STARL Team
Please Note: The original STARL team, excluding the founders, has transitioned to become Warped Games, migrating to https://www.warped.games/. Development of STARL Metaverse has been discontinued due to administrative changes and control of funds and contracts remaining with the former founders. Warped emerges as a reimagination, committed to safeguarding and progressing the original team’s collective dreams and ambitions. For further information on this transition, please visit: An Open Letter to the STARL Community.
STARL Team Management
Scott Brown - President / Metaverse & Game Development Lead
Johnny Utah - Project Lead (voted in post founders leaving) / Writer / Test / Game Audio
Dominic - Web3/Blockchain Lead Developer
Naomi Salazar (iamnaomidesign) - Creative Director / Marketing / Branding Lead
Ken - Logistics Manager / Test Lead
SKDandy - Moderator Lead / Documentation Lead
Metaverse / Game Design & Development Team
Scott Brown - Team Leader/ UE5 Developer
Shahid Ahmad - Advisor / Starcade developer
Scott Bounds - Senior Metaverse Game Engineer
Markus Krichel - Game Design Team Lead
Jim Stigall - Concept Artist
Jerry Meyer - Graphic Artist
Matthew Magginnis - Programmer
Stephen McCray - Programmer
Bennett Krichel - Design
Micheal Azzolino - Lore
Peter Grundy - Art Director
Peter Coene - Artist
Sean Brown - Artist
David Milton - Artist
James DonVito - Concept Artist
Deny - Community Manager and Associate Producer
Blockchain and Web Team
Dominic - Lead Web Developer
Wangli Y. - Senior Blockchain Developer
Steven - Senior FE Developer
Naomi Salazar- Main Site Design
P4T - Marketplace Design
Johnny Utah - Testing
Ken - Testing
skdandy - Testing
Hubb - Research
Marketing and Branding Team
Naomi Salazar (iamnaomidesign) - Visual Branding / Marketing Lead
Rafdot - Advisor
Obie - Interviews / AMAs
SKDandy - Community Engagement / Video / Vocal work
Ken - Twitter engagement
Documentation and Copy
skdandy - Documentation / Mod
Johnny Utah - Documentation / Articles
Art & Design
Naomi Salazar - Visual Branding / Web Design / Promos & Art
Space - 3D NFT designs
Jerry Meyer - Graphic Artist
Jim Stigall - Concept Artist
David Milton - Artist
Sean Brown - Artist
P4T - Marketplace Design
Rafdot - Community Engagement art
Former Founders
Woof Decentra - STARL token creator
Moe Larson - Metaverse project founder
Data Karma - Head of Engineering
Bios and Backgrounds
Metaverse/Game Development Team Bios (Wyrmbyte)
Scott founded Netdevil in 1997 in Louisville, CO. The headquarters of the company started in the basement of his house. He grew the company to 150 employees before it was sold in 2008. During this time Netdevil developed Jumpgate, Auto Assault, Warmonger, LEGO Universe, Jumpgate Evolution, and Fortune. In 2010 he founded Wyrmbyte and developed Dragons and Titans, Ashes of Oahu, Dragon Wings VR, and Epic Dragon clicker. Scott holds a patent for High Performance Network Art Rendering Systems.
Markus entered the video games industry in 1989 as a localization expert. He worked for Interplay, Activision, and Walt Disney. In 1997 he joined Scott Brown at Netdevil to develop Jumpgate: TRI. After a stint as the US Editor for PC Games Magazine, he returned to Netdevil in 2005 to establish a casual games division. Subsequently he accepted the position of Producer on LEGO Universe and that of Executive Producer and Studio Head at the Walt Disney Company. He was actively involved in such classics as The Lost Vikings, Decent, SimCity, and more.
Scott began his career as a web developer in 2001 and made the leap to the gaming industry in 2006, where he has 15 years of experience as a programmer on a wide range of projects from AAA to indie on multiple platforms. As a generalist, he enjoys tackling any types of problems but finds himself most at home programming gameplay systems. In recent years Scott worked on a variety of interactive experience installations for Sony Pictures Entertainment, NFL Experience Times Square, Lionsgate Entertainment, and others.
Jim is a Colorado-born and based artist with decades of professional art experience. He has made a career out of conceptual illustration and character design in the video game and connected toy industries since 2002. Jim has played many different creative roles while working with teams of exceptional talent to bring large-scale projects to life. This includes character development, environment & industrial design, graphic design, story art, UI art, and art leadership & direction. Jim has worked on projects for companies like Backflip Studios, Sphero, Disney, Lucasfilm, Pixar, and The LEGO Group. Outside of the industry, Jim's work stretches beyond conceptual design. Graphic design and branding, editorial cartooning, caricature, and graffiti writing are other areas Jim loves to explore.
Jerry is a 3rd generation Colorado Native with a BS degree in Industrial Design from Art Center College, Pasadena, California. With 20 plus years in the gaming and entertainment arts field. Jerry has produced concept art for several shipped titles, including Auto Assault, Lego Universe, Dragon Vale, to name a few. His additional design background includes tradeshow and interactive museum installations.
Matthew entered the technology sector as a programmer/developer in the early ’90s. His first work was with Sierra on You Don’t Know Jack. He’s worked on enterprise-level software with Cisco, IBM, Microsoft, and Novell. In 2010 he joined Mesa Mundi to help build a virtual tabletop application, D20Pro. He was one of the developers and audio technicians for Assault Dice, the official Warhammer 40K mobile app. In 2018 he worked with Enjin, a crypto-based company that created the ERC 1155 standard. There he developed SDK’s for Unity and Unreal to allow developers to use Fungible and Non-Fungible Tokens.
Michael Azzolino is a Professional Game Master and freelance author/designer based in the San Francisco Bay Area. His experience and pedigree spans 40 years playing, mastering and developing role-playing and storytelling-style games and settings. Michael has past board game design credits with Alien Menace and TableStar Games. More recently, Michael has been writing and developing for a modern horror RPG system called Bloodlines & Black Magic by Storm Bunny Studios.
Michael serves on the Board of Directors of an educational non-profit called The Game Academy, which utilizes role-playing games as cognitive learning tools, specializing in the development of children. Michael has coordinated organizing play programs on the local and national level, for many of the industry’s leading game companies. For his achievements as Host and Producer of Chronicles Pathfinder Podcast, Michael was awarded a Silver Ennie for Best Gaming Podcast of 2011.
Mike loves soccer almost as much as gaming! (It’s a close second). Michael considers himself to possess a druidic-like affinity for animals and always has at least one cat companion sharing his space.
At the core, a hands-on Creative Artist, Peter trained initially as a Sculptor. Peter's employment history has included: Executive Art Director, Studio Art Director, Video Game Art Director, CG 3-D Artist, Graphic Designer, Multimedia and Web Designer, and Model Maker.
Peter was Co-Founder of NetDevil, a video game company that shipped MMOs including Jumpgate, Auto Assault, Warmonger, and LEGO Universe. Building Art Teams, understanding and leveraging appropriate technology, driving and defining visions for startup projects are his major skill sets and creating solid visual communication and confidence with publishers. Mentoring and leading Art Teams is a passion and inspiration for Peter.
During his time at Sphero as a Creative Visual Artist, Peter became involved in Product Design and Development and gained a greater understanding of Industrial Design. Currently he is an Art Director at Circadence in Boulder, Colorado, and working on mobile game development for an industry that is moving towards games as an experiential learning tool.
Peter Coene
Peter is an experienced concept artist who started his game career in 2009. Since then he's excelled both digitally and traditionally creating concept art to determine the look and feel of AAA PC and mobile game titles and related branding spanning multiple genres, including "Lego Universe," "Ice Age Village," "Cars, Fast as Lightning," "Paddington Run," "Evermerge," and "Gummy Drop." Peter enjoys pushing his art to new heights, always improving and learning, trying to provide the best concept work he can whether it be characters, environments, vehicles, or props.
Deny, Community Manager and Associate Producer
Deny has a background in finance and customer service. Since 2014 he has used this foundation to successfully enter game development as an associate producer, tester, community manager and moderator. The common thread for all of these roles is the desire to share knowledge and help people. He has previously worked on several projects for indie developers, game developers and publishers, including Jaws of Extinction, Mighty Fight Federation and Wyrmbyte's previous title Ashes of Oahu.
Minigame Development and STARL Advisor
Shahid is a multi-award winning games industry veteran best known for his key role at PlayStation in transforming the relationship between console manufacturers and developers, where he helped to propel indie games into the public consciousness through successes with the likes of Hotline Miami through to No Man’s Sky. Today he's a developer, an adviser, a coach and the author of the widely praised "Code is Just" thread.
Shahid has been named one of Games Industry International's Top 10 Persons of the Year and 100 Top Influencers in the British Games Industry, Develop's 25 People that Changed Games, one of MCV's Brit List 100 and received Develop's Publishing Hero award for his team’s role in opening PlayStation up to indie developers and for commissioning over 100 titles.
Marketing and Branding
Naomi Salazar [iamnaomidesign] is a Los Angeles-based Creative Director and Artist who produces progressive projects with boundless creatives. Over 12+ years, she’s worked with clients, agencies, and brands crafting art with an emotionally resonating vibrant palette. In her years as a Creative Director, she oversaw campaigns across print, digital and social as well as leading re-branding and design efforts for boutique and corporate identity systems. Her areas of focus are brand design, brand strategy, animation, visual packages, and interaction design. Her aesthetic is inspired by surrealism, the ancient future, and simple modern design. She draws influence from her own Latinx background, honoring people and places often forgotten. She enjoys working with positive-minded folks and brands seeking to share an all-inclusive impactful vision focused on the greater good. In working directly with clients she’s developed strong relationships to deliver strategic and emotionally resonant creativity that also successfully achieves business goals. She holds a BA in Art Practice from UC Berkeley and runs her own LLC.
PAST & PRESENT CLIENTS: Netflix, Boyds Philadelphia Luxury Retail, J Balvin, Starl Metaverse, Lovers & Friends Festival, Pitchfork Festival, UK., Stones Throw Records, And Latinx Arts Alliance.
Team Diversity and Values
The team’s professional capabilities and knowledge are as diverse as their backgrounds and locations, with members from all over the world and from all walks of life all bringing a diverse and robust perspective that feeds into all aspects of the STARL project. However, they all share a common vision for the future, fueling their enthusiasm and solidifying their commitment to the project.
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