ABOUT
BRACE
YOURSELF
GAMES
Brace Yourself Games was founded by veteran indie developer Ryan Clark in 2013. It’s only appropriate that our Vancouver-based independent game studio was named for a programmer pun that could only come from his shiny, bald head: {YOURSELF}
At Brace Yourself Games, we take pride in being the “indie katamari”, “rolling up” some of the best talent in the industry. From our first game, Crypt of the NecroDancer, which was released in 2015, we’ve relied on our incredibly skilled team to make the magic happen. Since then, we’ve expanded our repertoire to include Cadence of Hyrule, Industries of Titan, and Phantom Brigade – games with distinctive styles and designs, but developed with the same philosophy and heart.
Our goal is to make standout games. We try new things, hold ourselves to a high standard, and make improvements when we make mistakes. What’s important is that you can always count on us to deliver in the end.
Values
SERIOUS ABOUT FUN
We are serious about having fun, because if we're not having fun making games, what's the point? This means we still have to make tough decisions and put in the hard work, but we always keep the team's best interests in mind.
OPEN MINDED, OPEN HEARTED
We approach all facets of our work with genuine intention to learn and be kind. We are not afraid to admit when we're wrong and take steps to improve.
EXCELLENCE WITHOUT EGO
We are confident in our ability to produce excellent results, but we also know that there is always more we can learn. Feedback is a crucial part of the process.
COMMITTED TO GROWTH
We cultivate an environment of learning and growth within our company. Brace Yourself Games should be a place where people can achieve their career and life goals, so we encourage our team to try new things.
BETTER TOGETHER
We want to have a beneficial impact on the games industry as a whole, both within our company and out. We believe that games are better when we raise one another up, respect each other, and invest in diversity.
HYPER-TRANSPARENT
Transparency embodies honesty and open communication, which we believe is the foundation of trust. The more transparent we are about our path forward, the easier it is to get to where we're going!
The BYG Team
(Presented in randomized order.)
Helen Phan
Office Manager
They say the quickest path to a person’s heart is through their stomach. That’s why Helen started her career in the food and booze industry. Helen was the GM for a Vancouver-based food tour company for several years, eventually moving on to the alcohol business before arriving at BYG. Helen spends her spare time devoted to drinking craft beer, playing board games, and 4-starring Overcooked
Nikita Kotter
(HE/HIM)
Game Designer
A generalist game designer who lives and breathes games development, Nikita has been working on hobbyist projects since 2010. He strives to learn more and create awesome games with like-minded people.
Aaron Gordon
(He/Him)
Game Design Director
Aaron knows a thing or two about design and leadership. He’s worked on a variety of titles from limb-flailing motion games, epic space sims and established AAA fan favorites. With a passion for design frameworks, methodologies and collaborative design, Aaron is a force multiplier for our teams! When he’s not grinding on Destiny, binging One Piece or running D&D you’ll probably find him hurtling down a mountain somewhere or trapped under his cats.
Pete Thorneycroft
(HE/HIM)
Lead Animator
Pete has been animating professionally for the last 10 years, working primarily in TV and games. He had worked on notable projects such as Path of Exile, Injustice 2 and Gears of War 5 before bringing his talents to Brace Yourself Games.
Chloe Ezra
Brand Designer
Chloe is the Creative Overlord of NecroDancer branding, Creative Fellow of merchandise, and part-time art supervisor and character artist. Before joining the gaming industry, she was a freelance artist and animator working odd jobs. She is extremely passionate about art books and desperately needs more shelf space.
Lulu Kadhim
(SHE/HER)
Lead Writer
Lulu is a speculative writer whose short fiction has appeared in Lightspeed, Fantasy Magazine and Translunar Travelers Lounge. She wrote Track the Ripper, a New Adventure for the Zombies, Run! app. She’s obsessed with board games, good food and terrible reality dating shows.
Kimberly Voll
(SHE/HER)
Studio Head
Specialising in AI, game design, and human behaviour, Kim has been making, playing, and thinking about games for as long as she can remember. She’s had the honour of working on some great games big and small, including League of Legends, Fantastic Contraption, and Valorant and is extremely passionate about how we can make games and gaming spaces more inclusive by design.
Vivian Huang
Illustrator
Vivian is an illustrator who enjoys adopting house plants to add to her ever-growing collection. Prior to joining Brace Yourself Games, she worked as a fashion brand artist for many years, wore many artistic hats, from designing fabric patterns to painting furnitures to animating store wallpapers.
Antoine Lendrevie
(HE/HIM)
Art Director
Voxel artist best known as “Sir_Carma” and art director on Industries of Titan. Personal and professional work shared on Twitter.
Hanna Hildebrandt
(SHE/HER)
Technical Artist
Hanna is a technical artist, writer, and award-winning animation director who has worked on more than 40 different video games, movies, and TV shows. She has a background in interactive fiction, UI design, film production, programming, VFX, theatre, and journalism, which is both strangely confluent and difficult to fit in a bio.
Jaymee Mak
(SHE/HER)
Senior Producer
Jaymee is an award-winning filmmaker and actor, who also happens to be a hyper organized game producer who’s passionate about psychological safety. Over the last decade, Jaymee has dipped her marathon-running toes into game design, UX design, community management, marketing and directing. Jaymee loves ending meetings earl-
Logan Woo
Junior System Administrator
Logan is the IT guy of the company and a future ethical hacker. When he isn’t working, he is hanging out with cousins/friends, working on his many hobbies, or he is drowning in his backlog of shows to watch and games to play.
Ryan Clark
(HE/HIM)
Founder, Designer, Programmer
A veteran independent game developer, Ryan has been creating award winning games since 2004, including Crypt of the NecroDancer, IncrediBots, Professor Fizzwizzle, and many more.
David Nguyen
(He/Him)
Junior Game Designer
David is a programmer graduate turned designer that’s worked on stuff including the Playdate console, TTRPGs, and now other cool indie projects! An avid rhythm gamer who enjoys dabbing to his coworkers’ chagrin.
Alexa Schiess
(SHE/HER)
QA Manager
Passionate about documented and efficient problem solving, Alexa worked as a printing press operator for several years before finally making the jump to games (although still a big nerd for print technology). In her spare time, she likes lifting heavy weights and putting them down again.
Yas
(SHE/HER)
Junior QA Tester
Yas has always shown a passion for Design/UX, Illustration, and technology. After graduating as a Psychologist, she decided to switch career paths to follow her passion and become an Interactive Media Developer. When she is not busy playing with her cat, she likes to spend her free time designing on Illustrator and InDesign and doing some 3D modelling.
Nick Gunn
(HE/HIM)
Art Director
Nick is a versatile artist with expertise in 3D art and character creation and has a passion for distinctive art in games. Starting in 2005, his professional journey has consisted of contributions to many social, mobile, and indie game projects.
Stephen Kiazyk
Programmer
Stephen joined the game industry after toying with hobbyist game development for many years prior. With industry experience ranging from visual effects, web front and back-end, virtual reality, and computational geometry, he lives an eternal commitment to becoming a Jack-of-too-many trades.
Danny Baranowsky
Composer, Designer
Danny Baranowsky is a composer, musician and larger-than-life personality living in Vancouver, Canada by way of Mesa, Arizona. Over the past decade, Danny has risen to the top of his field, composing the music for best-selling games Canabalt, Super Meat Boy, The Binding of Isaac, Desktop Dungeons, Crypt of the Necrodancer, and more. Danny’s music immediately demands attention with soaring melodies and complex harmonies and has garnered him critical acclaim from publications such as Kotaku, PCGamer and Destructoid.
Agustín Delger
UE4 Programmer
Agustín is a young and motivated developer who enjoys every challenge day to day programming can offer. Currently working on Industries of Titan as UE4 programmer. He is also passionate about doing sports, especially if a racket and ball are involved. He dreams of someday being good at them.
Pavel Efimov
(HE/HIM)
3D Artist, Technical Artist
Pavel is a 3D artist / generalist who enjoys making game art the most when it’s a combination of popping 3D graphics and some tech behind it that makes it alive. Loves establishing content pipelines, enjoys vivid-colored art (does it look weird? even better) and is passionate about car culture.
Marlon Wiebe
(HE/HIM)
Game Director
Marlon is a videographer, editor, and motion graphics animator who has made many indie video game trailers and cinematics over the years. Along with Crypt of the Necrodancer and Industries of Titan, he’s worked on other prominent games such as Darkest Dungeon, FTL, Into the Breach, Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime and many more.
Kyle Engelmann
Programmer
Kyle joined the games industry in 2019 and has experience as a programmer and a technical designer on small and large projects alike. His favorite games are ones with a strong focus on discovery, such as Hollow Knight, Outer Wilds, and Baba is You. In his free time, he enjoys forcing his affection onto his cat, ordering chicken nuggets off the kids’ menu, and trying to learn entirely too many musical instruments at once.
Madeleine Gray
(SHE/HER)
Director of Communications
Madeleine (also responds to Maddie) began her career developing communities on the esports side of the biz. She hopes that her random dragon knowledge will one day be applicable in real life.
Bahar Vaghari Moghaddam
(SHE/THEY)
Assistant Producer
Bahar studied sociology at SFU and has been co-organizing the Queerness and Games Conference since 2019. When she’s not working or studying, she enjoys painting, cooking, and playing odd DS games.
Mel Severs
(SHE/THEY)
Assistant Video Producer, Motion Graphics
Mel is a digital motion artist. They’ve worked in games and advertising since 2013 making anything from pixel art and animations for indie games like Hive Jump to sleek motion graphics for brands and nonprofits. Currently editing and animating video for promotions and developer updates.
Cindy Chow
Operations Manager
Producer and Event Manager with a decade of experience in both indie and AAA companies across North America. Enjoys games just a little more than cake and pie.
Alain Carter
(HE/HIM)
Senior Programmer
With experience in AAA, mobile, and social games, Alain worked for years on game side projects and game jams before making the transition to professional independent development.
Andy Nguyen
(HE/HIM)
Game Director
Andy Nguyen has been in indie game development since 2011. He started his career as a designer and level designer for Monaco: What’s Yours is Mine. Andy would later work as a producer and designer for Tooth and Tail. During this time, Andy was recognized for pioneering development oriented communication by Discord, which would later become a staple of Discord’s platform. In 2017, Andy joined Ryan Clark at Brace Yourself Games. Andy is currently the project lead on Industries of Titan.
Ben Humphreys
(HE/HIM)
UI Designer, Programmer
Ben has worked in gamedev since 2013, working in Tokyo, Paris and now Vancouver. Playing Wip3out got him hooked on UI and design, he now enjoys UI programming, specializing in Unreal Engine. He is an unrepentant healer main.
Lilly Lee
(SHE/HER)
Financial Controller
While working as a bookkeeper to pay for her accounting degree, Lilly spent mornings on the WoW auction house buying and trading items to amass a horde of gold. Now, with over 15 years of work experience in finance, she uses her skills as the financial controller of Brace Yourself Games.
James Chan
Chief Operations Officer
Over 2 decades of industry experience leading game engineering teams has chipped away at his sanity. He now enjoys social engineering his coworkers instead.
Adelaide Jenkins
(SHE/HER)
Team Lead, Designer, Programmer
Adelaide loves making games and collaborating with happy, healthy teams of talented folks. She’s always looking for ways to learn, grow and improve her skills. When not making games, she enjoys tinkering away at creative coding, compute shaders, and artificial life simulations.
Mobeen Fikree
(He/Him)
Tech Director
Mobeen has been making indie games since 2014, designing & programming games like Super Crush KO and Graceful Explosion Machine. He is equally passionate about solving challenging technical problems and designing novel game mechanics.
Dakota Bosman-Kennedy
QA Tester
Dakota’s love-affair with game design and programming began at an early age with the versatility of the Starcraft Campaign Editor. After exploring a variety of career paths he found his passion in the game industry’s creative and collaborative work environment. In his free time, Dakota enjoys learning about the world, breaking strategy games, and bouldering.
Lucca Donatelli
(THEY/THEM)
Producer
Lucca has worked in the games industry since 2008. They’ve developed everything from AAA titles like Wolfenstein to crowdfunded indie projects like Hive Jump. They’re a multi-disciplinary game developer who specializes in production and design.
Roy Lee
Senior Video Producer
Roy loves cinema, indie music, and video games. Magically he has found his place in this world where he gets to work closely with all three of them. Working with creative artists inspires him more than anything, and it is his passion to transform their craftmanship & story into visuals.
Artyom Zuev
Technical Artist
A generalist with deep passion for technical art, equally excited to work on flashy visuals and the logic powering them.
Tina Thai
Writer
Demi Montes
(SHE/HER)
Community Manager
Demi graduated from UBC in 2019, where she studied fine arts & commerce and created games as a member of UBC’s Game Development Association. She has a background in marketing, community engagement, and digital art. In her free time you might find her drawing, playing DnD, watching anime, replaying her favourite games while her unplayed game backlog piles up, or daydreaming about fictional villains.
This is the BYG Vancouver team, but we also collaborate with other amazing contractors and consultants from around the globe!
Presenting our partners 
