Mark Essen, better known as Messhof, is an American

video game designer Video game design is the process of designing the content and rules of video games in the pre-production stage and designing the gameplay, environment, storyline and characters in the production stage. Some common video game design subdiscipline ...

and artist best known for '' Nidhogg'', its sequel, and '' Flywrench''.

Career

In college, Messhof made games with GameMaker and

Microsoft Paint Microsoft Paint is a simple raster graphics editor that has been included with all versions of Microsoft Windows. The program opens and saves files in Windows bitmap (BMP), JPEG, GIF, PNG, and single-page TIFF formats. The program can be in c ...

software. An early game, ''Punishment 1'', began as a group assignment in an advanced, experimental class. His other early games included ''Wally'', ''Bool'', ''Booloid'', ''Punishment 2'', and '' Flywrench'', uploaded on his website. His work was profiled in The Creators Project and the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, and shown in the New York

New Museum The New Museum of Contemporary Art, founded in 1977 by Marcia Tucker, is a museum in New York City at 235 Bowery, on Manhattan's Lower East Side. History The museum originally opened in a space in the Graduate Center of the then-named New Sch ...

, Toronto

Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art The Museum of Contemporary Art Toronto Canada (MOCA), formerly known as the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art (MOCCA), is a museum and art gallery in Toronto, Ontario. It is an independent, registered charitable organization. ...

, and Liverpool

Foundation for Art and Creative Technology FACT Liverpool is a new media arts centre in Liverpool, England. The building houses galleries, a cinema operated by Picturehouse Cinemas, Picturehouse, a bar and a café. History FACT was established as an organisation focussed on video and n ...

. He was cited by a

Savannah College of Art and Design Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) is a private nonprofit art school with locations in Savannah, Georgia; Atlanta, Georgia; and Lacoste, France. Founded in 1978 to provide degrees in programs not yet offered in the southeast of the Uni ...

instructor as a successful example of blending arts aesthetics and video games. Messhof developed '' Nidhogg'', a fast-paced, side-scrolling sword fighting game between 2010 and 2014. Its first prototype, ''Raging Hadron'', was expanded over four years to include online multiplayer, new environments, and new gameplay modes. Messhof balanced development as the sole programmer with development on other games and both teaching and student commitments in graduate school. He taught classes on intermediate game design and experimental mobile games at

University of Southern California , mottoeng = "Let whoever earns the palm bear it" , religious_affiliation = Nonsectarian—historically Methodist , established = , accreditation = WSCUC , type = Private research university , academic_affiliations = , endowment = $8.1 ...

's Interactive Media & Games program. ''Nidhogg'' production's pace increased when he formed a studio, also known as Messhof, with Kristy Norindr, who found other collaborators for finishing the project. An expanded version of the game, '' Nidhogg 2'', was illustrated by artist Toby Dixon and includes new levels, music, and weapons.

Games developed

References

{{authority control American video game designers Video game artists