Michael Heald

Creative Director

Wulverblade is more than I can ever put into words, but here’s my go at trying.

I’ve been dreaming about this game for longer than I can recall. Its been something that’s been expanding and developing in my mind for years. The characters, the story, the historical roots, everything. Over the years I’ve been trying to find ways of realising my dream and getting Wulverblade into production and in 2013, imagine the joy when my friends over at Darkwind wanted to be part of it too!

My full-time workload comes from my digital creative services company, Fully Illustrated, where I’ve been working with Indie’s all around the world for nearly 10 years now. And its them that I’ve got to thank for this. If they hadn’t inspired me the way they do, I’d have never found the guts to do this. To my wonderful Indie clients, I love the lot of you! You’re an inspiration.

Favorite Games
Too many to list, but here’s a few faves…
Final Fight (Arcade)
Street Fighter 2 Champion Edition (Arcade)
Super Mario World (SNES)

Bruce Lan

Level/Gameplay Designer

Bruce Lan is the level/gameplay designer of Wulverblade. He is a game designer who is currently an MFA candidate at NYU Game Center, Tisch School of the Arts. With his previous working experience in game design & video post-production, he is fascinated with creating satisfying and meaningful play which is both visually rich and highly engaging.

Denis Davidov

Lead Animator

I am a graduate of Wagner Art School in the city of Ryazan, Russia. I studied design but became interested in animation as a hobby and that interest soon turned into a profession.

I’ve participated in various movies and cartoons as an animator and storyboard artist with a focus on short cartoons where I love to create and animate worlds. More and more I began to realize that I wanted to be able to interact with these worlds, so I took the step towards video games. I was really inspired by Comix Zone, Gears of War, Rayman Legends and Dead Light as they expressed vivid worlds of a breath-taking magnitude.

I work on a mixture of character and effects animation for Wulverblade. My goal is to always inject a huge amount of emotion in my character animation, be it anger, fear, laughter or sadness.

I am very proud to be working with such a strong team on such a cool game! I love my profession and I cannot live without it, it is a way of life for me!

Jon Sommariva – AKA Red-J

Cut Scene Artist

Jon is a pro comic book artist that has been published by Image Comics, Darkhorse Comics and DC comics. Has also done design work for Disney and Hasbro and is best known for his work on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comics.  Jon is Wulverblade’s key cut scene artist bringing the inner details of Wulverblade’s story to life. Each dramatic cut scene is meticulously illustrated by Jon in his signature style and then animated by Mike and scored by Verbal Vigilante.

You can see more of Jon’s work on his Instagram page: sommariva.

Yerbol Bulentayev

Promo/Cover Artist

Yerbol is a classically trained concept artist that studied at  Kazakh Academy of Fine Arts. Yerbol takes Wulverblade’s cartoon/comic setting and translates it into traditional art pieces for our promotional artwork. Just as with classic retro video games where a highly skilled artist would create a breathtaking cover piece to accompany the game, Yerbol does the same for Wulverblade, taking our in game art and translating that into breathtaking, highly detailed paintings.

Brian Johnstone

Lead Developer

Brian is the Lead Developer of Wulverblade. He has years of game development experience and is passionate about programming. He is one of the founders of Darkwind Media and was a Core Team Member for the open source rendering engine Ogre.

Colin Doody

Software Engineer

Colin Doody founded the game studio Darkwind Media Ltd. in 2007 with his partners Brian Johnston and Matthew Mikuszewski in Rochester, NY. He has been programming games since his awkward middle school years and has a passion for small team projects. When not developing games, he can be found jamming out on his hammered dulcimer and playing with his cats.

Favorite Games
Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (SNES)
American McGee’s Alice (PC)

Evan Doody

Lead Tech Art / Level Builder

Evan is a young and passionate designer, technical artist, and avid gamer. He uses the fantastic artwork of Mike Heald to build and implement the worlds and characters within the game engine. It is his job to optimize the badassery of in game visuals. Renowned for his rarely matched love of both candy and puppies.

Favorite Games
Journey (PS3)
Super Mario Galaxy (Wii)

Matthew Mikuszewski

Developer/Game Design

Matthew is a founder of Darkwind Media and an experienced game developer with a passion for creating memorable experiences. Being off by a pixel is not acceptable. Wulverblade is going to benefit from his attention to detail and focus on the player’s happiness.

Jode Steele & David Wainwright

Music/Sound-Design Team

Verbal Vigilante AKA composers Jode Steele & David Wainwright write music & sound-design for Film, TV, Games & Motion Picture Advertising. Their work has featured in many blockbuster trailer campaigns including “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug”, “Thor: The Dark World”, “World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria”, “Oblivion” & “The Dark Knight Rises”.

We’re thrilled to be writing the music and sound-design for Wulverblade. It’s fantastic to be underscoring Mike’s stunning visuals and we feel lucky to be part of such a hugely talented team. We’ll be writing lots of killer tracks & producing a plethora of crunching, slashing & thwackingly sonorous sound-design. The world and characters of Wulverblade exist in a time where the myth and legend of the old world, collide with the might and steel of invading Rome. For us as composers this is hugely inspiring and the score will fuse together the vision of the dark, mysterious land and the visceral attack of the Roman legion. To help achieve this we’ll be recording talented live musicians and ethereal vocalists to really bring the sound of Wulverblade to life.

This game is going to be truly EPIC!”

Dan Whitehead

Story and Script Writer

Dan joined Wulverblade early on, helping to develop Michael’s original concept and research and shape it into a streamlined script that would work for a scrolling beat-em-up while still retaining the important elements of myth and history.

Dan’s previous credits include writing two official Star Wars books, as well as graphic novel adaptations of Edgar Allen Poe’s short stories, Jason and the Argonauts and Julius Caesar. His first children’s novel, Atlanta Tully and the Cotton Slaves, was published in 2012. Dan’s gaming script work includes the WW2 dogfighting game Air Conflicts: Secret Wars, the indie adventure Ether One and the upcoming reboot of the 1989 Amiga classic, Midwinter. Dan has also written for Official Xbox Magazine, Eurogamer, Guiness World Records: Gamer’s Edition and The Gameological Society.

Trevor Martin

Narrator & Voice of Caradoc

Trevor is the voice of Caradoc and the narrator of Wulverblade. As the game is strongly story driven, Trevor’s incredible voice sets a tone for the game that only his voice can. Trevor’s past experience is beyond anything that could be listed here, but highlights would be his stage work for the National Theatre and Royal Shakespeare Company, playing Dr.Who on stage at the Adelphi Theatre in London, playing the voice of Krull in the film of that name and within the games industry, his voice can be heard as the narrator of the Heavenly Sword Animated Series.

Noni Lewis

Welsh Narrator

Noni is the voice of the ancient Britons. As historians now believe that modern day Welsh is the closest language to the ancient tongue of this wonderful island, Noni brings her beautiful voice into full effect to plunge the game back into its 2000 year old roots.