Mau Salamon (He/Him)

Game Developer and Writer

Hi, I'm Mau! A guy who loves to read, listen and tell stories. I also love to make and play games and develop cool stuff ♥

Since my childhood, one of my passions is to create and play tales about sorts of adventurers and worlds. Since 2012 I'm lucky for I can use this professionally through various jobs, from writing for marketing and advertising pieces to the narrative design of whole products in the games industry. Through my career I performed a variety of roles in software and game development areas. Check out some of these works below!

Say hi.

       

Triangle

Game Design and Code

An ocean exploration adventure of seek and retrieve made for #BrackeysGameJam 2023. This is a game about ocean seek and retrieve, that means you have to work with the two vehicles (Boat and Probe) and use their coordinates in order to find relics in the depth.
  • The Boat only moves in X and Z coordinates with a top view.
  • The Probe moves in X and Y in a lateral view.
  • Use the Probe to find the relics, bring the Probe back to the Boat and take it to the right spot to release it again.
  • Collect 4 relics to complete and the oceans will be calm again.

Little Shop in the Woods (2023)

Writing

Embark on a chapter of this ? fantastical ? narrative about cute animals dealing with adult life dilemmas. 

A fun and beautiful story in which you'll help Finian Froggo on taking care of Echorus, a tiny little variety shop on the edge of the woods, while discovering situations with the different residents of the peaceful Cordeal.

Submission to NaNoRenO 2023.

Deathrun (2023)

Game Design, Code, Art and Sound

It's year 2112. Humanity collapsed from nuclear wars. Those who survived struggle to find their way through the marshes and scorched lands, fighting against smugglers, marauders and the horrendous beasts called "mutazione". News breaks out about a promised land where you can raise your beloved and missing child. Your duty for now is to defend yourself amidst those beasts, so watch out and don't turn yourself in one of them! Also, you have the best partner these days, a V8 powered tunned muscle car. Good luck!

Lost Feathers From a Heartful Bird (2022)

Book of Poems

A bird learns to flap its wings from an early stage, and it does so in a courageous way. Leaping into the unknown, many can say that it’s not the bird that does by itself but is thrown, which does not soothe the courage and bravery awakened within. Some of our human days are like the first days of a bird, we need to do leaps of faith, face the falls, get up, learn, evolve, be thrown, believe and disbelieve, trust again, cry out in tears or sing in delight. And it’s along this journey that the feathers detach and fall, like objects of remembrance or milestones in history, each with its own beauty and sentimental charge. This is my first book of poetry, a collection of poems and essays written between 2003 and 2022, full of feelings and emotions experienced during my journey, changes, losses and achievements. I hope these readings make your mind fly and give you really good times, like they did to me when I lived and wrote off those feelings.

Short Stories Collection #1 (2022)

Kindle Book

The book Short Stories Collection is a collection of short stories, illustrated and presented in comics format. Each story has its own genre and narrative tone, may or not contain dialogue or exposition, and is illustrated by a different artist with their own visual style. Volume 1 of the collection has 7 stories in a total of more than 60 pages of worlds, characters and conflicts built by the collaboration between the writer and the artists.

"PINK CHICK" (2022)

Screenplay

This script was made for the NYC Midnight Screenwriting Challenge 2022. In the contest I got a genre (Fantasy), a theme (Desertion), a character (A mother hen) and a week to write it in 12 pages max. I adopted a reduced monomyth structure for this plot and the scenes an features I used where thought to be developed as an animation short movie. Even if I didn't make it to the next round, I received great compliments and improvement suggestions from the judges.

Cool stuff:
  • My first official international industry-level contest
  • Working with constraints
  • Great feedbacks from the judges

NYC Midnight

Inspiring challenges for storytellers.
www.nycmidnight.com

"Gaucho and the Grassland" by Epopeia Games (2021)

Narrative Design Doctoring

When I was working at Monster Crossing Studio, the company was a member of the local game developers association (https://adjogosrs.com.br/). I met the Epopeia's team in some events I attend for Monster Crossing and I volunteered to contribute with the narrative design of several games, in a doctoring format.

Cool stuff:
  • Helped the GD team in narrative design
  • Project I volunteered for

Pedal to the Metal! (2021)

Writing

This story was written for a prompt called Into Games Design Workout where the theme was "Pedal to the Metal". As a race lover I was impelled to write about a racing competition and the challenges and turnover a race can have.

Cool stuff:
  • Working with a different narrative structure
  • Use of creative situating features, like guiding the reader through the circuit corners or the competitors positions
  • Working with a protagonist and an antagonist

"Arsenal Freestyle Show" by Hermit Crab Game Studio (2021)

Game Design, Intelligence

In this game I was responsible for the data-driven guidance, making the testing policies planning and running User Acquisition campaings through the soft launch dates. The main goal of the games was to bring a branded quality product, compatible with Arsenal FC needs and as the second own F2P game of the company.

Cool stuff:
  • Helped the GD team in narrative design
  • Improved Ads performance through AdMob
  • Created the data analysis method
  • Documented tools and processes
  • Achieved global featuring in Google Play and Apple AppStore
  • Worked with Notion, Trello, Figma, Adobe and Google suites

"PSG Football Freestyle" by Hermit Crab Game Studio (2020)

Game Design, Intelligence

In my contract with Hermit Crab Game Studio I was responsible for building the Free-to-play attuation of the publishing team. The first release game by the company is PSG Football Freestyle, initially released through a third-party publisher. One of the main goals of my work was to increase the game's revenue and bring data insights to the game design team, as well as work alongside its members to develop new features.

Cool stuff:
  • Improved Ads performance over 1000% through AdMob
  • Doubled the game installation audience (with retention incresing)
  • Organized the data collection ecossystem through partners
  • Ran the testing agenda focused on improving retention, session time and other KPIs
  • Achieved global featuring in Google Play and Apple AppStore
  • Worked with Notion, Trello, Figma, Adobe and Google suites

"Cornfield" (2020)

Screenplay

This script was made for a quick weekend prompt where I got a theme (Horror) and four names to distribute between characters. This plot was based in some stories I listenend when I was a child and some details I remember from my aunt's farmhouse. This screenplay was never produced.

Cool stuff:
  • Practicing of english writing
  • Working with constraints
  • Writing using the Celtx tool

"Tanares Adventures" by Dragori Games (2020)

Game Writing

It was a short freelance contract for designing quests for "Tanares Adventures", an expansion pack for "Arena: the Contest" boardgame. I passed through a selective process where I had to do proof of concepts. Then I worked on collaborative storylines alongside different writers.

Cool stuff:
  • Worked on storyline for new characters and lore
  • Collaborative project alongside multiple writers

"Backfirewall" by Naraven Games (2020)

Narrative Design Doctoring

I contacted Narraven team in Gamescom and they were in need of someone to guide their narrative. The goal was to review the narrative document and collaborate with new insights and overall ideas. It was a short but good experience.

Cool stuff:
  • Worked with narrative doctoring alongside a former cinema team
  • Project I volunteered for

"Outland Rapture" by Epopeia Games (2020)

Narrative Design Doctoring

When I was working at Monster Crossing Studio, the company was a member of the local game developers association (https://adjogosrs.com.br/). I met the Epopeia's team in some events I attend for Monster Crossing and I volunteered to contribute with the narrative design of several games, in a doctoring format.

Cool stuff:
  • Helped the GD team in narrative design
  • Project I volunteered for
  • Also worked in screenplay for the trailer

"Luster - A Lucid Dreams Story" (2020)

Writing, Design

Luster is a short story about a dragon, a crystal, family and strange voices. Lucid Dreams #1

Lucid Dreams is a short stories label created by me in 2015 as a relief point of view for Alzheimer and other mental illness. After the pass away of my grandfather, which spent part of his life in a bed due to a stroke, and my grandmother, which had Alzheimer, Lucid Dreams was created as a response for all the sadness and pain that mental illness could bring to a family. Each LD adventure, or journey, can be seen as a ludic point of view of loss of consciousness, or loss of reality, caused by the mental illness. Think each short story as a voyage inside the mind of a loved one and how beautiful it could be.

Cool stuff:
  • Full branched narrative experience
  • Own Twine engine based on Snowman
  • All made with free assets

"Goroons" by Epopeia Games (2019)

Narrative Design Doctoring

When I was working at Monster Crossing Studio, the company was a member of the local game developers association (https://adjogosrs.com.br/). I met the Epopeia's team in some events I attend for Monster Crossing and I volunteered to contribute with the narrative design of several games, in a doctoring format.

Cool stuff:
  • Helped the GD team in narrative design
  • Project I volunteered for
  • Also worked in screenplay for the trailer

"Slice Mania: Cooking Game" by Monster Crossing Studio (2019)

Game Design

This game was one of my concepts for our hypercasuals try-out in Monster Crossing Studio. The idea was to bring a first person cooking game experience (like Order Up! or Cooking Mama) to a hypercasual environment. A fun fact is that it was released in the same day of Perfect Slices by Say Games which interrupted our follow-up with publishers.

Cool stuff:
  • Achieved retention of over 35% in day 1
  • Opened doors to work with hypercasual publishers like Kwalee, Voodoo and Lion
  • Began our hypercasual early prototyping mindset inside the company

"Beautiful Planets" (2019)

Game Design

Similarly to Slice Mania: Cooking Game this was one of my concepts for a hypercasual. It was prototyped in a week and the idea consists in bringing a planet exploration experience in a hypercasual way. The game was our entrance in conversations with Lion (then AppLovin) for testing our hypercasuals and talking about prototyping deals. As I was playing No Man's Sky at that time I programmed a name generation algorithm in Javascript and ported it to C# for using in Unity. The idea was that every planet had a unique name. For this I used a database of filtered words to prevent bad names of appearing.

Cool stuff:
  • A first of a kind game that opened opportunities with Lion (AppLovin) for the studio
  • Developed an algorithm for unique name generation
  • Only one week from concept to the published prototype

"Words Fantasy" by Ludomachine (2019)

Game Design

This game was a friend's concept he brought to Monster Crossing team. The idea was to mix a RPG experience with casual word finding games.

Cool stuff:
  • Helped the game designer in core loop decisions
  • Studied about letter combination algorithms for the mechanics

"Time of While" (2019)

Screenplay

This script was my first short animation movie and I wrote it in a month-length screenwriting workshop. This screenplay was never produced.

Cool stuff:
  • Practicing of english translation and writing
  • Character and bond construction
  • Writing using the Celtx tool

"It's a Long Way To The Top (If You Wanna Be a CEO)" by Monster Crossing Studio (2018)

Game Design

t's a Long Way To the Top (If You Wanna Be a CEO) is a modern 2D platformer, a dystopian adventure set in a corporation, all done in pixel art and with a nostalgic 80s / 90s vibe. Through level repetition mechanics and skill building, you will face some very gnarly corporate enemies, chit-chat with some secretaries, and find out that not all is as it seems. Sounds pretty crazy? Well, you can bet that working at Circle 9 is not quite normal!

The game was originally planned as a traditional linear platform game, with a two-years development as a team of four people. After the first three-months of development I recognized the team won't be able to deliver the full scope, then me (as Producer) and the Game Director decided to shorten the game features, turning it into a rogue-lite experience with procedurally generated levels and 4 bosses.

Cool stuff:
  • Responsible for Level and Narrative Design
  • Developed the procedural levels through a room connection system programmed from scratch
  • Self-published in Steam and partnerships with streamers (PR)
  • Experienced working with dev kit and publishing for Xbox though the game was never released for the platform
  • Co-production, responsible for shortening of the game scope and its features (yes, the bad guy)

"Connectron" by Monster Crossing Studio (2018)

Screenplay, Design

"Jumpeer" (2018)

Game Design

"Update Centro" (2017)

Screenplay

"Meow Meow Adventures" by Oddside Game Studio (2017)

Game Design

"Revista 360º" (2016)

Writing, Design

"Faça o Futuro" (2015)

Screenplay

"Dromme Effects" (2012)

Writing, Design