Founder’s Quest

Today we're talking with Jason Coleman, founder of Sparkypants Studios. Jason has been making games for a long time and honestly is a bit of a legend for myself, as I have played many of his games through the years from some of his earliest like Civ 2, Alpha Centauri, and Rise of Nations, to his latest Mind Over Magic. I got to know Jason through 1UP Ventures, a community we're both a part of, and was finally able to get time to ...

Today we're talking with Ichiro Lambe, founder of Totally Human Media.

This is a bit of a different journey for Ichiro, who previously founded Dejobaan Games and Worlds Apart which would become SOE Denver, in that rather than focusing on building games he's focused on the problem of Game Discovery.

I've been digging into game discovery as a problem recently and thinking a lot about it, and what started out as sitting down with Ichi...

Today we’re talking with Tina Merry, of Simply Sweet Games which was founded in 2023.

Tina has worked previously at King and EA and spent the last few years working as a consultant specializing in cultural intelligence. We talk a lot about her journey of bootstrapping a studio after finding the right co-founder in part through her consulting work, and launching their first title onto mobile markets, and what she’s learned about her...

Today we’re talking with Matthew Manarino of SUMMONER, a game focused creative agency founded in 2023. Matt talks about how he realized he needed to make some major shifts in his life and career to get the fulfillment that he was looking for, and how that led to taking a big leap into founding. Matt burned the ships behind him as he jumped in, selling his house and cars and moving his life to a lower cost of living area in Europe t...

Today’s guest, Ben Carcich of Building Better Games, is a bit different than our normal.

He’s a production and leadership consultant in Games who got started on this path after leaving Riot Games in 2020. He shares what led to this journey, choosing to go into consulting rather than development, and what he’s learned along the way. We talk about how many of the challenges are similar to the other founding journeys we’ve talked abou...

Today, we’re talking with Eamonn Glass, founder of Maggie’s Farm Studio. Eamonn has had a pretty diverse career both in and out of games, most recently an 11 year stint at Electronic Arts.

As he was considering what he wanted to do next, searching for his next purpose, wildfires in British Columbia claimed the town of Lytton, completely wiping it from the map. He had been a regular visitor of Lytton, with his family of...

Today we’re talking with Dru Erridge, co-founder of Gamebreaking Studios.

Dru ended up walking down a path of a co-development studio, initially focused on multiplayer game tech, but the reasons he got there are quite unique. Co-founding with folks that he had built and shipped an indie game on the side of full-time jobs at larger studios, deciding to not take money and so doubling down on the skills at hand with a three engineer...

Today we’re talking with Stephan Cotichini, founder of 81monkeys. We talk about his path from owning a restaurant in his 20s, to working at a fast-scaling game startup, and ultimately choosing not to relocate for a AAA role, instead launching his own studio. That path included work-for-hire gigs, financial risk, Kickstarter, and a brand partnership that came about because fans of that kickstarter spoke up inside a company outside o...

This is a bit of a different episode for us, where we dive deeply into a particular aspect of the founding journey. In this case we're talking with Andy Mauro, who's been on the show before, about his recent fundraise and lessons he learned through it specific to pitching, in this case to venture. We try to really break down what actually happened, what he's learned from it, and what could be repeatable by other founders. I really...

Today we’re talking with Lisette Teatree-Montgomery, founder of Cornerstone Interactive which got started in 2023. Her background is that of an incredible art and creative director previously working at DoubleFine, Ubisoft, EA, and more. We talk about her journey from working on award winnng games to starting her own studio, what she’s learned along the way, and how adaptability has become central to her perspective on the industry...

Today, we talk with Oksana of Seeker Entertainment. Oksana and I first met back in the day when she first joined Riot, when she was already a deeply accomplished engineer and leader. Since then she spent 9 years growing and leading at Riot in a variety of roles, getting further and further from development and building new things. She talks about how that drove her to pursue her founding journey, and the learning and experiences al...

Today, we’re talking with Jen MacLean of Dragon Snacks Games, founded last year in 2024. Jen comes from a long history in the game industry at some of the largest players in the space. Microsoft, Amazon, 38 studios as well as a lot of time in the IGDA supporting the entire industry. We talk about what pushed her to start a new studio in this moment of the industry, how the early part of her founding journey has gone, and how she su...

Today, I’m talking with Stephen Bell of Gardens. Stephen’s journey is notable in a few ways that make this a really fun discussion. First, Stephen comes more from the world of screenwriting and narrative design and had to learn how to adapt those skills to the role of founder. Second, the founder group of Gardens comes from smaller more indie studios and chose to take a much larger swing — then had to figure out what that meant. ...

Today we’re talking with Eli Allen of Wild Blue Studios. Eli is a unique guest for our show in a few ways. Wild Blue has been operating for 7 years, where many of the guests I’ve had so far are still in the first few years of their company. Wild Blue is also an art service provider rather than a dev studio, as well as a worker co-operative. We talk a lot about what each of these differences mean for Eli’s founding journey and what ...

Today we’re talking with Pavel Afanasiev of Northern Lights Entertainment. Pavel’s founding journey is a fresh one, starting during student protests in Hong Kong, through to a paper written on his way to a Master’s degree in economics and business. And all of this was built on experiences in forums for a large web strategy game, and a passion for bringing political systems to players inside of games. Along the way, Pavel met his co...

On today’s episode, we talk with Bernard Yee, founder of Windup Minds. Bernie has a long history in the games industry working at such places as SOE, Atari, Bungie, Popcap, and more. But immediately prior to starting Windup Minds, he was working at Oculus building early VR experiences. It was through that journey that he found the seed of what he wanted to continue as he started Windup Minds. He shares how he found his cofounders a...

Today we’re talking with Caerie Houchins of Wicked Fox Games. Caerie had what I think is a quintessential experience post-layoffs at Riot, where a bunch of well meaning folks were encouraging her to do a startup. This happens whenever there are big layoffs or downturns in the industry — surely those folks can just start their own studios! As you’ll hear, Caerie went on this journey with curiosity and learned more about what that pa...