My name is Matthew Davey; a father, a loving partner, the founder of dotBunny, and the PTBO Game Jam. You might also know me better by the alias, Reapazor. I live in the beautiful city of Peterborough, Ontario, Canada, and work as a game developer internationally.
My obsession with programming started in the mid-90s, which sparked my first successful games industry startup GameDaemons in 2002. I continue to work in and around the video game industry on many popular titles, with over 135 shipped projects. I’ve held positions on many educational institutes’ advisory boards, dabbled in education, and enjoy giving back to the community wherever possible.
dotBunny
In July 2006, I started dotBunny with a single guiding directive. To create a company where clients could turn to industry veterans to solve their most complex problems with simple yet elegant solutions. This principle has guided the company ever since and has allowed us to focus on word-of-mouth referrals to grow. In May 2020, we began to start pre-production on our own internal title. Making other people’s dreams a reality is great and profitable. It was, however, time for us to live up to our “we make games” tagline.
dotBunny is very much an indie game development studio, and we own it. While I wear many hats inside the company, I still see myself as a video game developer.
While indie, we still have some big ambitions for ourselves and Peterborough’s tech sector. We are betting the bank on our project, with the hopes of restoring a proper brick and mortar video game studio in Peterborough. This dream won’t happen overnight, but it is a great goal, and we are taking steps to make it a reality.
PTBO Game Jam
In July 2016, I started the PTBO Game Jam; my philanthropic give back to Peterborough and the surrounding community. It is a bi-annual not-for-profit event with the intent to foster and support the local video game development industry. In other not so convoluted words, I’m trying to create some tech industry hype in Peterborough. The event has since grown to something that I could never have imagined possible. With each iteration of the PTBO Game Jam, the formula gets tweaked and improved. The momentum behind it is simply incredible.
Why be an Indie Game Developer in Peterborough?
I moved to Peterborough to go to university while working already in the video games industry remotely. The town and community grew on me over the years, and I decided to stay and base dotBunny here. While the city has its many quirks, there is still a good foundation of people here, and those people deserve so much more. The natural beauty of the town also amazes me, and it’s the abundance of green space. It is a great place to live and raise a family, even with the quirks
What does a Game Developer do in their spare time?
The same things that you do silly! While game developers are awesome by the very nature of what we do for a living. We are all still just regular people. In my spare time, I do enjoy playing video games, my preference being to play some local multiplayer games with friends. There is something incredible about competitive gameplay when you are in the same room. As you probably guessed, my alias on all the platforms is Reapazor.
I also enjoy cooking, finding it a relaxing change from the average pace of game development. I’m also a pretty big nerd (clearly), but I have those elusive social skills that transform me into a geek.
Reapazor?
The “Reapazor” name that confuses many people has a simple origin. Many years ago, when the internet had a smaller reach, I used the alias “Reaper”. As the landscape of the internet changed, so did its density of users. Eventually, I was running into other Reapers, to no fault of their own. I was working at one of the GameDaemons offices in Dallas one summer and was discussing the problem with a colleague. His recommendation, given he was experiencing a similar issue, was that we turn our aliases into dinosaurs.
It has a nice ring to it, and I have yet to find anyone else that has a remotely similar name. It also makes getting usernames on different social media platforms a lot easier. Let’s not even start the conversation about domain trolls, that’s a thing of the past for this Reapazor.
Rea ● pa ● zor – Matthew Davey, an indie game developer based in Peterborough, Ontario, Canada
The Forgotten Soul 