Minecraft:Ryan Holtz

Ryan Holtz is a former game developer at Minecraft:Mojang Studios who worked on the rendering engine of Minecraft:Minecraft. His employment at Mojang was announced on November 2, 2013 at the "Future of Minecraft" panel at Minecraft:MINECON 2013.<ref name=panel>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttBSiK01Mdg&t=26m34s</ref> His first day at the Mojang office was November 18, 2013.<ref>Template:Tweet</ref>

Biography

Holtz is from Buffalo, New York.<ref>Template:Tweet</ref> In his early teens, he was diagnosed with autism. He says he "technically [has] "Autism Level 1" according to the DSM-V, which is the new name for Asperger's."<ref>Template:Tweet</ref>

Holtz is a graduate of East Tennessee State University in computer science,<ref name="Bat Country" /> who has been involved in the video game industry since 2005.<ref name=panel /> He started his career at EA Tiburon working on Superman Returns, then later for Activision at Vicarious Visions working on the Guitar Hero series.<ref name="Bat Country" /><ref>Template:Tweet</ref>

Holtz is well known for his Minecraft mods, which he posted on the Minecraft:Minecraft Forums under the name UltraMoogleMan.<ref name=panel /><ref>Template:Tweet</ref> His modding led to talks with Minecraft:Markus Persson about the implications of increasing Minecraft's then world height of 128.<ref>https://web.archive.org/web/0/http://notch.tumblr.com/post/7799649091/sharing-an-interesting-email</ref>

On January 29, 2015, Holtz announced on his Twitter page if anyone knew of any game studios in Stockholm that are hiring.<ref>Template:Tweet</ref> While the tweet did not make it clear whether or not this was the truth or simply a joke, the employees page on the Mojang Support website no longer stated him as a game developer.

On February 8, 2015, Mojang confirmed Holtz is no longer an employee,<ref>Template:Tweet</ref> but did not release a formal announcement about it.

On April 1, 2015, Holtz announced that he was hired by Minecraft:King to help develop Template:W.<ref>Template:Tweet</ref> Due to the coincidental timing of the announcement, he confirmed that it was not an April Fools' joke the next day.<ref>Template:Tweet</ref>

Work on Minecraft

Holtz designed and implemented Minecraft:rabbits, although the design was later heavily modified in Minecraft:Tiny Takeover. He also added the old Customized world type, which was an adaptation of his mod Wedge.

Trivia

• Holtz's Minecraft skin is a moogle from the Final Fantasy game series.<ref>Template:Tweet</ref> Holtz says "[He's] been considering making a custom player renderer just for [his] model so [he] can have proper moogle wings, similar to Nathan's model being upside-down, but [he] just can't seem to find the time."<ref>Template:Reddit</ref>
• Holtz has played the trombone.<ref>Template:Tweet</ref>

Gallery

• Holtz's Twitter avatar
  Holtz's Twitter avatar
• Holtz showing his skin
  Holtz showing his skin
• Holtz showing his cape
  Holtz showing his cape
• TheMogMiner with some other developers
  TheMogMiner with some other developers