game needs and the last little bit of content left lol. But everything I've ever worked on from Mario vs DK to TFT to this, this is the moments I enjoy. Getting in there, and just making a video game better. It's what I live for. Anyway, we'll see what I end up doing. If I get bored of trying to relax I'm sure I'll open up the game and start working lol. But yeah. Hope you have a great weekend. Can you believe 2026 is almost over? SHEEESH. Ok Have fun and take it easy :)

Hmmmm probably time to film another walk the dog on the state of the industry huh. So many companies shutting down or laying off, while AI on the rise. I'm not a doomer or anything, but it's certainly going to change. At the end of the day though, people will always want fun games to play, and will find the best titles and share them. If you're a player, make sure you share new games that are good so more people get exposure to them. Help great games rise above the flood of junk. If you're a dev, focus on quality above all else, and do it in a way where you are efficient with your development. You can't afford to take it easy.

Hey. Those bugs aren’t going to fix themselves… maybe get back to work Mort…

So, I was a huge Castlevania fan back in the day (SotN, the GBA ones, and some of the DS ones) and a huge metroid-vania fan in general. I was really looking forward to the new Castlevania so I even streamed it this weekend. There's a lot to love. The visuals are amazing, the weapons feel good to swing, and moving around can feel really fluid when it's going well. Some of the bosses were neat also (I liked the Medusa fight). But sadly for me, Castlevania is about exploring the mysterious castle and the basic controls of a tight feeling character with some solid combat. I can't say I enjoy how many corridors turn into crazy button combinations of Celeste-like Parkour. And the combat NEEDS to be tight. If you're going to have me dodge so often, I want frame responsive dodging, not constantly being punished for not matching your animation timing. Really ruined the experience for me to the point I kinda rage quit on stream. So I swapped back to Well Dweller. A game that didn't have the best first impression (the aesthetic isn't my taste) but quickly grew on me. The controls felt much tighter and more responsive, the level design was clever, and the bosses felt much less about spamming dodge, and much more about understanding their behavior. Was much more my cup of tea personally. So if you're looking for a solid metroid-vania, that's extremely impressive for the dev team size, give it a shot. I enjoyed it a lot and we beat the final boss today on stream.