About
My name is Charles, otherwise known by my online alias "stixc" (pronounced "sticks"). I am a 23 year old game developer, musician/sound designer and graphic artist from Memphis, TN working on my pet project CyberAnima, a retro cinematic FPS inspired by Half-Life, Metroid Prime, and a plethora of other late 90s/early 2000s media.I suffer from high-functioning autism, ADHD, anxiety, and a variety of other mental problems, and as a result, I'm a very introverted, shy, yet zen kind of person. Aside from game dev, I also make music, previously making dubstep music as Digiwire before retiring in 2021 to focus on game development. I also like to draw, and I like to tinker with technology, but don't expect me to be a professional artist or IT technician any time.I currently have a job, and even though I'm getting paid just fine, it'd be nice if you donate if you support my work!
Biography:
I was born in Memphis, TN, USA on October 23rd 2001. I was initially diagnosed with low-functioning autism and ADHD at an early age and for a while up until the mid to late 2000s, was non-verbal. However as time progressed, many of those elements diminished, such as being non-verbal. I was later re-diagnosed with high-functioning autism (or Asperger's Syndrome) a couple years afterwards.I've wanted to become a game developer ever since I began playing games as a toddler. The very first game I played was The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time on the Nintendo 64, and it left a huge impression on me and sparked my deep interest in video games over other mediums. Though I also had interest in other things, such as art/cartoons, music and technology/IT, making games seemed to be the medium that suit me future wise. In the late 2000s I started learning programming through websites like Scratch, then later I dabbled in HTML and Python with mixed results. Alongside coding I explored game modding, tinkering with games like Blockland, Half-Life, Left 4 Dead, Doom, and Quake. I experimented with engines like Game Maker, Stencyl, Multimedia Fusion (later Clickteam Fusion), and Unity as well at a young age.Despite my interest, coding always intimidated me—likely due to my ADHD or something else. And to this day, coding remains my Achilles' heel. As a kid and tween, my game development efforts mostly involved sketching ideas, doodling characters, and writing concepts, whilst hoping my adult self would someday accept how game development works proper.But in the meantime in the early 2010s, like many zoomer kids of my generation, I was in the process of making dubstep music. From 2012 onward, I taught myself music production and sound design, and some time by 2018 I was officially releasing music as Digiwire. While I now find dubstep somewhat cringey and annoying (and for the fact I've mostly disowned the music I made during this era), I still feel proud of what I achieved and the skills I developed in music and sound design. During this time (2012-2016) I also created YouTube videos, including machinima in Blockland and Garry's Mod, alongside general life stuff. However looking back and recalling from memory, they're pretty cringey and naive and I'm sort of glad they're lost media. I can be sentimental about many things, but my old videos aren’t one of them.Afterwards the COVID-19 pandemic hit, giving me a chance to dive back into game development. I downloaded Unreal Engine and started learning the Blueprints system for it's ease of use. This marked the beginning of my hobby project CyberAnima and the end of my music "career" as Digiwire. After a year of working in Unreal I switched to Godot due to its lightweight nature, which was perfect for CyberAnima. This is because it allows me to authentically replicate the PS2/GameCube era graphics, a challenge I found tricky to tackle with Unreal.As of 2025, I’m still working on CyberAnima. However, mental roadblocks, personal issues, and other life challenges can cause development to be very sluggish in some regards. Despite the issues, I remain committed to finishing CyberAnima. Though life has been brutal in some areas, I haven’t given up on what I love the most. But once it's done and it's released, then I'll celebrate in the most hardcore fashion imaginable.
Games
CyberAnima
A retro early 2000s cinematic action-adventure FPS
(In development; pet project currently)
NOT AVAILABLE FOR PURCHASE/DOWNLOAD
(still in development!)
CyberAnima is a retro cinematic FPS akin to Half-Life with some elements inspired by Metroid Prime and other related titles. Its graphics, music, and story take inspiration from a plethora of late 90s/early 2000s media as well.In the game, you are going after a technology conglomerate nearing the cusp of the new millennium, preventing them from unleashing something unspeakable before time runs out. The game is being built using Godot 4.I've been chipping away at this game since the start of the pandemic around 2020 or so. Development is very slow since I am still a novice developer with an ADHD infested mind and limited coding knowledge, but I swear on my own oath it will kick ass once it's ready. It will be released when it's done.
Gearhaed
A third-person mech combat game
(Scrapped Nov. 2023)
NOT AVAILABLE FOR DOWNLOAD
Gearhaed was supposed to be a small scale mech game akin to MechWarrior 2, Shattered Steel, Armored Core, etc. It was aiming for more of a mid-90s esque style with it's PS1/early MS-DOS 3D graphics. It was scrapped because I wanted it to be small scale and simple, but I got too ambitious with it and I scrapped it because of that.
Flatzone Maximus
A Quake map jam entry
(Sept. 28th 2022)
Flatzone Maximus is my entry for the Quake Brutalist Jam, and is pretty much my first and only Quake map. I made it within 10 days for a two-week jam, and even though it has flaws, it was something I made for shiggles, for funsies, alongside the fact it was the first ever map I released publicly.
Stickfigurate
A crude simple hand-drawn FPS
(Scrapped Nov. 2021 + March 2022)
NOT AVAILABLE FOR DOWNLOAD
This was a simple FPS game I wanted to make just to make a quick buck or so, originally being developed within GZDoom, before switching to an easy peasy FPS editor someone made, before scrapping altogether because I didn't like how the game was turning out on a lot of levels. The game could return in name and art-style, but the gameplay will probably won't be like this.
Music
Drones of Sleep, Insomnia and Strange
2022, ambient/drone/sleep-aid
At the end of 2022, I released the ambient album Drones of Sleep, Insomnia and Strange (or DSIS) on Bandcamp. It is a compilation of ambient music I made from late 2019 till mid 2022 or so, mostly worked around the time when COVID hit. It is inspired by Aphex Twin's Selected Ambient Works Vol. II, alongside the works of Brian Eno and Biosphere. The purpose of the album is to help me sleep, being full of melodic drones and noises that are calming in my ears.I am considering creating a follow up in the far future, we shall see.
Other Music
I make all kinds of music aside from the DSIS album above, and I sometimes dump stuff occasionally on my SoundCloud. However I haven't used it in a long time since I'm focused (music-wise) on creating CyberAnima's soundtrack than anything original. Maybe when I have time I can create more music, either another sleep aid album like DSIS, or something new entirely. I dunno.And again, I have a Bandcamp account, but the DSIS album is the only thing that's on there since it's a fully complete album.I also used to make dubstep/loud EDM music as Digiwire, but I retired in 2021 and have mostly disowned most of the music I made as Digiwire. I don't like that kind of electronic music anymore, and as grateful as I am to have the music/sound design knowledge from this project, it was during a pretty embarrassing period of my life. You can still listen to my old Digiwire stuff on my SoundCloud, and buy off the Bandcamp too.
My personal SoundCloud/Bandcamp:
Digiwire SoundCloud/Bandcamp:
Contact
You can directly email me anything using this contact form. If it's buisness related, something super important, etc then I'll try to reply ASAP.
Elsewhere if you don't want to mail me, then I have DMs open on Discord (username is just "stixc"), and I'm also on Bluesky if you want to message me there. (not going to use X/Twitter's DMs due to bots and problems).