
Maciej Biedrzycki
When others were learning how to read, Maciek was already writing his first programs in Basic and, later, in other programming languages. Years later, together with a high school friend, he began working on an epic crpg game called Spellscape. Although the game was never finished, it made a huge impact on his career. During his studies, he gathered other game enthusiasts and founded Poland's first game development university major. But rendering semitransparent boxes and optimizing pathfinding algorithms wasn’t enough for him. He wanted to work on games on a commercial level. Without any hesitation, he cofounded his first game development studio, Codeminion. After some tough beginnings, the two-person studio created its biggest hit: Magic Match. From this time on, it began expanding and releasing widely acclaimed casual games.
The company was doing great but Maciek realized that he wanted to do something even bigger and better. Something that had been sprouting in his mind for quite some time. And that’s how the idea behind Return 2 Games was born.
He is meticulous, and his (sometimes pathological) attention to detail forces him to work hard on anything he believes in, whether it's polishing particle effects in games or composing and playing music.
Maciek is a huge horror movie fan and Star Trek enthusiast. He knows the captain's room number on the U. S. S. Enterprise and the Galaxy-class vessel’s maximum warp velocity. He will buy, take or steal anything dinosaur-related (from actual bones, to dinosaur-shaped candy).
If you ever have to give him bad news, be sure to preface it with Pekin Duck or a white chocolate dessert. This should put him in a good mood.
Best known for:
- co-founding Codeminion and Crunching Koalas
- developing Magic Match, Ancient Quest of Saqqarah
- kicking ass in Hearthstone while training on his cardio bike
- annoying countless musicians by creating the cgMusic algorithmic composer
- a difficult (as it is not easy to find in Poland nowadays) but true love for Coca-Cola Light
- constantly avoiding playing DotA 2 and paintball with Konstanty and Filip
Author posts (28):
BOOK OF ALIENS JUNE ’22 DEV UPDATE
In the last few updates we’ve been covering some important design influences and decisions, but today I’d like to change the subject a bit and for a moment return to the visual side of things. It is something of a tradition for us to start... more
BOOK OF ALIENS APRIL ’22 DEV UPDATE
Continuing the theme started with the previous update, today I’d like to share more games that inspired us when designing Book of Aliens. Last time I talked about thematic influences and the X-Com games. Today I’d like to name a title that... more
BOOK OF ALIENS MARCH ’22 DEV UPDATE
In this update, I’d like to take a break from showcasing the efforts of our art team, and pivot to the design side. In particular, over the next few updates, I’d like to talk about third-party games that had a big influence on our... more
BOOK OF ALIENS FEBRUARY ’22 DEV UPDATE
Today I’d like to share another screen that we recently designed for Book of Aliens. We call this the Mission Landscape screen. It serves as the background for the mission part of the game. This is the part that sits right between the top-level... more
BOOK OF ALIENS JANUARY ’22 DEV UPDATE
January is traditionally a month of planning, organizing, and looking back at the progress made in the last year. It is no different for us - unfortunately in our case designing and planning are handled by the same people so we have a bit of a... more
Book of Aliens December ’21 Dev Update
Last month I talked about the challenges and quirks of designing a paper Earth for Book of Aliens. If you missed it, you can find it here. Today I can show you the final concept! We’re quite happy with the result. Witnessing and coordinating a... more
Paper Earths: Book of Aliens November ’21 Dev Update
What does a paper planet look like? That’s a question we’ve been pondering lately in the art department of Book of Aliens. There are infinitely many ways you can fold paper Earth, and there are countless possibilities when it comes to dealing... more
Book of Aliens October ’21 Dev Update
This month’s update will be shorter than the previous one. Book of Aliens pre-production is progressing on two fronts - design and graphics. In terms of design, we have completed the first draft of the full design which ties together all... more
The September Development Update
As promised in the last update, we’re kicking off our monthly updates on the state of the game’s development. Since this is the first one, it will focus on more general things to give you an overview. The following ones will be shorter and I... more
Mid 2021 Update: why is making games such a lengthy process?
Book of Demons, the first game in our Return 2 Games series, was released in December of 2018. Our initial plans stated that Hellcard, our Book of Demons spin-off, would release into early access by the end of 2019, and that Book of Aliens... more
2020 Roadmap: Hellcard and Book of Aliens Announced
2019 was a particularly chaotic time for all of us here at Thing Trunk! A whole year has passed since Book of Demons went out of Early Access, so it’s high time we share with you what we’ve been up to for the last 12 months. In the spirit... more
Book of Demons’ prototype now in Collectors’ Content DLC!
Game developers don't share their early working concepts of games - the prototypes - often. When they do it's usually super interesting to see how the game changed and get a glimpse into the creation process. That's why we would like to... more
What’s next for Book of Demons and Return 2 Games
It’s been a whole month since Book of Demons went out of Early Access and the launch dust has settled a bit, so we feel it’s the right moment to talk about the future. Also, it’s the beginning of a new year, so what better time to make new... more
Die Demons, Die! Because every game is better with a song :)
Mark your calendars! Book of Demons is exiting Early Access on December 13th, exactly a week from now. To kickstart the daily countdown, we’re releasing a music video! If you’ve already played Book of Demons during early access, you know the... more
Book of Demons release date is set to 13th Dec!
We have been in Early Access for over two years. It's been a wild ride. Wild but awesome, thanks to you guys. We initially planned of being in Early Access for only six months but the community took the game in directions we never anticipated. We... more
Quest Mastering and the new Archdemon quest!
Quest mastering! Before you ask, the golden keys are making a comeback. The number of keys you have accumulated will be readjusted to the new system when you start the game for the first time after the update. This... more
What is the R2G Supporter’s Bundle?
If you’ve seen Book of Demons, our game, currently in Early Access on Steam, you might have come across an information that it’s the first installment in the Return 2 Games series. You might also have noticed that apart from purchasing the game... more
Book of Demons available on new Ethereum platform
Together with Gamenation, we are proud to announce that Book of Demons is now available on a brand new Ethereum based game distribution platform. This means that anyone who owns Ether cryptocurrency can now purchase our game directly, using a secure... more
The Mage has arrived!
Book of Demons just got the biggest update so far. After a short testing phase on a different branch on Steam, we are happy to announce that the long-awaited Mage character is now available to everyone and playable. You can, at last, fight monsters... more
Why is selling good games so hard? Book of Demons Early Access launch postmortem.
It seems like it was yesterday, but it’s actually been two months since we launched Book of Demons on Steam Early Access. Although most of our team at Thing Trunk has vast experience in game dev, this was the first Early Access launch for all of... more
Book of Demons is Live on Steam + Early Access Roadmap
Great news, everyone! After many years of turbulent development, Book of Demons is now live on Steam in the Early Access program! Grab the game here, or watch the release trailer below to see what you will be... more
Book of Demons Sneak-Peek Details
Although Book of Demons is still in development, people who are anxious to see our game in action will soon have an opportunity to check it out. In just 4 days, the game will be live on Steam in the Early Access program. So if you don’t want to... more
Making of the Paperverse, the art-style that binds Return 2 Games
A little over a month ago we revealed Book of Demons, the first game in our upcoming Return 2 Games series. Since then a lot of people have been complimenting and asking us about the paper art-style we adopted. This feels great because we put a... more
The marketing bus has departed! A slightly emotional postmortem of the Book of Demons reveal event ;-)
Exactly a week and one day ago we unveiled Book of Demons to the world, a project that we’ve been working on in secret at Thing Trunk for almost 4 years. And it was an absolute emotional roller coaster! It started like a disaster, but by some... more
Big news just round the corner!
If you’ve been following us on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram you probably noticed that for the past few days we’ve been teasing a big announcement coming up. Well, the big day is tomorrow and we really hope that you'll be with us when we lift... more
R2G Music Theme – Live Orchestra on an Indie Budget
When we launched our website, we promised that we’d be giving updates on the development of Return 2 Games. Since we’re still working hard to get everything ready for the big reveal of the first game in the series (which is coming up in about a... more
Return 2 Games – why the odd name?
Many people ask us, why did we come up with such an odd name for the game series we are working on. We’ve heard people wondering whether it was a smart choice marketing wise. As you can probably guess, the decision was heavily debated by our team... more
Return 2 Games Announced
It’s been too long since the golden decade of video games. Years have passed since we all could spend entire days slashing through dungeons or galloping over magical plains. But now it’s time to return to games. What we have in the works will be... more