Matt Burnett

Welcome stalkers!

First & foremost I am a career driven person. I love what I do, I’m good at what I do, & I want to get better at what I do. But because of that, I need a lot of release.

I’ve worked in a ton of stuff over the years, starting out in ColdFusion,then to Java,to React & JavaScript,to TypeScript,with a little bit of C# & GoLangin there too, I’ve even dabbled in a bit of Scala,but it’s been years. I am really looking forward to what Denobrings to the table & have really high hopes for it, but haven’t messed around with it a ton myself. Now that I’m in a Ruby on Railsshop I need to learn that soon. And when I have the choice, PostgreSQLis my go-to database, but I have been experimenting with GraphDBs lately.

I’d prefer to not work without a Mac,but I could deal with Linux if I had to. Even though I love my Macs I’m not a fan of iPhones & have been a Google Pixel/Nexususer since at least the Nexus 4.

Hobbies

So, like I said on the front page I have a ton of hobbies... probably too many. I’ve done a good bit of backpacking, love playing board or card games, sometimes sculpt with clay, I make mini-terrain out of foam & basically trash, paint minis, 3D printing, dabble in writing, trying to learn to draw again, I’m pretty good at PhotoShop but no professional, huge movie buff when it comes to quality or anything with an action/adventure vibe to it, same thing with TV but I am obsessed with most adult cartoons (Futurama, Rick & Morty, American Dad, Invincible, etc.) or anything nerdy, comic books, fiction novels, & the list goes on.

Then I also like mixing in my love of technology & coding skills in with all of these things. I am constantly spinning up a service, community, or at least doing some kind of Proof of Concept or something related to one of my hobbies. I ❤️ mentoring programmers when I can. I love to see people succeed & feel like I’ve probably changed more than a few lives this way.

Not to mention, I love just chatting with people in online communities like Slack, Discord, Reddit, or anywhere there is a place to chat.

Dabbled in Streaming & the birth of hypnoCode

For a while I did a bit of Twitch Streaming,where I mostly streamed programming & a little gaming, but that was mostly demoing my app. Here’s a little clip from one of my streams where I died playing Albion Online while demoing one of my projects called Portaler. This was pretty early on an my streaming quality picked up a lot before I quit. I picked up the name “hypnoCode” as a streaming name & have kept it for my main online screen name. My screen name “mawburn” still remains purely professional. You’ll usually find me online using this name most actively. Especially on Redditor Discord as hypnoCode#4242.

The only reason I quit was because it was difficult with my daughter’s bedtime schedule which made me stream very late at night, when there are almost no viewers. I’d definitely like to get back to it, especially if I was able to play a TTRPG on stream.

Boardgames & TTRPGs

I love playing & hosting games at my house as well as at game shops. Board games have been a passion for a number of years & is strong enough that I had a lovely custom built dining room table made that converts into a gaming table. My favorite games are Scythe, Here to Slay, Dice Throne, Sushi Go, & a few other good games. I just like good time with good friends & good drinks.

TTRPGs

Most recently I’ve dove head-first into the magical world of Tabletop Role-Playing Games & other collective story-telling games. I started watching Wil Wheaton’s Titansgrave actual play YouTube series way back in 2015, but didn’t make the leap myself until 2020. Mostly out of not knowing anyone to play with & social anxiety.

I fell in love! It mixes so many of my favorite things, like storytelling, mini-painting, board gaming, terrain building, & getting together with friends to just sit around a table & have fun with each other. Even if it’s a virtual table.

Not only did I fall in love with the genre itself, I fell in love with being the Game Master... which has completely changed me as a person. It has helped me learn leadership skills, it has helped me get comfortable with talking in front of groups about things I have no idea about, & it has let me scratch tons of creative itches I have outside of programming. Here is a post on Reddit, with more pictures of my table & me running my first game of Deadlands: The Weird West.

I dabbled a bit in Dungeons & Dragons, but quickly realized I wasn’t a huge fan of the system nor the high fantasy genre so I started looking other places. After a bit of searching, I was introduced to Savage Worlds & made my home there. I still like other systems, like games by Free League Publishing, & others. But Savage Worlds is a great generic system. Deadlands: The Weird West is the original setting for Savage Worlds & probably still one of the best. But the system can handle everything from Fantasy to Realism to SciFi & literally everything in between.

On my PROJECTS page, you’ll find 2 main projects I’ve started in this genre. The first is called Agents of Syn, which is a Living World or West Marches style campaign set in the beautiful world of Crystal Heart, & secondly a local gaming club called The Carolina Roleplayers’ Society, which I was able to secure the domain CLTRPG.com!