Uncle Matt, a wild-haired maker wearing round welding goggles Uncle Matt makes

Uncle Matt makes

I build things and show you how I did it: the ugly drafts, the dead ends, the parts that caught fire. I don't always know what I'm doing. I've decided not to let that stop me. Pull up a stool.

Latest from the bench

Freshest posts first, across everything.

  2. Chapter 2Six Degrees of Play

    The two kinds of wire

    A line between two games can mean two completely different things: one I draw by hand because it tells a story, one the machine infers from the data. Plus the boring duplicate problem that nearly ate the whole project.

    Read it

  3. Chapter 2PolyFish

    Why the PolyFish die

    Eating in PolyFish gives you zero energy, so every creature is on a countdown clock from the moment it's born. No population caps, no spawners, just collisions and math. The population runs away and crashes on its own, every single time.

    Read it

  4. Chapter 1Six Degrees of Play

    It started with a music map I couldn't stop clicking

    I borrowed the idea off a music influence website, then went looking for the same hidden wiring in games. It turned into a 3D star map of fifty years of game history, and one problem I still haven't cracked.

    Read it

  5. Chapter 1PolyFish

    It started with beer, not fish

    PolyFish is twelve years old and it started with beer. A private VR experiment about yeast and a population curve that crashes on purpose, which turned into an ocean I actually showed people. Here is where the fish came from.

    Read it

Finished

Proof I actually finish things. Some of them, anyway.

  • A sunlit PolyFish reef full of low-poly fish and waving seaweed

    PolyFish

    A whole underwater world running in your browser. The fish are low-poly. The dying is high-fidelity.

    • Three.js
    • WebXR
    • Verlet physics
    • GLSL shaders

    updated

    Read the build Live demo
  • A raccoon sitting up on the back deck at night, caught on the critter cam

    The Backyard

    A camera, a feeder, and one very confident raccoon. An observation post for whatever wanders through.

    • critter cam
    • hardware
    • wildlife
    build notes coming soon
  • Oddball Creature Club stickers and an embroidered patch on a sketchbook of pencilled creatures, beside a coffee mug

    Oddball Creature Club

    Made-up critters with real attitudes. Character design, and a sticker habit I can't quit.

    • character design
    • stickers
    build notes coming soon

Still on the bench

In progress. Sawdust everywhere. Check back.

  • A Hoverbike race in progress on the Lagoon Loop track, craft skimming over water past orange arches

    Hoverbike

    in progress

    A game about going much too fast, a few inches off the ground.

    • game

  • Numen

    in progress

    A game. That's all I'm saying for now.

    • game
  • A microcontroller and looping wires mid-build, addressable LEDs glowing teal on the wall behind

    Living room LEDs

    in progress

    Too many addressable LEDs and a soldering iron I probably shouldn't be trusted with.

    • hardware
    • LEDs

Down the rabbit hole

Still reading, sketching, and taking things apart to see how they work. No promises yet.

  • Animatronics

    researching

    Teaching motors to act. So far they mostly twitch, but menacingly.

    • robotics
    • servos

  • The Crossroads

    researching

    A story you walk into instead of read. Still drawing the map.

    • narrative