Stephen Gillmurphy, known professionally as thecatamites, is an Irish independent

video game developer A video game developer is a broad term for a software developer specializing in video game development – the process and related disciplines of creating video games. A game developer can range from one person who undertakes all tasks to a large ...

noted for his prolific career of publishing short independent

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games, including ''

Space Funeral ''Space Funeral'' is an independently created role-playing video game and art game by Irish developer thecatamites, Stephen Gillmurphy. The short game was created using RPG Maker 2003, and centers around a boy named Phillip, who leaves home to ...

''. His games are typified by the use of self-drawn, mixed-media graphics and offbeat, satirical tone. Described as publishing "weird outsider games", Gillmurphy has received positive reception from independent game outlets.

Career

Gillmurphy first started making games in 2008 using RPG Maker after exposure to the software in secondary school. He cites the independent games ''Wilfred The Hero'' by Brandon Abley and ''Psychosomnium'' by

Jonatan Söderström Jonatan Söderström, also known as Cactus, is a Swedish video game developer noted for his unusual and innovative games. He is best known as the co-designer and programmer of ''Hotline Miami'' (2012) and '' Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number'' (2015 ...

as major influences to create his own art in video games, which are often composed of diverse handmade materials including

Lego Lego ( , ; stylized as LEGO) is a line of plastic construction toys that are manufactured by The Lego Group, a privately held company based in Billund, Denmark. The company's flagship product, Lego, consists of variously colored interlocking ...

, paper cutouts, clay figurines, and scanned drawings. He has worked with a preference to developing short-form games, as illustrated by his 2014 compilation '' 50 Short Games'', due to the shortness "giving (the games) a larger range" and reflecting the "practical impulse to compress and avoid unnecessary work." Gillmurphy states this approach was influenced by his experience with

game jams A game jam is an event where participants try to make a video game from scratch. Depending on the format, participants might work independently, or in teams. The event duration usually ranges from 24 to 72 hours. Participants are generally program ...

, stating positive experiences with "shared constraints that kind of sync you up with other people". Gillmurphy has distributed his games on several websites, including under the names ''Games 4 Schools'', ''Mystery Zone'', and ''Harmony Zone'', the latter of which he has used to publish commercial titles including '' 50 Short Games''. He has also published critical essays on

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under the handle ''My Friend Pokey''. In 2020, Gillmurphy began publishing the ''Strange Town/Of The Killer'' comedic horror series on GameJolt under the name garmentdistrict.

Acclaim

Gillmurphy has received praise for his work from several outlets for its unique method of composition and unusual tone. ''

Game Jolt Game Jolt is a social community platform for video games, gamers and content creators. It is available on iOS, Android, on the web and as a desktop app for Windows and Linux. Primarily for Gen Z, users share interactive content through a varie ...

'' praised Gillmurphy as possessing "one of the most exciting and original bodies of work in gaming", describing his games as "funny, surreal, boundary-pushing, and full of wonder over the possibilities of videogames and the worlds they can create." Brendan Caldwell of '' Rock Paper Shotgun'' praised Gillmurphy's writing, stating that it possesses an odd humor...that lies somewhere between absurdity and academia," and complimented his

worldbuilding Worldbuilding is the process of constructing a world, originally an imaginary one, sometimes associated with a fictional universe. Developing an imaginary setting with coherent qualities such as a history, geography, and ecology is a key task fo ...

as "self-contained asylums of weirdness." Writing for ''Game Developer'', Mike Rose stated that he "isn't like other developers," noting "the underlying mechanics of play will often force you into the sort of silly and sometimes uncomfortable territory that video games simply don't explore."

Personal life

Gillmurphy was born in

Inchicore Inchicore () is a suburb of Dublin, Ireland. Located approximately west of the city centre, Inchicore was originally a small village separate from Dublin. The village developed around Richmond Barracks (built 1810) and Inchicore railway works (b ...

, a suburb of

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of th ...

, Ireland, and studied as a mathematics student. In 2012, Gillmurphy briefly worked in a full-time role as an insurance broker in Dublin. He is noted as being reticent to discuss his personal life on the Internet, preferring to "stay in the shadows."

Works

Under the names thecatamites, Harmony Zone, and garmentdistrict, Gillmurphy has self-published several independent games, listed below:

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gillmurphy, Stephen Irish video game designers Indie game developers Living people Video game writers People from Dublin (city) Year of birth missing (living people)