Valkyrie Studios

Overview

From the website:

Valkyrie Studios is the joint effort of the original creators of SepterraCore: Legacy of the Creator. The group originally came together at Viacom New Media where they achieved success with the creation of "Beavis and Butt-Head in Virtual Stupidity." That product won PC Gamer’s "Adventure Game of the Year" award for 1995, and went on to be ranked 24 in their top 50 "Best Games Ever." The team moved on to create a unique role playing game called SepterraCore: Legacy of the Creator. Unfortunately, just as this title was progressing into the middle stages of full production, Viacom made the announcement that it was closing down its Chicago development house. SepterraCore was about to die. The team decided there was only one plan of action: form a new company, acquire the rights to their game and find a new publisher. "We're all very close to this game," said Cathi Court, Valkyrie's President, "we knew that we didn't want it to die, so we grabbed the reins and ran with it."

Valkyrie Studios was born a few weeks later, and the team immediately began to build the new company while shopping the RPG to various publishers. Realizing that the new corporate entity had to be different from the places that they had previously worked, the team put together a no-nonsense approach to development. Drawing on Norse mythology for a name, they came up with Valkyrie. Alisa Kober, Valkyrie's VP of Art Production, explains: " We really feel that it symbolizes the working environment. The Valkyrie were goddesses that flew out to battlefields and brought warriors who had fought and died with honor back to Valhalla, the home of the gods. There they could forever do what they did best, and what they enjoyed the most: battle. Our working motto is 'Welcome to Valhalla.' This is a place where creative people can come and do what they do best, without the corporate noose." It's this attitude that has helped the company attract the kind of talent necessary for a game like SepterraCore.

The team believes the "non-corporate" atmosphere extends beyond the staff to include the gamers world-wide who have supported SepterraCore and Valkyrie Studios. "We believe in the game player as our first priority," says Brian 'BMAN' Babendererde, Valkyrie's VP of Game Development, "Although it's hard, Cathi and I try to answer all the mail we get. This is a two way street. Player's don't want games handed down from some faceless corporation, they want to tell the developers what they like. We like to make games that we like to play, and we listen to other players opinions very carefully."

Cathi Court is Valkyrie's President and Executive Producer. The Producer of Virtual Stupidity and a veteran of television advertising, Cathi keeps the team sane and on time, while handling the day to day business of Valkyrie Studios.

Brian 'BMAN' Babendererde is Valkyrie's Vice President of Game Development. Brian has 8 products completed in his career, from Virtual Stupidity for the PC to Road Runner's Death Valley Rally for the Super Nintendo. Brian comes up with crazy ideas about seven leveled worlds and likes to visually design characters that are hard to model and animate.

Roger Dubbs is Valkyrie's Vice President of Technology. Applying an engineering outlook to software design, Roger can usually be found hard at work on Valkyrie's internal software tools while helping to guide the creation of Septerra's game engine.

Alisa Kober is Valkyrie's Vice President of Art Production. Alisa has three titles to her credit, including Virtual Stupidity for the PC and Rocko's Modern Life for the Super Nintendo. She can usually be found planning out her artists lives, as well as animating some of the main characters.

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