Noble Steed Games has always been a small team of passionate and compassionate people. As a studio, we pursue projects that excite and challenge us, with an emphasis on finding and pursuing our purpose. In addition, care is at the core of our practice. We believe making excellent games is not at odds with the wellbeing of the people involved, and our responsibility to leave the world better.
We’re transparent about our studio’s culture, you can check out our company policies and cultural values here.
So— to celebrate that, we thought to introduce our talented team of game developers! Read on to get to know them better, what advice they have for fellow devs and what their favourite games are.
Ann (Oh hey that’s me!)
I’m Ann, marketing coordinator for the studio! I’m from Malaysia, and I love drawing, reading comics/zines and going for picnics. Some of my favourite games are:
- Tangle Tower by SFB Games: I love the art direction throughout this game and am a lover for point and click mysteries.
- What Remains of Edith Finch by Giant Sparrow: I enjoy narrative games that move the heart, and think this was a beautiful game that’s art in both story and visuals.
- Coffee Talk: Absolutely adore the universe and chill vibes. The story unfolds itself slowly, and I thoroughly enjoyed immersing myself into it.
Something I’ve learnt whilst working in the games industry is:
“Don’t undervalue the skills and knowledge you have and always be eager to learn new things. One good tip I’ve learnt to combat imposter syndrome is to actively write down and document what you’ve done to make things better. Try it!”
Ann
You can find me on twitter as @annagramir.
Christine
Christine is our very on Operations Coordinator! Highly organised, dependable, and with a bubbly personality, Christine makes sure the studio is always running smoothly. In addition, she’s the proud fur parent of 2 cats (Mazikeen and Maximus) and a puppy (Mochi)! (Yes, the pets have their own socials.)
Some of her favourite games are:
- Animal Crossing
- L4D2
- Sims 4
Something she’s learnt whilst working in the games industry is:
“My advice in general is to document anything important. For example, email after a phone call to formalise any agreements and never delete anything – archive everything as much as possible!”
Christine
Grant
Grant’s a Unity Developer on the team who owns a sword and enjoys reading/playing weird tabletop systems. His current favourite is Tenra Bansho Zero. He also enjoys writing anything from short stories to world-building to interactive fiction. He also likes his squiddy-g balisong trainer to keep his hands busy when he’s not doing anything.
Some of his favourite games are:
- Disgaea: The entire series, though D1 to specify. The game that really made him a “gamer”. He played casually until he discovered the series and then became the sort of person that finished D1 more than 10 times. (Not just the storyline, the full post-game content which is easily another 100+ hours!)
- Garry’s Mod: He met friends here and got to become a part of a community of chill people that he still keeps in contact with. He had too many sleepless nights hanging out on a server doing nothing but faffing around in my memory to not hold this game dear.
- Counter Strike: His first foray into online gaming. He had countless sleepless nights in fy_pool_day, ran his own warcraft:source server on a laptop (He apologises deeply to everyone who ever had to deal with the horribly unbalanced custom classes he implemented), and played in local netcafe tournies for 1.6/source and loved following the 1.6/early CSGO competitive scene (He also says “Sorry Source, but you just never gripped me in that way.”)
Something he’s learnt whilst working in the games industry is:
“Interact with the community. The fastest periods of growth I’ve experienced as a game-dev have always been when I’ve sought feedback or just discussed ideas with other people.
Don’t be afraid to show what you’ve got, people are just excited to see the cool stuff people are making and are extremely encouraging about everything from somebody’s first “Hello World” to an implementation of a neural-net that’s learning to play Dwarf Fortress.”
Grant
Maddie
Maddie is yet another developer on the team, and she owns a fluffy shepherd dog named Kada. She likes DnD, bouldering and playing co-op games (bonus if spooky). Her all time favourite games are:
- Guacamelee: Excellent and very satisfying meeting of narrative and mechanics.
- Last Day of June: So pretty. Puzzles are interesting by themselves, but then the story on top is *insert chef’s kiss emoji here*
- Phasmaphobia: It’s social. with different types of challenges and skills needed. It’s also thrilling- pushing her out of her comfort zone and makes her feel brave saying bad words to spooky ghosts.
Something she’s learnt whilst working in the games industry is:
“You can learn this stuff. Just make things. Set goals, experiment. Learn from your mistakes. You don’t have to know everything to achieve things that are awesome, and the more you make things the better you get.”
Maddie
Reuben
Reuben’s the studio’s director and enjoys crosswords, watching silly videos & tv shows and reading web fiction. Fun fact, part of how the studio’s purple came to be was because it’s his favourite colour! His favourite games are:
- Super Mario RPG: For its nostalgia and sense of humour
- If Found: For its strong story & really cool unification of game mechanics with tactile ‘simulation’ of actions taken in story.
- Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands
Something he’s learnt whilst working in the games industry is:
“No area of game dev is so difficult that it can’t be learned with solid effort. Work towards the job you want to be doing and you’ll get good enough at it that people will chase you down to get you to do it for them.”
Reuben
You can find him on twitter as @xorglord.
Ronnie
Ronnie’s the QA engineer on the team, and he enjoys watching movies, playing cricket and watching pro wrestling! His top games are:
- Braid: For its interesting puzzles, unique atmosphere and storytelling. It’s a big source of inspiration for him to create games.
- NBA Hangtime: Fun gameplay and a bit of nostalgia.
- Halo series: Simple yet competitive gameplay. Fun campaigns as well.
Something he’s learnt whilst working in the games industry is:
“Try and make what you think is good and unique, not what is trendy. The best stuff isn’t going to become outdated.”
Ronnie
Shell
The lead programmer on the team, Shell enjoys making art, dancing and nature! Her favourite games are:
- Dark Souls 2: Depression as a game <3 A masterpiece where you feel powerless and you missed all the exciting events by a long shot and you are worthless, very cathartic!
- Sacrifice: The weirdest designs she’s have ever seen. Duelling prophets + 3rd person + RTS?? clunky, magical, beautiful, disgusting, unlike anything ever made and entirely insane
- Yume Nikki – Made by a single hermit who wants to remain anonymous, the only game he ever made; tragic and artful silent journey through the dreams of a depressed little girl.
Something she’s learnt whilst working in the games industry is:
“That development should be a relationship between you and your art, not a top-down dictation – if you treat your art like it’s own entity and listen to it then it will guide you to where it needs to go, you gotta be flexible and adaptable.”
Shell
Her art Instagram account can be found here.
We hope you enjoyed getting to know us a little better! Read more about our studio’s culture here! Have a question or want to chat more about game development? Reach out to us!
Other places you can find us:
- Join our Discord server
- Sign up to our newsletter