Mattias Köhlmark

Production Director @ Toca Boca. Ex Paradox Interactive. Ex DICE/Battlefield. My tweets are my own.

[Martin Lindell @martinlindell]

Good times! From the massive launch to the tail end when we were a small team carrying on releasing free updates.

[Erik Ortman @freeortman]

Happy 10th birthday Battlefield 4, my first game in the industry that still holds a special place in my heart <3

[Gustaf Alströmer @gustaf]

Today is the deadline to apply for Y Combinator. https://t.co/SFm21y2MMN.

17 years ago, I was sitting with my co-founders Marie and Pelle (and later Michael) in our freezing New York apartment crafting our YC application. The first sentence of our application still makes sense today. But it was as revolutionary then, and it seems obvious today:

“We are creating a mobile social networking application that enables free interoperable mobile instant messaging on your mobile handset.”

Marie sent the email, and in that moment, we had no idea what life-changing decision we had just made. Our startup Heysan didn’t become Whatsapp (Whatsapp became Whatsapp), but joining the winter 2007 batch would shape our lives in almost every aspect. Two of us became US citizens and decided to stay here. We all still work on startups in one way or another. For me personally, the most valuable thing was understanding that taking risks isn’t that risky, and if you want to do something, you just do it - don't wait. And it all started with an email that we sent to [email protected].

Today, we don’t accept applications over email anymore, but you can apply https://t.co/SFm21y2MMN. And if you read this after the deadline - you can still apply!

Here is something I wrote for my group in the last batch. I think it applies to founders who are just about to apply just as well:

“One of the best parts of working at YC is that sometimes I get to watch a startup go from nothing to becoming a large company that changes society around us, and something mundane in life suddenly gets infinitely better.

That only happens because founders like yourself are willing to take some risks and get that journey started. Soon, we will do demo day practice, and I vividly remember when Retool practiced their pitch until 3am, and we told David, “You are done - time to go home!“. It was a similar feeling watching Alex and Shuo at Deel - they pivoted literally a few weeks before demo day into what today is Deel and a $12B company. So many of the best YC companies had almost nothing at this point in the batch - it’s easy to forget. And from the outside, it’s easy to imagine investors / other people thinking, “How can THIS company be worth this much or feel so confident when they have almost nothing”.

The trick I’ve learned about being a founder is that it starts with you. If you truly believe in what you are building and how that will change the world, all you have to do is tell the investors with the same level of confidence you feel about this change. And I can tell that a lot of you felt that conviction this week. Becoming good at communicating that conviction will help you hire, sell, fundraise, and convince the rest of the world to believe in what you are building, even though it might not feel like much right now to you.

Good luck, everyone, next week. One of the best pieces of advice I’ve ever got is when you are walking into a meeting you feel nervous about - pretend like you have known them your entire life. Don’t get attached to the outcome - just tell your story.”

Good luck!

[Retro 🎨🕹️🎮 Pixel Art Academy @retronator]

When you try to make a rocket game at a game jam and after 4 days you've got just the propellant tank simulation working. 🤦‍♂️ #fml

[Jonathan Cooper @GameAnim]

Aladdin (1993) for Genesis/MegaDrive - animation line tests and sprite optimisation process.

[Johanna Nylander @nylander]

148. I dag önskar jag alla mammor i branschen en glad mors dag med mycket speltid! Fler vuxna kvinnor spelar än tonårspojkar, och vi spelar oftare på mobiler. #DagensSpelfakta

[Benji-Sales @BenjiSales]

Marathon from Bungie announced

[Toca Boca @tocaboca]

The OFFICIAL Toca Boca merch collection is HERE!❣️ Which is YOUR fave? 🙋 The keychain?🔑 The sloth slippers? 🦥 The Voxella tee? 👕 Something else or ALL OF IT? 🤔 Tell us in comments 💬 & pre-order on https://t.co/F6JiTvAO3e 🛒 And yes! We ship GLOBALLY! 🌎

[Tom Francis 🔜🪦 @Pentadact]

Adding helicopters near the start of game dev:
"A Helicopter is a Vehicle."

Adding helicopters late in game dev:
"When you think about it, a Helicopter is just a very advanced type of Door."

[Mattias Köhlmark @mattek]

@HannaFriden

[Mattias Köhlmark @mattek]

@vonOben

[Mattias Köhlmark @mattek]

@codeapeorg

[Mattias Köhlmark @mattek]

@werejul A dry reference book? Sign me up! :) Can I borrow it?

[Maksym Zhuravlov @MaksZhuravlov]

I remember when I finished the anim system for TLOU2 combat doors, I thought “Maybe much. But it’s all done now. We have it and we gonna reuse it forever. Cause like what more one can possibly desire from this damned door? Right?“.

Oh boy
WAS. I. WRONG.

[Mattias Köhlmark @mattek]

@rektor_linnea Vart kan man köpa denna typ av övningsböcker? Har letat runt men verkar inte finnas att köpa för privatpersoner?

[Ari Arnbjörnsson @flassari]

What's this?
"Epic Games Store: Self-Service Publishing" 👀
"Procedural Content Generation in UE5" ⁉
"The Verse Programming Language" 😲
"Creating Your First Game in Fortnite" at an @UnrealEngine event? 👀👀

Looks like this GDC will be interesting!

https://t.co/lXbQuIGrfn

[Dexerto @Dexerto]

Can you believe this was made in Unreal Engine 5?

[Del @TheCartelDel]

This photo of Hideki Kamiya with his mother answers every question I've ever had about the guy who created Devil May Cry and Bayonetta.