Noble Steed Games (previously No Moss Studios) has always been a small team of passionate and compassionate people. As a studio, we pursue projects that excite and challenge us and emphasise 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 enact a variety of tangible policies and measures to make sure we’re living up to what we say, from leave entitlements to regular meetings (More on this soon!)
So— in part 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.
- Hades by SuperGiant Games: I’ve never been one to play many games requiring battle and a lot of hand-eye coordination, but think Hades’ game design makes it extremely accessible for a *noob* player like myself. Besides that, the gorgeous art, sound tracks, UI design are lovely!
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’s our team’s Ops Coordinator and all round dependable person. She’s highly organised, a wonderful planner, and absolute bundle of cheer! She enjoys listening to music, eating KBBQ and rollerskating. Her favourite games are:
- Animal Crossing
- L4D2
- Sims 4
Something she’s learnt whilst working in the games industry is:
“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
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
We hope you enjoyed getting to know us a little better!
We hope this guide has helped! Have a question or want to chat more about game development? Reach out to us!
Other places you can find us:
- Our other game development resources
- Join our Discord server
- Sign up to our newsletter
