My name is Nick Glenn and I’m a creatively driven individual from the Pacific Northwest. I am the founder of Catalyst Softworks and the former co-founder of Helpful Human.
Outside of my day-to-day work, I maintain a community-driven wiki for Unreal Engine developers and create libraries & tools with my friend, Caleb Gray. I also like to contribute to the open source community and will ocassionally write articles (usually on the topic of programming).
If you want to get in touch, feel free to reach out to me on Twitter or send me an email.
1989 - 1999
I was born in Washington state with a strong, creative itch. As a kid, I wanted to be an animator; telling stories through the art of moving pictures and stop motion.
Before long, my grandfather introduced me to the world of computers and video games. It started with Falcon 3.0 and Atari 2600, but I graduated to creating “Hello world” applications with Borland Delphi, cracking anti-piracy measures to make copies of the MathBlaster floppy disk that I borrowed from school, and trying to create my own games using simplified game engines like RPG Maker.
2000 - 2009
By this point, I was hooked on the idea of creating my own games and software. I started really learning how to program at the age of 9 using a German game engine and the off-shoot of C it was paired with. Eventually I managed to pick up a copy of (Macromedia) Flash and began making animations of stick figures beating the crap out of each other.
Needing an outlet to share my creations, I accidentally kicked off a career in web development. I taught myself PHP and ran a website that was a flash portal grafted onto an open source bulletin board. Shortly after, I started my foray into learning how to do 3D modeling using programs like Lightwave and Blender.
At 16, I went to college through the running start program. I would eventually have a small stint working as an electrician, tried my hand at being a personal trainer, and played guitar and bass in a few bands.
2010 - 2019
Early in the decade I married the love of my life and we moved out on our own. The day after the honeymoon I got my first professional job in web development before working at a small startup.
I eventually became the co-founder of a digital consultancy working with a group of very helpful humans, building things for BIG clients and creating digital experiences.
I made a lot of things in my “spare” time.
Like a better browser extension for Todoist that is available on Firefox and Chrome. Or a group for other creative people from Washington state.
I also made a few addons for Blender, most notably Subdiv Shortcuts, Modifier Manager, and Command Config.
One time, I built a drawing prompt generator for a YouTube channel that was featured in a couple of their episodes:
Along with making things I played a few games here and there with some friends, some of which were recorded.
2020 - Present
Deciding to finally pursue my dream of becoming a game developer, I resigned from Helpful Human and founded Catalyst Softworks: an independent game development company. I’m currently on working on the first title that will be released sometime in 2021.