Joey Apples

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Joey Apples

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Profile
Aliases: GameStar (circa 2003), The Explosive Mushroom/Explosive Shroom (circa 2006), Splodin Shroom (circa 2009)
Interests: Indie game development, fangame development, gaming in general, writing, music
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Joey Apples is a fangamer and sole employee of the indie game development company MeliSoft Games. Best known for being a friendly, constructive member of both the forums and the main site, Apples loves to create games that push the boundaries of what fangames--and video games in general--can be. The origin of his pseudonym is that his "irl" surname, "Meli," means "Apples" in Italian.

Previous Incarnations

Joey Apples is not considered an "oldbie," due to both an inconsistent amount of activity on the forums and main site, but he has technically been a member since 2003.

Apples joined in '03 as GameStar, and due to his ripe young age of 12, was berated on the forums by more popular members such as the real-name-sharing Joey and Duckboy for being an intolerable weenie. He wrote reviews on the main site that tended to be melodramatic and exaggerated, and were largely regarded as throwaway criticism as a result. Due to the insistence of older, more mature members that GameStar "GTFO," the young'un left the forums and main site begrudgingly in 2004.

In 2006, now 15 and enjoying a newfound maturity, Apples rejoined as The Explosive Mushroom/Explosive Shroom. Though he started as The Explosive Mushroom, often abbreviated as "TEM," he requested his name to be shortened soon after. During the 2006 period, Apples submitted his first-ever fangame demo, the Boo Escape Demo. When that project flopped, he created the Bubble Baby Demo. Dreamwalker, a Minigame Competition entry, was also released during this time period. Unfortunately, soon after completing the first 4 levels of Bubble Baby, Apples mysteriously disappeared and would not reappear until 2009. It has since been confirmed that his disappearance was due to a tough battle with depression.

When Apples reappeared in 2009 as Splodin Shroom (for which no link may be provided because the Splodin Shroom account on the main site is also his current Joey Apples account), he was age 18 and living in his own apartment. While going to a local community college part-time, Apples engaged actively in fangaming as well as forum discussions and promptly released the Bubble Baby (Revamped) Demo, a reworking of his 2006 title. Unfortunately, his interest in fangaming and game development weaned, and he therefore ended another brief and relatively unproductive stint at MFGG, ironically and conveniently only a few weeks prior to The Split.

Current Projects and Account

Joey Apples has returned in 2011 as the healthy 20-year-old owner and sole proprietor of indie game development company MeliSoft Games. Working hard on a project entitled Skunk'd, which revolves around a young teen's imaginative dream world, Apples still makes time for the community which introduced him to amateur game development. He is now a user of Scirra's Construct Classic, which he says he prefers to Clickteam's Multimedia Fusion line of products (through which all of his previous projects were engineered).