Maddy Thorson

Who Maddy Thorson is

Maddy Thorson is a game designer and programmer credited as one of the creators of Celeste. Her own site presents her work under the name Madeline Stephanie Thorson, calls her a lifelong maker of games, and collects what it describes as the incomplete works of her catalogue. That page states that she currently works at EXOK, a game studio that, in its words, she and her friends created, while the Maddy Makes Games pages hold her earlier releases.

The official Celeste site lists Maddy Thorson first among the game's credits, ahead of Noel Berry, Amora B., Pedro Medeiros, Lena Raine, Power Up Audio and Heidy Motta. EXOK's own team page, which carries no publication date, describes the studio as independent and based in Vancouver, Canada, and lists Thorson's title there as Director of R&D, with Noel Berry listed as computer programmer.

Celeste and TowerFall

Celeste is listed on Steam with a release date of 25 January 2018, developed by Maddy Makes Games Inc. and Extremely OK Games, Ltd. and published by Maddy Makes Games Inc. The store description presents it as the work of the creators of TowerFall, the multiplayer archery game, and the Celeste official site gives seven names and teams in its credits, Thorson among them.

Thorson's own catalogue dates TowerFall to 11 March 2014 for PC and consoles and notes that it was made with EXOK. The same page dates Celeste Classic, the PICO-8 version of the mountain climb, to 21 July 2015 and credits it to Thorson and Noel Berry together. Thorson introduces the catalogue herself as the incomplete works of Madeline Stephanie Thorson and notes on the page that she enjoys talking about herself in the third person.

What did Maddy Thorson make before Celeste?

Her site's catalogue of earlier releases begins with Jumper, dated 11 February 2004 for Windows PC, and Jumper Two, dated 18 June 2004. Both carry a content warning on the site for ableist language. The list continues with Flail on 19 March 2008, Jumper Three on 20 August 2008, MoneySeize on 2 July 2009, Give Up, Robot on 6 May 2010 and Give Up Robot 2 on 16 September 2010.

Two later entries sit between those games and Celeste. Celeste Classic 2: Lani's Trek is dated 25 January 2021 and credited to Thorson with Noel Berry and Lena Raine, and Celeste 64: Fragments of the Mountain is dated 30 January 2024 and credited to Thorson with EXOK. Her site also keeps an archive of older games and jam games under the heading Oldies and Oddities, and lists tools she built for other developers: Ogmo Editor 3, described there as a multi-purpose level editor, and Lunar Helper, a build system for Super Mario World projects.

What has she written about her own games?

Her site also collects short articles she wrote about her games, among them Celeste & Forgiveness and Celeste & TowerFall Physics. In an article dated 5 November 2020, Is Madeline Canonically Trans?, she wrote that she is trans and that she did not know this about herself, or about the character Madeline, while Celeste was in development, and that creating the game with her friends helped her reach that conclusion.

Quick facts

Maddy Thorson's own site presents her as Madeline Stephanie Thorson, a lifelong maker of games, whose catalogue runs from Jumper on 11 February 2004 to TowerFall on 11 March 2014, Celeste Classic on 21 July 2015, Celeste Classic 2: Lani's Trek on 25 January 2021 and Celeste 64: Fragments of the Mountain on 30 January 2024. Celeste was released on 25 January 2018 according to its Steam listing. Her site states that she now works at EXOK, where the team page lists her as Director of R&D.

Questions people ask