Who is Edmund McMilen
Edmund Charles McMillen is an American video game designer and artist. He is known for his Adobe Flash games with unconventional visual styles. His works include 2010's side-scroller Super Meat Boy, 2011's roguelike game The Binding of Isaac, and its 2014 remake The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth.
His Career
McMillen's initial graphic work was in independent comics. While he has largely abandoned this field in favor of video games, he has released a series of comics featuring Meat Boy, the title character in the video game Super Meat Boy, as a promotional tie-in for the game. His most well-known games are the Flash-based game Meat Boy, and its sequel Super Meat Boy, which has been released for PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 4. McMillen is also known for the games Gish, Aether, The Binding of Isaac and Coil. Gish won Game Tunnel's 2004 Adventure Game of the Year, as well as Indie Game of the Year. His game Coil was nominated for the Innovation Award at the 2009 Independent Games Festival. McMillen was the original character artist and animator on Braid, before those assets were replaced by the work of David Hellman. Braid went on to win the Innovation Award at the 2006 Independent Games Festival prior to its release, and several awards in 2008, including GameSpot's Best Platformer, and Best Original Downloadable Console Game, and the 12th Annual Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences Awards Casual Game of the Year. His game Aether was a 2009 IndieCade finalist and received an honorable mention.
Early Life
McMillen was born on March 2, 1980, to a family of "born-again Christians" of Mexican descent. A lifelong resident of Watsonville, in Santa Cruz, California, he attended Soquel High School. He is fond of drawing, his favorite subject being monsters. McMillen spent most of his childhood with his grandmother, whom he considers to be the greatest source of support in his creative endeavors. Later in his life, McMillen received a box from his grandmother that contained all of his drawings as a child. Many of these drawings can be seen by unlocking The Box in one of his games, The Basement Collection. His childhood represents his own game creations, more specifically The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth. In an interview with Indie Game: The Movie he explains that his family was consistently riddled with alcohol and drug addiction. He was confronted by this extreme faith, which caused him religious guilt and mental problems causing him to grow a desire to fight back, resulting in his acting out against them.