Love of society, joy of games
Vivid Foundry is a video game studio that creates original, artistic stories. We use the power of interactivity to humanize social concerns, empower civic stories, and spark inclusive conversations.
Tanya Kan, Director and Founder, created Vivid Foundry out of a passion for diverse stories that engage people from all walks of life and encourage them to experiment. She values games as a great medium for education, artistic immersion, and social engagement. She started working in games and digital media production isnce 2012. She is fluent in Unreal, Unity, 3DS Max modeling for game development pipelines, illustration, game writing, production management, testing and consultancy. Tanya’s academic passions in Political Science and Cinema Studies enable Vivid Foundry’s games to talk about society’s dreams and fears in a deeply literary and aesthetic way.
Vivid Foundry Team
Founder
Tanya Kan (she/her)
At Vivid Foundry, Tanya’s role includes administration, business development, marketing, level design, art direction, 3D modelling, narrative writing, and executive production.
In her 11 years of digital media experience, she has previously worked at VFX Nova, and for Autodesk and various other clients. She has shipped a full-size mall architectural visualization and a theme park ride built in Unreal. She had taught at OCAD University, was an incubator mentor at Toronto Metropolitan University, and was a narrative consultant on the award-winning game Celeste.
Current Collaborators
Seamus Ly (he/him)
Seamus currently spearheads the technical development on Solace State and other Vivid Foundry projects. Seamus is a freelance programmer and narrative designer with 3+ years of experience working in the industry. He is proficient in C# and JS and has worked in a myriad of engines including Unity, Godot, and Unreal Engine. Other games he has worked on include ValiDate: Struggling Singles in Your Area, the Cartomancy Anthology, and upcoming narrative RPG Cabernet.
Reilly MacKay (she/they)
Reilly is a 2D illustrator working on Solace State’s character art. She also contributes to Solace State’s texture art with in-game signs and posters! She is an artist with 4 years of experience contributing her art to small game projects and prototypes, as well as creating character designs and assisting with art for various games and comics, including Threads of Time.
Sunny Evans (she/her)
Sunny works in Articy to integrate Solace State’s narrative into Unity. She also adds character expressions and writes some of the game’s codex entries! She has worked as a narrative designer, creative director, and graphic designer on previous games, for Toronto indie studios such as LC3 and Snotwurm studios. Currently she freelances in a variety of game dev roles.
Lex Metcalfe (she/they)
Lex Metcalfe is composing music and designing the sound for Solace State.
Since 2016, she has been exploring the melding of sound and game design through client work and personal projects. She has experience with direct implementation through Unity and Source Control, and audio middleware solutions such as FMOD Studio. Outside of game audio, Lex handles songwriting, performance and production in her band Waxlimbs, whose electrifying live shows can be experienced around the Toronto music scene.
Kas Millard (she/they)
Kas works as Solace State’s resident game breaker and bug finder, ensuring that Solace State functions as intended for players of all abilities! Kas is a freelance illustrator, content creator, and game designer, and utilises this knowledge for all things quality assurance. She previously worked as the lead artist on the award-winning game Curses and is currently pursuing her artistic, academic, and level design passions.
Past Collaborators
Courtney "Seage" Howlett
Seage works with Tanya’s art direction to deliver detailed, ethnically diverse characters with a colourful pastiche of personality. He is a fashion and fantasy 2D illustrator who has previously worked on tabletop RPGs, card games, and graphic novels, and has featured in ImagineFX, SuperSelected, and STAMP Magazine.
Gabriela Kim Passos
Gabi brings Solace State’s game mechanics and engine tools to life. Gabi has experience in C, C++, C#, JS, and other programming languages, with a focus on gameplay, AI and UX programming and design in Unity and Unreal. Recently, as lead developer, Gabi launched Yumi and Boom, an animated VR experience.
Lauren Bamlett
Lauren brings exceptional 3D art experience to create modern buildings to Solace State’s existing impressionist, painterly urbanscape. Lauren has worked from concept to model completion on a range of interactive digital media projects for PC games, mobile, 3D printing, casino, and education. This includes a variety of mechs and props for MechWarrior Online, and streaming on company channels about art process!
Jayme Last
Jayme’s role on Solace State is to oversee and consult on the production schedule, team meetings, milestones, and other project management. She began her career in the TV industry, first as an animator and then as a production assistant, before making the jump to environmental consulting and small business bookkeeping, and then to games project management and production in 2016. She has worked with multiple Toronto indie games studios including Reptoid Games, Mighty Yell, Vivid Foundry, and Laundry Bear Games.
June Button
June is a graphic and motion designer who is working on the design of Solace State’s UI, and provides consultation on user experience and UI animation. June has 3 years of experience in graphic and motion design, and is currently the Visual Strategist at Spark Growth and Influential Executive, where June leads design for social media and manages client projects.
Ashley Cooper
Ashley uses her extensive background in film, TV, and games writing to bring the world and characters of Solace State to life. Ashley is a video game writer with credits including Gotham Knights, Warhammer 40K: Space Marine 2, and DLC for World War Z. She is an advocate for authentic representation in games and believes games are for everyone.
Laundry Bear
Laundry Bear has worked on Mortician’s Tale, The Big Con, LongStory, Later Daters, Blasters of the Universe, Ooblets, and many more! Most recently, they released the port for the award-winning game, Immortality!
Silverstring Media
Lucas J.W. Johnson and Claris Cyarron of Silverstring Media support Tanya in the process of inclusive and diverse storytelling by honing our storytelling on social rights. Silverstring Media has worked on games such as Where the Water Tastes Like Wine, Crypt of the Necrodancer, Extrasolar, and Celeste. They are the creators of the 2014 Canadian Videogame Award-finalist Glitchhikers, Progeny, Tectr, Viral Dusty Dead Identity Quiz, Morning Rituals, and Patient #.
Dr. Ken Grisé
Ken‘s role is to imbue Solace State with futuristic neuropsychology and biotechnologies grounded in real science that will draw players in and immerse them in the game’s imaginary surveillance society. Ken is a passionate scientist in neurobiology, genetics, psychology, physiology, and stem cell research, and a science consultant for both the biotechnology industry and the entertainment industry. His past video game projects include the Ubisoft title Tom Clancy’s The Division.
Benson Cheung
Benson‘s role is to help deepen Solace State’s worldbuilding and narrative with feedback from a historical and social science perspective, as well as assist with quality assurance testing. A former Model UN crisis director, he’s long had an interest in using interactive storytelling to convey political issues.
Mary Joaquin
Mary serves as a Cultural Consultant for Solace State, helping add Filipino elements to Rebecka Limbaco‘s character. She is a Filipina writer whose fiction works center on exploring characters’ plights as they navigate a story rooted or inspired by Philippine settings. She has also previously published works as a freelance journalist and volunteer content writer for a non-profit organization.
Previous Contributors
Colin Cummings, Launch PR Manager
Julia Pyo, Community Manager
Odesia Howlett, Cultural Consultant
Indigo Doyle, Event Level Designer (Gamescom IAB Booth)
Andrew Traviss, Programmer
Robby Duguay, Composer
Dave Proctor, Project Manager
Bonnie Stinson, Intern (Ryerson TMZ)
Jennifer Yun, Intern (Ryerson TMZ)
Michelle Huang, Intern (Ryerson TMZ)
Sarah Padillo, Intern (Ryerson TMZ)
Kaitlin Tremblay, Narrative Consultant
Nina Wong, Project Manager
Ian Hsu, 2D Character Artist
Paul Wong, Videographer, Cultural Consultant
Stephanie Lee, Video Assistant
Hello J, Makeup
Mikki Benaglia, 3D Artist
Black Withers, 3D Artist
Robert Richard, Programmer