Projects

Introduction

Hello! My name is Matt Rider, (also known as ZALMAH). I've been fortunate to collaborate with a variety of people.

The principle that guides me is the effort to maintain a balance between compexity and accessibility.

Above all, ZALMAH is a solution to creative challenges (CONTEXT, INTUITION, FOCUS).

Airframe: Nemesis

I am currently assisting Stratosphere Games GmbH with trailer production and several other tasks for their first title - Airframe: Nemesis - a combat flight simulator set in the year 2050.

Players are flung into the role of a pilot mercenary, betrayed by companions and battling against authorities.

The project is developed on Unity and is scheduled for a Q2 beta phase in 2016.

Beyond the Pixels

Beyond the Pixels was a short film pitched for Turtle Entertainment GmbH. The project involved the Köln-based graffiti artist SEAK (Claus Winkler), whose work is influenced by arcade games he played growing-up in the 80s and 90s.

Production Specifics:

Abstract Goals:

Brick-Force

I was tasked with leading the Community Management team and given the responsibility to recruit staff. We reached out to key YouTube creators, and within the first 3 months helped to secure over 1 million registrations, of which over 80% were organic.

My first hire was Nicholas Zasowski B.S. New Media Marketing. Nick was formerly based in New York, and helped me to manage a written, visual and video content pipeline across 6 languages (English, German, French, Spanish, Turkish and Polish).

Some of the community events and sub-projects that I created for Brick-Force included 'Brick by Brick', a weekly infotainement series written and narrated by Ian Strandberg, with over 40 episodes and Brick Brigade, a community growth program with incentives for active participants.

Championship Gaming Series

Achievements

Since 2005 we consistantly ranked among Europe's top players - teaming with guilds like GRAMMERPOLICE and Decimation. After qualifying for the first player vs player tournaments, we were sponsored to travel to live events, and eventually - after winning the European Championship - turn our hobby into a profession.

We devised new strategies, such as ‘weapon-switch/mind-numbing/fel-dom interrupt’, and also experimented with a shadow combo which had not been seen before in the competitive bracket.

The CGS (Championship Gaming Series) was an initiative from DirecTV to bring competitive video games to a mainstream television audience.

Due to the complexity of World of Warcraft - it wasn't spectator friendly - unless viewers had a deep understanding of the game. DirecTV's plans for mainstream TV did not materialize. The project came to a close in 2008.

Choices Lost (Working Title)

Choices Lost is an existential thriller that immerses players in the pivotal life moments of five characters - ultimately asking the question: are all of our lives interconnected?

EVENTUALLY. EVERYTHING. CONNECTS.

The story unravels from various perspectives - a woman on a flight from New York to London, a wheelchair-bound elderly man, a child waiting at a train station and a soon-to-be mother in rural Pakistan.

The actions of the characters affect the lives of others, in both subtle and bold ways. The project is currently in pre-production, and there are likely to to be changes during the development in 2016.

Dragon's Prophet

One of my team’s main areas of focus was how to inspire players and separate ourselves from other MMORPG offerings. We created a number of projects and community events, such as Dragon Spotlight, You & Your Dragon, Dragon Cosplay Summit, Timekeeper, Dragon Master FU, DragonCast and Battle for Auratia. We formed partnerships with organizations such as Enjin and Raptr.

I presented the title at an international press event with Runewaker CEO, Tony Tang, showcased the games to journalists at E3 and GDC, and joined regular Skype calls with the North American publishers, Sony Online Entertainment.

Dreamhack Summer 2011

In 2011, I was invited to be host at Dreamhack in Jönköping, Sweden. The event takes place over several days, and is known as being the world’s largest digital festival and LAN (local area network) party.

The gaming tournaments commenced in an auditorium, and were broadcast live – with over 1.5 million unique viewers watching the stream on TwitchTV. My role included introducing the matches, guiding the flow of the broadcast and interviewing players.

Perhaps the most memorable game was the final showdown between HuK (Canada) and Moon (South Korea). Starcraft 2 was at a peak of popularity and the auditorium was overflowing with fans and pulsating with energy.

ESL TV

In 2008 I was given the opportunity to join the Electronic Sports League as a host and editor with two other Brits – James Harding and Joe Miller. We relocated to Köln, Germany and were thrust in front of a camera together on our first day at the office. We were given a couple of initial tasks: to moderate the shows, determine the show content and help to promote the broadcasts. It was the ESL's first attempt to start producing regular video content for an English-speaking audience.

Content Produced

In this phase of the internet era, YouTube was just beginning to gain popularity, but was not widespread. There were no accessible live-streaming services around such as Twitch, and viewers were required to download a desktop-plugin to access the content. We worked at a studio formerly used by GIGA TV for German cable television. If a tournament took place in Asia, Americas or the Middle-East, we would be live on-air for up to 10 hours, late at night or early in the morning, with only a handful of advertisement breaks.

The usual routine was to get up mid-morning, arrive in the office mid-afternoon, and broadcast late into the night. Most of the footage out of game was static – and my personal effort was primarily focused on improving production value – using a basic knowledge of image and video editing to prepare overlays, video clips and slides for the shows.

I regularly communicated with communities and journalists to increase the show’s exposure, embed the stream, promote highlights and gain coverage that served to boost the show ratings and establish our presence in the international eSports scene. From time-to-time I would draft press releases and phone general-interest media journalists.

During the period I was working at ESL, our World of Warcraft show attracted a sponsorship deal with Blizzard Entertainment. The on-air dynamic (which bordered on feud, at times), with co-host James Harding, became a talking point and point of interest for the community, who watched often not only for the game content, but also for our escapades and relationship on camera.

Hazard Ops

In 2014, I moved to Product Management at Infernum Productions, with the view to having more influence on product-based decisions. Hazard Ops was the latest license Infernum acquired in a deal with Ying Pei Games - Shanghai, China. The game was developed on Unreal 3 and is inspired by Gears of War.

Roles:

I initiated an internal product Wiki for the project, with the aim to make information from product management more freely available across departments. I designed a weekly product report, featuring statistics and the most recent updates from the project, and drafted a new IP development document and project concept to help with storytelling efforts. I pushed regularly to include controller support for Steam.

Knights & Snails

In late 2014 I decided to join a three former colleagues to assist on Knights & Snails, a title for Android & iOS that combined strategy with elements of puzzle and RPG. My main focus upon joining was providing game feedback documents, launching a beta phase for testers, and encouraging the team to seek feedback from a wider sphere – not just friends and family.

In October I redesigned the website and started to initiate the early access phase. We managed to secure a few thousand downloads of the game – mostly from reddit - and obtain valuable feedback from fans of mobile games.

My efforts were focused on game improvement and first-user experience. One other area of focus was storytelling – encouraging the team to create personalities to accompany the various characters, with a view to enabling the Knights to also function as one of the sources of monetization.

I organized a studio session with voice actor, Kevin Luzzini, who has worked for television and film. He voiced a number of the characters. You can hear an uncut audio recording on Soundcloud. The project received positive early feedback (“Potential to be a genre defining classic” —Techstage).

Like many indie projects, the team was met with financial and time-related challenges, and upon release the title was awarded 3/5 stars on TouchArcade in 2015.

Runes of Magic

Shortly after moving to Berlin in 2010, I joined Frogster Online Gaming AG. At the time, Runes of Magic was swiftly becoming the most popular free-to-play MMO (Massively Multiplayer Online Game) in Europe, and beginning to establish a North American fanbase. The developers, Runewaker, were based in Tapei, Taiwan.

I presented new updates to the company at our yearly breifing at the Astor Film Lounge on Kurfurstendamn. Gameforge acquired a buyout of Frogster in 2011, in a deal valuing the company at €70 million euros on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange.