About

About Me

Hi! My name is Aaron Friesen, though you'll often find my work under the alias Maugrift.

I'm predominantly a developer, but I have a variety of interests: music composition and improvisation; writing, worldbuilding, and roleplaying; indie games, roguelikes, and speedrunning; and perhaps even more! I'm a big fan of free software and free content in general, and I dedicate most of my works to the commons.

I'm probably most notable for having created EverSector, a space simulation roguelike. However, I've made a bunch of other stuff too, and you can find most of it just by browsing around this site.

About This Site

This site, which I colloquially refer to as The Maugriftium, is a place for me to upload and share stuff I've made. Here you'll find games, programs, music, videos, and occasional ramblings about vaguely related topics. At some point I may add art, stories, and whatever other creative works I feel like sharing, so stay tuned!

This site is made from handwritten HTML and CSS (with the exception of my Git repository index, which is generated by Stagit). I use a custom shell script in place of a static site generator to automate some things, but there's no client-side or server-side code that executes anywhere on this site. I use nginx as a web server, which I have running on a Vultr VPS for the time being.

Why "Maugrift"?

First of all, I like the idea of having a unique alias for a few reasons. For one, it makes it much easier to register consistent usernames (and domain names!) because you have no competition. Similarly, it's quite easy to find a unique alias with a search engine, especially compared to a real name. (Plus, it's just kinda cool.)

(These features are pretty bad from an anonymity perspective, but if you've decided to use a unique, consistent alias, you're probably not concerned with anonymity in the first place. Of course, there are times for anonymity and better ways to go about it, but I digress.)

The name "Maugrift" in particular is a derivative of a previous alias I used, "Mogrithe", which was the name of a character in an old story I wrote. Among other things, this older alias was harder to pronounce at first glance. In retrospect, I realize there's still some ambiguity in the pronunciation of "Maugrift" ("MOG-rift" or "MAO-grift"), but it's an improvement. (For the record, both pronunciations are fine in my opinion.)