Terry Cavanagh ( ; born 1984) is an Irish

video game design 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 ...

er based in

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. After studying mathematics at Trinity College in

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 ...

, Cavanagh worked briefly as a market risk analyst before focusing on game development full-time. Many of his titles share a primitive, minimalist aesthetic. He has created over two dozen games, most notably ''

VVVVVV ''VVVVVV'' is a 2010 puzzle-platform game created by Terry Cavanagh. In the game, the player controls Captain Viridian, who must rescue their spacecrew after a teleporter malfunction caused them to be separated in Dimension VVVVVV. The game ...

'', ''

Super Hexagon ''Super Hexagon'' is an indie rhythm video game developed by Terry Cavanagh, with music composed by Chipzel. Originally released for iOS in September 2012, versions for Windows and macOS were released 3 months later, and Android, BlackBerry and ...

, and

Dicey Dungeons ''Dicey Dungeons'' is a roguelike deck-building game developed by Irish game designer Terry Cavanagh. It was released for Microsoft Windows, macOS, and Linux in August 2019, for Nintendo Switch in December 2020, and for Xbox One and Xbox Ser ...

''. He is credited as a programmer for '' Alphaland'', a platform game by

Jonas Kyratzes Jonas Kyratzes is a German-Greek video game designer and author of video game industry related articles. Career Kyratzes' games are known for breaking with convention and being heavily story-driven. Several of his games are thematically intercon ...

. Cavanagh has stated that he prefers the personal nature of independent game development, its smaller scale enabling the personality of the creator to shine through in the final product.

Influences

Cavanagh cites the 1997 Japanese RPG '' Final Fantasy VII'' as his favorite game, crediting it as his inspiration for becoming a video game developer. In 2009 Cavanagh named interactive fiction writer

Adam Cadre Adam Cadre (born February 5, 1974, in Silver Spring, Maryland) is an American writer active in a number of forms—novels, screenplays, webcomics, essays—but best known for his work in interactive fiction. Biography Cadre's 1998 piece ''Photo ...

as his favorite developer.

Awards

*Cavanagh's game ''VVVVVV'' won the 2010

IndieCade IndieCade is an international juried festival of independent games. IndieCade is known as "the video game industry's Sundance."Fritz, Ben"IndieCade, the video game industry's Sundance" Los Angeles Times, October 1, 2009, accessed July 21, 2011. ...

Festival in the category of "Fun/Compelling". *In 2014, Cavanagh was named to

Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine owned by Integrated Whale Media Investments and the Forbes family. Published eight times a year, it features articles on finance, industry, investing, and marketing topics. ''Forbes'' also re ...

' annual "30 Under 30" list in the Games category. * In 2019, Cavanagh's game ''Dicey Dungeons'' won the 2019

Grand Jury award.

Games

References

External links

*
The Escapist interview with Terry CavanaghThe Spelunky Showlike — Making Generous Games with Terry Cavanagh
1984 births Indie video game developers Irish video game designers Living people Video game programmers Irish expatriates in England Browser game developers {{Ireland-bio-stub