A 15-year-old from Portishead, Matthew, has been named one of 51 finalists in the BAFTA Young Game Designers Competition. His game, Overclocked, is a sci-fi action game built around momentum, timing and speed running.
In his interview, he talks about how all those late nights of coding finally paid off.
That was completely me at that age. I spent hours tinkering with Creatures (an artificial life PC game), building add-ons (COBS, created in CAOS - which I ended up naming my company after), and figuring out how everything worked (no YouTube tutorials in the mid-1990s). Half the fun was the creative problem-solving, which is exactly what Matthew says he loves most about it, too. It was my Creatures add-ons that got me my university placement and my first job afterwards.
And he's not the only one flying the flag for the South West. Rikka, 14, from Frome, is a finalist with Beyond the Horizon (a stranded astronaut waiting on a rescue), and Rowan, 17, from Stroud, with Sprouts and Seedlings, a lovely, calm game about gardening (going to check all of these games out).
Being a fellow Portishead resident, I'm especially chuffed to see Matthew on that list (along with Rikka and Rowan, also from Somerset and Gloucestershire). What an achievement.
The final is on Thursday, live on BAFTA's YouTube channel. Hoping to catch this, and I'll definitely be checking out the games.